[Gandalf Parker]

I see a common error in some of these posts.

There are game companies who are developers, shelf-ware, and marketing. Then there are game companies who are production for developers, ordering, and publicity. They are two very different business models and you cannot just jump back and forth so dont bother comparing one to the other.

Games which go to a company as an idea, the company helps develop it, they shelf-ware it, they market it with ads are laying out quite abit of money ahead of sales. The developers dont see any profits sometimes for years. Such games tend to have to meet some basic requirements for things like eye-candy and major copy protection and built-in product failure point (I forget the word for it).

Games which are developed by the programmers, then publicized and made available for ordering are available for instant profit sharing with no pay-back timeframe. Personally, the few games Ive loved which shifted from one business-model publisher to the other have let me down. I have no problem with the way Dominions is being marketed (I also do my part to aid in the publiity side). Im not sure if Dom would benefit from switching. Im also very unsure if we the customers would benefit if they shifted.