[MaxWilson]

I have mixed feelings about the whole "impulse buy" thing. I was exposed to Dominions via a Usenet thread about Master of Magic where a poster (probably Gandalf Parker) recommended Dominions 2 as a worthy successor. I downloaded the demo, read the manual, thought it was interesting, started the demo, and ran into a bug. (When I Alt-Tabbed out to look at the demo manual again, I came back and couldn't see any commander icons. I didn't realize it was caused by Alt-Tab, so I thought Dominions 2 just wouldn't run on my system.) I quit.

A couple of years later, I ran across Dominions 3 again. I don't remember why, but I tried again and this time this demo worked for me. I really liked the game. I hesitated when I saw that the game was only available through mail-order, because there's always the danger with an impulse purchase that, if you have to wait a couple of weeks to get it, the impulse will have waned by the time you receive it and you won't get any enjoyment out of it at all. Still, I had the demo and could play that in the meantime, so ultimately I decided to buy the game. In my case I think I definitely would not have bought the game if the demo had not been available electronically, but the demo did its job and sold me despite the mail-order wait.

I don't know if that's useful data, but there it is. I suspect Shrapnel is choosing a pretty good middle ground, from a business perspective.

-Max