Are we paying more for less?
 

Does anyone else have a problem with the prices here at Shrapnel Games and for the Dominions series in particular? I want to have a serious discussion here. I hate being negative but the business model here just really blows my mind. Years ago I played the Dominions 2 demo and enjoyed it moderately. The graphics were terrible but the game appeared to have depth to it, something that is seriously lacking in today's strategy genre. I was however put off by, what seemed to me to be, exuberant pricing. I was torn by the desire to support an independent developer and publisher making good strategy games, but also not feeling the parties were justified in charging so much for their product: a product with such poor production values. So I would check in every couple of months or so just to see if Shrapnel had lowered the price, so I could finally purchase it. Did they ever lower it? No, and now Dominions 2 has disappeared from their online store, to be replaced by the even more expensive Dominions 3.

I genuinely want to understand this. Practical business says that you charge what the market will bear for your product. Demand is higher upon initial release so you are justified in charging a higher price, but after some time you try to cater to those customers who were on the fence and will only purchase the product when the price comes down. Dominions 2's price never came down, except for one very short-lived monthly special, now it's gone, and once again I as a perspective customer am stuck with the dilemna of wanting to play a strategy game with lots of depth and choices, but not feeling the production values warrant a $55 price tag. Am I alone? I see a lot of people clamoring for the Dominions 3 demo. Obviously you guys don't feel $55 + shipping is reasonable until you actually play the game. That in and of itself says something considering most of you are Dominions 2 fans and familiar with the series.

I just want some type of compromise. You know you have a good thing here with Dominions but you also have to look realistically at the production values of your game over others, along with the standard pricing policies of the industry, and come to the conclusion that maybe you might be even more successful if perhaps you didn't demand so much "loyalty" from people who enjoy your games and want to see good things happen for you and your companies. Charging so much for this series is really just a lose/lose situation. You don't get my money, and I don't get a good game.

Help me help you!

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Well everyone has a different amount of money they are willing to spend for a great game. The dominions games are more expensive than the usual games found at Software Etc or Walmart yet the content quality is well worth the price in my opinion. The manual is also 300 pages of great information which you won't find from any games at the local stores.

I suggest playing the Dominions_3 demo which is free... and then deciding whether or not the game is worth the price. My guess is the dominions_3 demo should be available for free download in about 2 weeks.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I think they do price themselfs out of alot of potential customers..


Poeple see the graphics and such as you said then see a 55 price tag. They'll instantly be turned off..

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I don't work for Shrapnel Games, and I'm very much a fan of the Dominions series. In addition, I was in the beta, so I got to play the game for free. With that said, I want to defend Shrapnel Games' decisions. I can't speak for them, but I can direct you to these blog entries written over a year ago.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blo...mes-Dont-Work/

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blo...mes-Dont-Work/

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blo...-Niche-Retail/

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blo...mes-Dont-Work/

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Very true... it will be the demo which will convince people whether or not it's worth the price. The dominions_2 demo only gave 40_turns hopefully the dominions_3 demo doesn't have the same limitation because many gamers downloading demos will ignore demos with turn limits and time limits.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

The price is a turn off, but on the other hand getting twice the amount of pre-orders than Dominions 2 shows that there is some viability in their aproache. Shaving the price off a bit as time passes wouldn't propably be too bad as the amount of order slowly quiets down.

Then again, I, a student whose main income is refundable soda cans, am willing not only to pay for the game (50 EUR though, Umor bless the €-$ exchange rate) but also wringle a way to order it using another player as proxy.

We all have our treshold of getting stuff. I am quite the scrooge to be honest, but I think Dominions 3 is worth it.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Dominions 3 demo is actually worse than Dom 2 demo from what I gathered. Only 5 Early Age nations, so compared to the total amount of nations it is far less. Not sure about turn limits or research limits.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

The nation and research limits are understandable, but the turn/time limit prevents gamers from enjoying even one good game and prevents seeing everything the demo has to offer. Took me three incomplete and unsatisfying demo games of dominions_2 before I decided to purchase the game instead of one satisfying demo game.
I only downloaded the demo based on the reviews of other gamers in a different forum... otherwise I would never have even tried dominions_2.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Talley, I think all your points make sense, especially your statement about supply and demand, but consider this: Dominions is an infinitely replayable game. Why lower the price, ever? Do you see the price of Risk or Axis & Allies being lowered? Using the computer as a medium, strategy games are taken to a level that a board and table-top war game can never achieve. The only loss is the ability to physically hold and touch the property you own, and to sit down with companions to play in person. I think the gains at least equal the losses. My point is, if they feel their product has that kind of value, there is no reason to lower it just because several years of other kinds of video game marketing has done so. Also, not all video games come down in price very much, anyway. I was in Best Buy the other day and was surprised to see how much Rise of Nations was still going for, and that's a game that I don't feel is as satisfying to play multiple times as Dominions.

You talk about "production values", but it's the value to the customer that's important. Graphics are highly, highly overrated in the strategy gaming genre. I think what you're seeing is a kind of rebound. Since its inception, the video game market has seen a steady increase in the quality of graphical presentation, so it's become habit to expect it. However, I think many people are starting to break the habit and find value in other things.

Look at the pen and paper RPG market and how expensive their books are...books! Yet, people do place high value on them. Nobody can say if Shrapnel is at the correct place on the supply and demand curve except maybe their accountants, but I don't think things are as incorrect as you believe. Maybe it's different from the norm, but not incorrect. Buying this game will prevent me from buying some other games that are going to be cheaper and made by more established companies. So be it.

[Edit: More established companies is incorrect! I should have said, more prominent or well-known companies.]

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

In practical marketing terms I think that there are X number of dominions players who will buy the game (come on, its a whole $5 more than Dom2 was years ago). And I have no problem with the idea that we are definetly getting our money worth.

You seem to be saying that it should be priced less to get more sales. But that means a loss of revenue on that X number of dominions people who would have bought it at 55. And the gain in sales would have to make up for that amount PLUS some gain above it.

The game is rather a niche market. The graphics and such are still likely to cause people to not buy it. So witohut putting it on store shelves (a very expensive action) Im not sure that new sales would make up the difference.

Maybe the sales of Dom3 will prove that the game has sales potential beyond its fanatical players, and that will allow a change for Dom4. But I think that until then its still a gamble. I think the sales on Dom3 were too needed for anyone to consider gambling on this release.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I agree. I'd rather have a single nation that I could play all the way thru rather than a number of limited ones. This kind of demo has been done before. The Operational Art of War demo had only one scenario (the Korean War), but it could be played all the way thru as either side.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Can you still fight other nations, even if you can't play as them ?

Speaking of Dominions3 costs... is it really worth it ?

No banks in Poland allow me to pay for Dominions. So I need a paypal account. But I need a special 'e-card' to be to get paypal account. The ecard costs 25 zl/year, about $7.8 .

So it's $55 + $7.8 + shipment cost...

Something for reference. I work 6 hours/day and earn around $331 netto.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

They're eager to get the demo, because shipping the 300-page manual (with CD included) all over the world does take some time.

Demo could be downloaded and help with waiting for the full game to arrive.

Why there's no download option for the full game has been discussed elsewhere. In short: pirated copies and technical issues.

And concerning the price tag: This has been discussed to death as well. In short: making 5000 or 10000 copies of Dominion3 (or maybe even 25000) is nearly as expensive as making 1.000.000 copies of The Sims. (or was it 15M?). Especially considering the 300 page manual full of content. Thats economics of scale.

And you know what? I have seen (not bought) quite a bunch of "A" titles which come at 45-55€ .. and NONE of them delivers the same playablitiy and re-playablity of the Dominions series. Lots of fancy graphics and gourgeous sounds - but no content.

I prefer content.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

True the demo will suck in some thats how it got me in dom2... But the demo covers very little of the game 5 EA nations and does it allow you to research up to lvl 9 in the magic? Or severly limited. The demo wont show some of the best parts of the game and is there a turn limit?. And heck alot of poeple just on principle dont pay this much for games no matter what they offer.



On an unrelated note i just ordered meh copy and expressed mailed..

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

That's their loss then. Some people refuse to buy games, or refuse to buy undiscounted games, etc. That is their own decision and you can't reduce the price of your good to appease a small fragment of your customer base.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

He is arguing that it is more than just a small fragment of the customer base. There probably are many people who weren't sure about whether they should buy Dominions II or not. The fact that Dominions 3 has a hefty and pricy manual might actually make them even more wary, especially as DomII manual wasn't that great. I hope I never have to decide about marketing. It seems to be very complicated business.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

What do you really mean by "production values"? Graphics? If they matter that much more than gameplay to you then Dominions just isn't the game for you.

Unfortuntely that's actually a pretty common sentiment, but there's not much IW can do about it when they only have two or three people. If they actually profit from the game this way then they're way ahead of most of the game industry anyway and there's absolutely no reason for them to change things.

Although it would be pretty awesome if they distributed over Steam like Introversion software instead. Spurning electronic distribution because of piracy is silly; it's not like there aren't easily-accessible copies of Dominions 2 floating around the internet.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I think Dominions 2 is far harder to pirate than a lot of other games.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I thought that by "poor production values" he meant that there aren't that many people working in the creation of this game, finishing and polishing and squashing tiny bugs. Or that thing I boldened from your reply.

I agree that for fans of the series the game is well worth it. For sometimes-gamers, sunday-afternoon-gods, this mightn't be true. Dominions 3 isn't a cheap game, and that means that some thought must go into buying it. Theonlystd isn't arguing that we who enjoy the game immensely won't buy it at full price; he is saying that many others might buy the game if it was cheaper.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Ultimately it is shrapnel that sets the price. Obviously they are intrested in making as much money as possibly from the sales, they wouldn't price Dominions in the range they do if they didn't figure it would earrn them more than it would for them to sell it at, say, 40. Remember that there is a bit of overhead on this, so a 15 dollar price increase might very well mean that shrapnel can take a 50% drop in sales. At 25 dollars they might conceivable have to sell several times the amount they do at 55, which is unlikely even with that price drop, considering that the complexity and lack of glitz means that dominions will remain a niche game whatever the pricing.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Let's try his tactic. How many "discount" games do you buy a year? How many of those are you still playing three years after its release?

If you put $5 in a jar each month instead of buying a $20 disposable title-of-the-month and then dropped the $55 on Dominions 3 in a year, you'd have $185. You can tweak these numbers any way you want, of course. But, I think most of us are tired of getting burned with flash-in-the-pan games.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I completely agree... within the last 2 years so many games blazingly advertise their great graphics yet when playing the game or the demo it becomes clear the game has very little content, replay value, artificial intelligence and/or stability(bugs). Just taking a glance at screenshots from gamespot.com so many games just advertise their graphics... so pathetic.
The dominions series may not look fancy on the outside but under the hood it's got power.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

There not a majoirty.. But there not a tiny minority either...



I have Eu2,Crusader Kings,Hoi,Hoi2,Victoria



I only payed more than 20 for one of them


Pic up the Civ games as discount also... The vast majority of the games i buy are at 20 dollars.. By time the game gets down to 20 i'll have a good idea at the quality of the game and it'll be decently patched up



The only reason i've got dominion is cause sadly i know they'll prolly never significantly lower the price.. And this is just the kind of game im always looking for and know that illwinter will come threw with the patchs.

But i doubt most poeple will have the same kind of hankering for this type of game as i do.. Or as know the kind of support illwinter will give

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

In the realm of information-based products (books, movies, music, computer games) as opposed to products that are primarily physical (cars, refrigerators, danish pastries), there is hardly ever any connection between production values and price. You don't pay less to see "The Blair Witch Project" than you do "Star Wars Episode III", even though the first movie had almost no budget or special effects. Production value in these fields are used to attract a greater number of customers, rather than to excuse a higher price.

There are two reasons why normal games are sold at a refund after a while. The first is that their perceived value in the market has gone down, because newer and, in theory, improved games have entered the market at their old games. Who'd buy a one year old copy of Generic FPS for $50 when they instead can by the recently released Quarter Life II for the same price?

Dominions, however, is a niche game and only competes with other games in the niche, so this effect is pretty much non-existant. The number of out-of-niche games that's been released since the first publishing of Dominions II doesn't affect its perceived value at all, and the number of in-nice-games that's been released over the last three years is quite small and not really significant.

The second reason why normal games are sold at a discount after a while is because they're sold primarily through brick-and-mortar shops who need to shift stock and maximise the use of their shelf space. After a while a store will sell a game for no gain, or even at a loss, just to free up stock space for newer, more profitable games.

Shrapnel, being an exclusive web-shop, doesn't have to worry about that. They don't need to get Dominions II out of the building to make room for Horse and Musket, so they have no reason to settle for a low or even negative profit per sale.

No, of course not. A lot of people will feel that the game doesn't warrant its price tag. But that's always the case. The optimal price in a supply/demand graph will always leave some fraction of people feeling it's too expensive. For some products it will even leave the majority feeling it's too expensive.

The question isn't so much whether there are people who feel the price is excessive, as whether this is the price that maximises the total profit. It might not be; Shrapnel might have made a mistake with their pricing, but I don't think there's any reason to suspect that's the case.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Actually I've seen many people arguing about the price.
My opinion is this:

- Dominions 2 was the best turn based strategy, what was ever created. This is not just a subjective opinion. Everyone who took a look at the game was like "wow! fantastic gameplay!" I remember, that when I introduced this game to my mates here, they were like "Eh? What is this? Look at this graphics!" Then I invited them to take a look at the game on my comp. They loved it. After that point they didn't care about graphics. The gameplay and the complexity of the game sucked them in. There are so many different strategies available, that the game never became boring for us.
Dominions 3. will have many new additions. Also don't forget that the developer support is excellent. Basically they try to add everything what is possible. They care what the fans are saying.

- The price might be high. Now this is a bit subjective thing if you ask me. 60$...seriously this is nothing for a game like this. I was paying many hundreds of dollars for paint programs. Dominions is a special game for hardcore strategy fans. If you don't want to pay 60$ for the best turn based strategy game..what can I say? It's a big fault.
I can understand that some people or families don't have too much money [I think B0rsuk mentioned that he earns 330$/month for example, and that is really like nothing], but somehow everyone can spare 60$ I guess, to buy this awesome game.
What can you buy for 60$? You can't even buy a mediocre quality bottle of whiskey.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

It is for me, but it might not be for you. There's really no other answer than that.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Unfortunately, the actual customer base for Dom3 is much smaller than the typical game market. Most of the top selling games are sports sims, not strategy games. On top of that, this is a turn based strategy game, so you have lost the RTS players, etc. Not only that, but you only have sales through online sources, which reduces your customer base even more due to customers not knowing about the product, etc.

Now, once you figure out who your core customer base is, you have to figure out how much you can charge, and given what our likes and dislikes are, $55 is a fair price. Even if you lower the cost to $40, you are not going to sell enough copies to make up the loss in sales that the $15 drop in price will result in.

I'm in marketing so I understand all this stuff! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Now THAT's a good, informative post, and just to the point! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I hope you don't mind me reorganizing your posts like this.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I personally liked the Dom2 demo, probably the most I have ever played a demo ever, when I got to turn 40 I just deceided have I won this game or not? It was more than enough to convince me to buy Dom3, after looking at the forums and finding out Dom3 was basically the same game but bigger, better. As I did not own Dom2, it was easy to buy Dom3.

However when it comes to indulging my favourite hobbey money is not the main issue with me. It's quality, how much play am I going to get, replayabilty value et... i would prefer to pay $60+ for a game I will play for 6 months+, then $40 for a game that lasts barely a week.

Also compare computer games with other entertainment, a book or dvd? A computer game wins every time for value, especially a 4xstrategy game with virtually endless replayability.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

This is the key sentence. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
I bought tons of games really, and I dropped them all after 2-4 weeks. Dominions 2. is still on my comp and I am playing it when I can, and the same is true about like 25 people here who I know. [Local players here I mean.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif]

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

With the ~65$ the game will cost me (atleast, once I finally order it) I could buy:
28 Decent meals. OR
6 Meals at a fancy restaurant. OR
An ~80GB HD. OR
Almost 6 copies Heroes 3 Complete. OR
Almost 6 copies of the whole Baldur's Gate series. OR
Almost 6 copies of the whole IceWind Dale series. OR
A Pair of Jeans and a shirt. OR
559 Bubblegums.

Anyway, the cost of manufacturing Dominions3 is probably more than twice what manufacturing any other computer game costs. Atleast considering that making a disc costs barely 50 cents...

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Don't forget about the excellent Dominions 3. manual. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Anyways, I dont understand the title of the topic at all.

"Are we paying more for less?" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif
Dominions 3. will have lot of new features.
Seriously I don't understand this topic title. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I feel bad answering what is almost certainly a troll post, but I will anyway because I am bored.

Economics 101: suppliers do not set the price of a game, customers do. Oh, sit down and listen. Dom 3 is the most pre-ordered game in Shrapnel's reasonably long history. It will probably go on to become their best-selling game period. This means that either (a) they have priced the game to roughly what it is worth to the buyers or (b, and more likely), they underpriced the game.

So obviously from an economic point of view, the price is more than right when you take the target audience (older gamers who value depth and strategy over "production values").

Also, for the folks who will enjoy the game, the cost of the box is trivial. I will explain:

You will pay a certain amount of money to enhance your leisure time. The amount depends on your personal situation and personality. I for instance am not willing to pay $60 to watch a Will Farrel movie at the theater with my wife ($15 tickets, $15 food, $30 babysitter); that comes out to $30 per hour and it's beyond my comfort level. I am, however, willing to rent that movie for $4 in a few months... $2/hour for entertainment is within my comfort zone.

Likewise, I was willing to pay $20 for Half Life Episode 1, which ran around 6 hours long if your only play through it once... a bit more than $3 per hour, and I'm fine with that. Now look at Dom 2: in the past two years, I have played 20 multi-player games and God only knows how many single-player games. If you take only the multi-player games and assume that I spent a half-hour on each game every day for the past two years (a REALLY low estimate), that comes out to a handy 365 hours for the cost of $50... so 13 cents per hour.

I assume that I will get similar play out of Dom 3, and 13 cents an hour is so deep in my comfort zone that it is not even worth talking about.

Like I said, trivial.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I have never, repeat never had a 300 page manual with any game ever and I have probably had tens of thousands of computer games in my time.

Don't u just hate them cheap dvd cases computer games come in nowadays? Urgh... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

As weird as this may sound, this thread or any of the dozen threads exactly like it should be stickied. It seems like every week there is someone that complains about the price and never posts again. If there was a single thread containing all the reasons why the fans bought the game and why Shrapnel does business the way they do, that should be enough, and we won't feel obligated to write about it every time.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Well, I don't mind paying $55 for Dom3 for two reasons:
1. Games like Dom series is rare and I havn't seen something equally to them. (Master of Magic comes close).
2. Not many commercial games are made to work natively on linux, so I rarely get new games. If it don't work natively on linux I don't buy simple is that.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

That is why in some cases independent developers find it better to do it themselves, or to go to a PoD site where they can upload a CD image and sell the CD online thru a shop for very little.

Of course, there are drawbacks to that and benefits to using a publisher like Shrapnel to do more than just make the CD.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I am not saying this is a bad series. If I thought it was I wouldn't be here right now, nor would I have wasted my time checking the Shrapnel store over and over again waiting for the Dominions 2 price to drop. Endoperez understood what I was trying to get at perfectly. Production values are simply the costs put in to make a game and with Illwinter being an exceptionally small studio with not many people in its employ, I find it difficult to pay premium prices for their products, as good as those products might be. Graphics are just one component that go into a game and are only a fraction of the total production values that I'm talking about. The fact is, if you bought a Dominions game you paid premium prices for it (and by that I mean higher-than-industry average). Not only have they charged premium prices for their games upon initial release but they have also refused to lower the price of those games even years after first shipping. Niche is no excuse, people expect game prices to fall.

This thread is just a plea to Shrapnel to be more reasonable in their pricing policies. I won't advertise for other companies on a message board of a rival publisher, but suffice to say Shrapnel isn't the only publisher devoted to producing quality strategy titles, and those other publishers are much more consistent with keeping their prices at a minimal for their customers. I think their growing success shows that business model works best. Is Dominions anymore of a niche game than say Europa Universalis, or Supreme Ruler 2010? In my opinion, no, and if you have played those games you would agree. Shrapnel is more of a niche because it has less market share. But maybe that's more because they have no presence in retail stores and because people are only aware of Shrapnel and Dominions through word-of-mouth, a good addition to traditional marketing but not a substitute for it. And of course the high price point we've been discussing doesn't help matters.

As much as I want to support Illwinter and Shrapnel, I can't bring myself to pay a premium for their products, and in that I think we both lose. Am I in the minority? Well that is the million dollar question, isn't it?

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Talleyrand, can you please take a look at this reply of mine:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...mp;o=&vc=1

..and give me a proper answer? I smell a troll btw. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Morkilus, I don't have a high post count by any means but I'm no stranger to these forums and I have never seen a thread complaining about Dominions pricing or seen one posted in the Shrapnel general discussion trying to get a response from a company representative. Sorry if you are bored responding to them though. I think if they happen as frequently as you say thrn perhaps that should tell you something.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

DominionsFan, I think both my posts address that very issue.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

There were similar posts/threads at the release of dom2, and perhaps a few afterwards.

At what price would you buy the game?

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Other people answered this question already. It all depends on how you look at it.

First, by your own argument, why are you asking about the premium price now since the game just came out? If they lower the price, it shouldn't drop for quite some time since it just came out.

Second, the production values appear to be good. Heck, we're getting a 300 page manual, do you see any game offering that nowadays? How many graphics do you need for a strategy game?

Third, it is a decision made by them. People are refusing to buy Gal Civ 2 because it has no MP. How many people are going to actually play MP in that sort of game? Do you realize what that would add to the cost of that game? Would it be worth it for it to be MP?

People only expect game prices to fall because of overstock issues from big-box retailers. If Best Buy buys 25,000 copies of a game and 15,000 sell after the first 6 months, they are going to drop the price of the other copies because they are trying to move their inventory. This has nothing to do with the publisher, and everything to do with the seller.

I don't know where you are going because you also claim that graphics are "only a fraction of the total production values that I'm talking about." What else goes into total production values?

As another poster mentioned, you basically need to figure out what your threshold cost for the game is. I look at my games as another poster does and figure out a cost/hour ratio and go from there. I have saved more money because I do not rush out and buy every $30-40 game out there because of its price point. I have bought fewer, typically more expensive titles, and have played them to death.

Ultimately, the choice of whether or not to buy it is up to you. But, judging from the pre-orders for this game, Shrapnel has chosen a good price point for it.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Some people expect the game price to fall, but as I've explained above, the economics means that it is an unreasoanble expectation for this particular case.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

So because people expect the price to fall, the price should fall?

Shrapnel aren't trying to conquer the PC gaming world and make every PC gamer buy their products, you see. Most potential PC game buyers certainly do expect the price of a game to drop after a few months - but those same "most" would not buy a game like Dom2 anyway, because the graphics are so primitive, and the box isn't shiny enough (I mean, there is NO box), and there are no voices lines, and so on.

The target audience is different, and it seems that Shrapnel decided that their targeted audience is mostly composed of players who are willing to pay a premium price for what they consider to be a good game - even though most other players would not consider it so, and would not even buy it at maybe $10. Apparently, their sales figure show they were not too deeply wrong. At least from here, I'm happy with the price.

Basically, the price tag has little influence on sales of games like Dominions, so there is little reason for the price to drop after a few weeks or months.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I don't see the answer in your replies to be honest.
Basically you say that Dominions 3. is "worse" then Dominions 2. in the title, and that you must pay more for it. This is absolutely not true, since Dominions 3. definitely offers much more then Doms 2.

Anyways keep in mind. Gameplay, complexity, diversity >>> Graphics.
Dominions games are unique. They are gems on the TBS market.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

I know, Leif, and I enjoyed reading your replies. I don't think it is unreasonable however to expect Shrapnel to lower the price of a game that has been out for a couple of years, even if there is no direct incentive for them to do that. People expect it to happen, and you in turn garner the sales of those customers who were on the fence and were not willing to pay full price for a game upon initial release. And as I said, I don't believe this game to be that much more a niche than many other notable strategy titles, whose prices have steadily fallen over the years.

Johan, I would pay 40 dollars for Dominions 3 at most plus shipping and probably 30 for Dominions 2, although I think 20 would be more reasonable for such an old game.

As a side note, please quit bringing up the manual when toting the price of this game. The manual is nothing more than a manual. Unless it has a strong piece of fiction inside that lays out the history of the world and its main characters that brings me a keen sense of entertainment, it does not impress me one bit how big it is. I do although appreciate the effort involved in its creation. But I don't pay extra for strategy guides (even for a game like Disgaea 2 lol) and I will not pay extra for a bigger manual, which is basically one way a lot of you are justifying the higher price.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Sorry DF, didn't see that last reply. My thought process is that I didn't even think Dominions 2 was worth the price, let alone a higher priced Dominions 3 based off the same engine as part 2. I tried the Dom 2 demo but never purchased the full game because I was waiting for the price to drop. Now Dom 3 is here at an even higher price and Dom 2 has disappeared from their online store, placing me in the exact same dilemna I was in years ago with Dominions 2.

BTW, I like your signature. I'm a huge CroCop fan myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif I tried to get tickets to PrideFC's USA debut but that fell through. I'm looking forward to the next UFC when Sean Sherk and KenFlo go at it.

Re: Are we paying more for less?
 

Eh Mirko is a cool guy, I know him personally, thanks to some people who I know, since they were even training with Mirko. I am interested in fighting myself, if you wonder that why do I have that signature. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
[Well nothing serious at the moment, I am still too young for anything related to real fighting, but I am training hard, and I shall see what to do in time.]


Back to the topic..
Hm..but I just don't understand this. You've never bought Dominions 2. because the price was so high, but you know, you've missed an awesome game because of that!
You shouldn't care about a few dollars if you ask me, because these games are really unique.