So no Dominions 4?

[Kraftwerk]

Then we get to the Starbucks fallacy. You're actually eroding your own argument here, and you don't even realize it. You see, Starbucks is Bioshock, and Oblivion. Dominions, is the little coffee shop up the block from your house, with the amazing pastries. You see, in the world of coffee, people are starting to turn away from the mass produced "lowest common denominator" garbage. Coffee (read: espresso) drinkers (I am one of them) are snobs, and Starbucks isn't cool enough anymore. Dominions players tend to be a bit snobby as well (though we hide it here, since we're all the cream at the top ), and it's only a matter of time before you grow up and you realize that all the mass marketed media that you're gorging on, really isn't very substantial. Somewhere around the time you realize you should come back here and apologize for stinking up the boards, your buddies will just buy the damned game for $60.

That is, if you're not working overtime every week as a dishwasher to support your 19 year old wife and three kids.

Now see, I promised myself I wouldn't get nasty, and look what you made come out of my fingers..... < sigh >

But at the local coffee shop, coffee is 15 cents a cup. At starbucks its 6 friggin dollars. So I dont get that. And shove the high and mighty mass media this and that, ma and pop mumbo jumbo, everything is mass media, this forum, the shirts you wear, the car you drive, the billboards you pass by, youre just as bombarded by it, and involved in its proliferation as anyone you want to point fingers at.

Fact is, the coffee in the cup is the same coffee. The bits and bytes are the same in every piece of software. You dont want to be subjected to scrutiny against mass produced products? Dont compete in a free market. Lifes tough, the markets are harsh, and the lowest common denominator at the end of the day, is where the bargain is, and in a world increasingly wary of spending its dollar, the lower common denominator is whats going to sell.

You dont pay out the wazoo for a print of a painting, theyre all about the same regardless of the artistic content.

For someone who apparently likes Kraftwerk, youd think youd know abit more about (or like) Andy Warhols POP! movement that kraftwerk was a result of. You can mass produce art and sell it for a reasonable price.

You dont have to be snobby smug intellectual to appreaciate it either. You can be a plain plum dumb consumer, and have just as much right to purchase a product at a reasonable price as anyone else, regardless of your level of appreciation.

Art is a product.