[marc420]

A couple of comments on this discussion ...

$55 is a very high price for a game. That price will certainly effect my decision whether to buy or not. Since I already own Dom2, much of my decision making will be whether the game is sufficiently better than Dom 2 to justify spending $55 to buy it, or if I'd rather not just fire up Dom2 and play it again.

Please don't tell me that this price is this high because of a manual and the decision to print it for each purchase. If that is the case, then Shrapnel really should offer two purchase options ... one with a printed manual, and one where the manual comes with the game in electronic form.

I would never ever buy a game because someone says there's a big thick manual. I've bought a lot of games in my life, and rarely is the manual even touched a week after buying the game. Regardless of the thickness of the manual, it has been a long, long, long time since I've seen one where the content justified paying much attention to it. Typically the content level of game manuals is extremely low.

An example of what I mean would be many, many pages devoted to such complicated and intricate topics such as pressing the button marked "New Game" to start a new game, pressing the button marked "Save Game" to save a game you are playing, etc. Usually the thickness of the manual comes from the fact that not only was text needed to explain these functions in depth, but screen shots are also required!

When someone tells me I'm paying $55 for a manual, I know from personal experience that I'm extremely unlikely to read it more than once, and that after a week it will be laying around my house unread. Eventually it will get picked up from the floor near the computer, where it will be sitting gathering dust and serving as a coaster, and be placed on a bookshelf.

Oh well, main reason I came here was to see if there was a demo out. I didn't know the price, but that makes it even more important for me to see the demo before buying. And like I said, the main question I'll have is whether its worth $55 to go from Dom2 to Dom3. And I'd have to say I'm starting out sceptical about that one.

And since Shrapnel has the policy of not lowering the price over time, then it means that if the game fails that test, then I'm unlikely also to buy it in the future. There is a certain logic in offering the game for a lower price as time passes after release. I may or may not feel the game is worth $55 to upgrade Dom2 to Dom3, but there have been many games I've bought for $9 or $19 later. It becomes a different decision at that price.

Oh well, this being a game message board, I'm sure I'll be flamed for daring to have my own opinions and judgements and for not just running lemming-like to give my money to other people.

And oh yeah, its pre-Christmas. Given the huge amount of junk pushed on the market by other game companies at this time of year (I'm not saying that this is true for this game, after all there's no demo to see yet), I've become very sceptical about buying any game that's released between now and Christmas. Its definitely the time of year to remind myself to go into "game buying quarantine" mode. And then just wait and see what's out and what state it is in.

The bean counters at any game company want games released and on the shelves by a certain date for this time of year. In some (ie, many) companies (maybe or maybe not these guys) that's been known to override any logical decisions about whether the game is really ready to release. By doing this, the game industry as a whole has made me very, very sceptical about buying any newly released game at this time of year.