Dominions II - Low Budget and Overpriced? I think not.

[Saber Cherry]

There has been a lot of complaining about the "high price" of Dominions, which is "overpriced" for a "low budget" game. And feel free to complain - perhaps there is a valid point behind it that has not yet been stated. But maybe it has been stated, and I don't understand it because it is based on a superficial and illogical perception of economics and reality.

To people who say Dominions 2 is overpriced for a low-budget game...

What do you mean by low budget? Less than $100 million? Less than $1 million? Less than $10,000? How do you quantify a budget for something done without a budget? The Pyramids of Egypt were low budget, because money had not been invented. The Mona Lisa was low budget. Beethoven's 5th Symphony was low budget. War and Peace was low budget. So? They're all priceless to vast numbers of people.

Why does spending millions of dollars on a game justify a higher price? Final Fantasy 3 (6) and Chrono Trigger were cheaper to produce than Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and FFX, and better. Should I pay more for an inferior game because the producer decided to blow vast sums of money on irrelevant video clips, instead of basing the game on gameplay?

What is important is whether the enjoyment is worth the money. Would you shun a good, inexpensively produced movie like "El Mariachi" or "Greek Wedding" in favor of the multimillion dollar pieces of trash "Gigli", "Battlefield Earth", or "FF: Spirits Within", simply because the latter cost more to make? Do you base your music-buying decisions on how much the producers are paying themselves (the majority of music production costs)? For the same selling price, would you rather buy a book written by a corporation (or organization) rather than by an individual, because it cost more to produce?

The development costs of Dominions are not known, can never be calculated, and are irrelevant to the price of the game. The primary factor in the price of Dominions is the per-unit production and distribution price, which is much higher than the per-unit price for major corporate game releases, due to efficiencies of scale... and while those numbers are not public, they can only support a higher, not lower, selling price. And the only factor relevant to whether or not a person purchases Dominions for a given price is the enjoyment received per dollar spent, relative to other uses of that money.

So. Can anyone tell me why they continually bring up the "low budget" status of Dominions as a relevant factor to its pricing? I'd love to hear a coherent, rational explanation. Dollar figures on what you imagine Dominions II’s budget to be, and what it should have been to justify its sales price, would be also be interesting… though ultimately worthless without a known link between the “budget” and sales price.

-Cherry

[Teraswaerto]

I agree with you 100%. The Last game I bought before Dom II was Max Payne II. Guess with which I'm happier to have spent 50 € on?

[ December 24, 2003, 07:39: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[UNIVAC]

Im sorry but you cant mix satisfaction ratio with economical issues.If you want to be objective and speak only in economic terms, satisfaction has nothing to do.
Saber, if you want a rational and coherent answer, try to figure out why you pay the same, for two games like Dominions 2 and Max Payne 2.Try to figure out people involved in both projects, marketing, equipment, ....You like or not, production cost is directly linked to the price.And you are wrong in one thing, you can calculate the production cost of EVERYTHING

With this im not saying that i support the point of view you are attacking, because i dont.But i think your speech is subjective.

[Karacan]

The term "low budget" is a descriptive term, mostly. Flashy eyecatchers, impressive opening videos, fullscale 3d battles with tons of animations, animated world and tons of earrending soundeffects are noticeably missing from Dominions II.

The graphics are functional, the soundtrack is pleasing the first couple of games (though the very few tracks always repeating themselves get tiresome rather quick) and well, at least there's flashy spell effects in combat.

We're not talking about replay value, fun, clever gamedesign or anything, just about the Flashiness, whose absence causes Dom II to be labeled by most people (including me) as "low budget".

I admit the price made me gulp as well. My decision to purchase the game was more of a fanboyish attidue: When I played Dom I, I knew instantly that if Dom II ever made it, it'd be mine. If I hadn't have tons of experience of the deep gaming experience of Dominions I, I strongly doubt that the Dom II demo (with that lousy 40 turn limit, which turned me off additionally) would have even started to convince me to shell out a lot of cash.

A lot of cash? Yes. When I describe Dominions to others, I tend to use the term "the Nethack of strategy gaming". Nethack, which I still play - a great low budget game of immense depth and replayability, which did not cost a lot of money.

Anyway, the point is that I purchased the game because I loved Dominions I, not because I think it's not overprized.

[apoger]

I think people are using the term "low budget" as a synonym for "poor production values". Perhaps not the best use of language, but I understand the intent.

When people pay "full" price for things they expect all the amenities, such as good documentation, good tutorials, and a clean/intuitive interface.


Price versus perceived value is very important. The "low budget" commentary is the way the the players are expressing their dissatisfaction with their perceived purchase. Nobody really cares how much money has been spent on game production. What they care about is game fun/functionality versus their time/money.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I think the real question with computer games is: Are you satisfied with what you got for what you paid? With respect to Dominions, I am satisfied.

I did suffer a bit from sticker shock when I saw the price they were asking. But games like this might be hard to price. I have no idea whether they've even sold enough copies to meet their production costs. Because this game isn't in stores...only over the internet. And I want the game to be at least somewhat profitable to illwinter/shrapnel because...if it's not...we won't have other games like this. So I've resolved not to complain too much about the bad documentation or lackluster (but serviceable) graphics until I know the game has at least made a reasonable profit.

To me, what is most important in a game I'm paying over $40.00 for is replay value. I hear a lot of folks wanting a random map generator...but for me there is already a random map generator built into the map. The provinces aren't exactly the same every game. Because the most improtant thing...to me...the magic sites...differs with every game. It may be that income and population are constant...and the rivers and mountains certanly are. Of course, unless you make your own maps you never know where you are going to start.

The demo was critical to my choice to purchase the game. I had never played Dom 1, and if I had not heard about Dom 2 on another game board...I would have missed out.

This may be silly of me...but I'm hoping that if the game is a huge financial success the company will improve the documentation and the graphics, add some more sound tracks, and offer it to customers as a "patch" (more medieval music in the form of a downloadable mp3 "patch" would be totally wonderful, and it can't be all that expensive to hire performers since the intellectual property rights to authentic medieval pieces have long since expired). I know a number of folks who wouldn't like this "niche" game because those people are more into graphics than into rich, strategic, complex, multifaceted gameplay. I still think that is their loss.

[Whismerhill]

I totally agree with karakan
the fact that I bought the game is for supporting them and allowing illwinter to create one day a dominions 3
because cracking the demo to play without any limits is easy as hell ;-)

ho, and speaking of "is the game my money worth?"
for me dominions 1 was not but dominions 2 is

keep up the good job illwinter (and give us that long awaited patch )

[Gandalf Parker]

I think generally that the "low budget / high budget" thing is that when something obviously wasnt done like one of the big budget things, then it could be priced less than the big budget thing. Some feel that it was big-budget priced unfairly.

But worth is a seperate subject. Thats how you decide the fairness of the pricing. Dom1 lived on my machine while at least 2 dozen games of far more price came and went. Therefor I feel it was a good purchase.

Dom2 I highly expect will live on my machine for longer than any game of equal cost. Therefor I will not consider that to have been a waste of money.

[PvK]

If you measure "big budget" in terms of the amount of effort put in by the developers compared to their cash resources, I bet Doms II is very "big budget".

If you measure the amount of production value in gameplay as opposed to eye candy fluff, then Doms II is enormously "big budget".

Doms II is worth hundreds or thousands compared to most megacorp crapware games, in terms of gameplay, uniqueness, replay value, fun, multi-player challenge, etc., IF it is your kind of game. So, as usual, try the demo, and if it looks like a great game to you, you're right, so buy it. If, on the other hand, it doesn't look like something that would be worth the price to you, then don't buy it - it's not your cup o' tea, but whining about it being "low budget" or "not worth it" is just pointless, and misleading to players who would appreciate it, so don't.

PvK

[ceremony]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
add some more sound tracks, and offer it to customers as a "patch" (more medieval music in the form of a downloadable mp3 "patch" would be totally wonderful, and it can't be all that expensive to hire performers since the intellectual property rights to authentic medieval pieces have long since expired).

Why not just buy the CD of medieval music available from the group that did the music for Dom2? That's what I did.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/falsobordone