what about the future?

[Squirrelloid]

I'm not sure why everyone is so convinced a game like dom3 needs to be a niche game. Admittedly, it doesn't follow the *current* trends in *computer* games (which seems to be going more and more in the overly clicky direction) - although the Civ series remains tremendously successful and arguably Dom3 is, like MoM, Civ-with-magic.

But it also appeals to other types of gamers (such as Warhammer players or Avalon Hill boardgame players). Surely many of these people own computers and might even be tempted to play a computer game that appeals to their style of gameplay.

If dom3 got half the advertising Civ IV had gotten, it could have been a big hit. Ok, it would probably have wanted to actually rework the base code and improve the AI for that kind of advertising effort. But still, turn-based strategy is hardly a dead genre, or even an unpopular one. There's nothing niche about it.

And in a world where Lord of the Rings had 3 blockbuster movies, Harry Potter is looking to go the distance with all 7 (?) books as movies, and who knows how many other major fantasy motion pictures coming out, to pretend that the game being fantasy would limit its appeal is ridiculous. One of the most popular Civ IV mods was a fantasy mod (FfH2).

So why is this necessarily a niche game?