So no Dominions 4?

[Wokeye]

3 x $45 sales does not necessarily equate to more profit than 1 x $60, only more turnover.

eg if each game cost $40 to produce/market/distribute, then you'd lose $5 on the above scenario.

[Endoperez]

Kraftwerk said:
If it was cheaper, fine, lets see they would make less money, but they would have a much larger community. Whats more important, a bottom line, or a community? A community is going to keep sales of a game going alot longer, because people get attracted to communities more than the get attracted to games.

It's better for the community that Shrapnel Games stays in business. To stay in business, they have to do profit. They have done it so far, and I doubt they're going to risk that by changing their money-making scheme. Remember, they also have to have enough money left over that they can publish other games, including possible different Illwinter game. You might want to subscribe to the FRAG! newsletter; it will tell you if there are any sales which would allow your friends to grab a copy for less. It also lists the games that have sold more in the last month, and Dominions is pretty much always on the top three. They don't give any numbers, though, so that doesn't tell much.

It's nice to know that average gamers can also appreciate Dominions. I've always felt that this is too much of a niche game for the first-person shooter crowd to get interested.

[Leif_-]

Because most of his friends dont live physically near him Kind of hard to snail mail around a copy.

Err. What? You just put it in an envelope.

Its too expensive.

It's too expensive for you (well, your friends, anyway).

If it was cheaper, fine, lets see they would make less money, but they would have a much larger community. Whats more important, a bottom line, or a community?

You're positing a false dilemma. It's clear that Illwinter and Shrapnel can have both the current price and a good (not to say great) community.

[Gandalf Parker]

Everything has its pros and cons.
If "the Community" is going to be thrown up then wouldnt we have to take into account the difference between a community of people who can afford a $50 game vs those who would show up just because it became a $30 or $19.99 or $5 game? Our player-base seems to have a tendency to be older, more world-experienced, more educated, longer attention span, etc. (not all, but the general population)

Im not completely sure that I would be happier with more people in the community if cheap game was what it took to get them here. The same goes for many of the more drastic suggestions to change this games play, look, delivery, cost, marketing, forum, etc based on what "all the other games" do.

Just a personal unofficial alternative viewpoint to the argument of "it would get us more community"

[thejeff]

I suspect the "older, more world-experienced, more educated, longer attention span, etc" has more to do with the type of game Dominions is than with the price.

There are plenty of younger, naive, poorly educated, easily bored people who have money to burn, or who's parents will buy them games, but they're not likely to be attracted to Dominions anyway. All depth and little flash doesn't draw that kind of crowd. You might have more pick it up on a whim, but they wouldn't stick.

[Tifone]

yep, I agree with thejeff. what, crysis or painkiller or even better fifa, costing 50 euros when it comes out makes their community full of old, well-educated gentlemen? Don't think so. Many lil' kids nowadays have parents willing to spend lots of money for their toys (toys=even a Honda motorcycle when they're sixteen), for various (and many of them are plain ridiculous) reasons.

If we are likely to cohabit gently and politely it's not because the game costed a pretty penny that we could affort and the barbarians not ^_^ it's because a slow, intelligent, strategic game isn't likely to attract the bored and aggressive guy out here.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are of course exceptions, and I agree on the type of game thing. But I also think that older and educated tends to add to the ability to make such a purchase. Not in each case but enough times to affect the averages.

[triqui]

Ballbarian said:
All I am going to say is that I bought Bioshock with a shiny new Xbox360 for my kids and I played it all of 2 days. Very pretty game. I am still playing Dom3 after owning it for nearly 2 years.

Gotcha!

[Kraftwerk]

Gandalf Parker said:
Everything has its pros and cons.
If "the Community" is going to be thrown up then wouldnt we have to take into account the difference between a community of people who can afford a $50 game vs those who would show up just because it became a $30 or $19.99 or $5 game? Our player-base seems to have a tendency to be older, more world-experienced, more educated, longer attention span, etc. (not all, but the general population)

Im not completely sure that I would be happier with more people in the community if cheap game was what it took to get them here. The same goes for many of the more drastic suggestions to change this games play, look, delivery, cost, marketing, forum, etc based on what "all the other games" do.

Just a personal unofficial alternative viewpoint to the argument of "it would get us more community"

Yeah but you also have 20 threads with someone (usually a different person) on the first page of the forums, who is scolding someone for bad english, or not using the correct slang term for something in the game. Theres posts where people tell people to leave the community because they cant form a complete sentence.

If thats the kind of nerd, grognard, elitist community you want, sure, go ahead and let this stay a niche game. But you go to other strategy game forums and you have a much larger, much more diverse community, where the nerds and grognards are put in their place like they should be, instead of in every thread turning away potential community members with their elitism.

I cant possibly understand the thought process that a smaller, older, community, is better, than a larger, younger, thriving community.

If you love the game so much, youd want to see more and more people exposed to this game, and more and more people purchasing it and modding for it. Thats more likely to prompt a dominions 4, or a real developed expansion, instead of just new races occasionally ,that the current mod makers are more than capable of doing themselves.

Its like the guy who owns the record store, who insults all of his customers over their taste in music, thus turning a business into a hangout for a few likeminded elitests.

Im sure that makes those guys feel great about themselves, but their business is going to fail.

I dont forsee Illwinter still being around in 10 years. Just like I didnt forsee Microprose being around in 10 years after Xcom and MoM.

The same thing will happen to this game, that happened to those games. The company will go out of business, the elitist community will disapate, the game will get cracked and hacked all to hell, a few years from now itll reach its peak of popularity, and the developers wont see a cent for it.

Its only a niche game because you force it to be a niche game.

[Kraftwerk]

Theres a real chance for indy developers and "niche" games, to really get out there right now. The PC game community is heralding the end of times, because the new consoles just came out, and sales are down across the board. Add on to that the fact that people are tired of more of the same, and spending 1000s on upgrades every 6 months to play the A+titles, and you have an enviroment where cheaper games, with solid gameplay, with digital distribution and large communities, are going to reign supreme on the PC for some time to come.

PC gamer companies cant compete the same way console game companies do, and they cant compete the way the did just a year ago.

Digital purchasing and downloading of games, episodic content at less than 10 dollars, matchmaking services for multiplayer games, and strong communities are what the PC has to offer that consoles dont. Adapt or die.

Id like to see the people who made this game (and not the people who publish it) make money on this game for the next 20 years. Instead of still playing this game for years to come, while the devs all work at telecom companies to pay the bills, while hackers and pirates, continue to create new content for a game they didnt develop or help support.

Digital distribution is the fastest way to not need a publisher. Then you have more money to spend on an A+ website, instead of something that looks like its an angelfire page from 1995.