So no Dominions 4?

[Dragar]

Kraftwerk,

Agreed that Dom 3 will never be a mass market game without lower pricing, advertising, publicity, better production values etc. The thing is, with a game like this, it would unlikely be a big hit anyway, the learning curve is too great, it's too slow and not visual enough for a typical consumer.

Illwinter and shrapnel could put in a lot of time and money and get a cheaper, better produced game out to a lot of people, but would the increase in revenue cover the costs and the extra time? Remember that the Illwinter guys develop in their spare time. To hit the mainstream Dom 3 would need a major rework in terms of production, graphics and SP playability, and then a heap of promotional activity.

From their (and shrapnel's) point of view, a cheap to produce game is still pulling in decent revenues at moderate sales with high mark-up two years after release... what's not to like? It’s a nice cash cow building a loyal base while they develop their next product. If in the future they want to take it more seriously they can build Dom 4 and launch it, with a ready made community to test, troubleshoot, create map/scenario content and help drive it.

I'm also guessing that Illwinter get a larger piece of the pie than if they went through a major developer.

From Shrapnel's point of view its even sweeter - as their biggest selling product it must be giving them a lot of their new customers and developers, with follow through to other game sales.

Bigger isn't always more profitable, high margins on moderate sales with low cost is a perfectly acceptable business model.