Bah...
This is pathetic, and as said above, not going in circles at all. It's just reasonable people trying to change the opinion of a brick wall. Distribution for dominions 3 is just as the game is. A good concept served by the bare minimum acceptable services.
Dominions has a pretty good concept. As a game, it's good, interesting, because it's different and has many possibilities, including above average modding abilities, factions that do not feel the same, possibily for long game and much much more... However, compared to most other games, it has crappy graphics, unattractive and unintuitive UI, weak AI, little balance between different factions.
Same goes for distribution. Instead of using distribution methods that goes with the current times, it remains backward. Actually, I wonder why smoke signals ain't used ! Even forgetting digital distribution (which space empire does), the distribution services doesn't even offer to use "fast" delivery services like UPS or DHL.
I saw a little above a set of "reasons" for which digital distribution is bad. Let's review them :
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1) If you want the manual shipped to you after you download the game, it becomes more expensive than just shipping the game and manual, because no costs are saved on production, and bandwidth costs are added (and bandwidth is not cheap.)
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Everything but the conclusion is correct. The cost per copy is higher, but it sells more copies. Therefore you can't say that digital distribution is by definition bad because it costs more money. Given the fact that dominions pretty much needs internet to be interesting (updates, maps, community, multiplayer) it's rather obvious that many potential buyer look away from the game for this reason.
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2) If you don't want the manual shipped to you, then there will be a sizable amount of players that will play the game without a manual. These might enjoy the game less, since they will have a weaker understanding of it, and they will give the game a bad name.
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Elitist thinking like this does give the game a far worse name that more newbies will. Furthermore, the manual isn't up to date, and many things are not in the manual, which means that if I follow what you say, people already have a bad understanding of the game. And are already giving it a bad name. Finally : you are assuming that people need the manual ? Have it sent by mail even if you buy it online ! Why should disappear all of a sudden ?
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3) Furthermore, there will now be an excuse for not having a manual, so all the pirates that "lost their copy" won't be immediately spotted on the forums
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... that was the most ridiculous argument ever. It's not pirates you spot, it's idiots. The ones that want to pirate the game and have half a brain working won't speak about the manual at all. And won't be caught by such a simple thing.
Furthermore, does it also mean that anyone playing the demo, since it doesn't come with the manual, is giving the game a bad name ?
And, in order to end this argument, ever considered the slight possibility that it might actually be true in some cases ? There is a number of reason why it could be : theft, fire, accidental destruction, lost when moving to another place...
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4) Without a physical manual, the CDKEY is just a number transmitted to you once, with no backups. Suddenly Shrapnel has to deal will all sorts of people that lost their CDKEYS and ask for new ones (expecting one since Shrapnel has to track their sales on their website) and potentially leading to all sorts of CDKEY scammers.
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That is already done by other company and there is no problem with it. Why should it be a problem for shrapnel ? Are they dumber than others or something ? Besides cdkey scams already exist since the game can be resold. It's not a problem associated with digital distribution at all !
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5) They will have to modify their entire CDKEY tracking model. They are no longer guaranteed that each copy of the manual corresponds to one CDKEY, that is printed on it.
They will have to either modify their production line to produce CDKEY free manual but store CDKEYS in some sort of other database or find some model where they print your manual with the code, and send the code to you before the manual is shipped (which creates problems for backorders.).
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Why ? I mean, That is already done by other company and there is no problem with it. It's just a different writing of argument four. Saying it twice doesn't make it true.
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6) There are probably some costs involved in uploading the game to the digital distribution service, plus increased maintenance.
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Putting the same argument twice doesn't make it more true. More costs ? Yes, obviously. More sales ? yes obviously. I'm among those that believe that the new sales (given what the game is) will lead to more profits that the new costs.
That said, I don't really expect things to change to online distribution. However, I won't stand idle when people say that it is inherently bad, because it isn't. It's different, but not better or worse.
However, an option for a faster delivery service than 7 days (or more...) is really needed... 48 hours worldwide is pretty much standard nowadays when it comes to delivering books and dvds. Actually, except for dominions 3, I can't even remember when I last ordered something that takes so long to arrive.
Well, I'm in the process of waiting for the game to arrive. Which may take up to a month.
Let's hope others after me won't have to.