Any Plans

[Zeldor]

If they do not buy every crap that comes to market they should have a lot of money to spend on few good games. And they spent at least $1000 for their computer, so I am sure they can spend $50 every few months for a game.

[sector24]

I think you guys are forgetting that you already know how awesome Dominions 3 is. For someone who just plays the demo and looks at the cost, it's not nearly the same. It's very easy to spend $60 on something that ends up being complete garbage, so they're looking at the risk that Dom3 might be another one of those situations.

When you're younger, you have far less money and are far more attracted to flash rather than substance. Most gamers can tell you a story about how they saved up their money for the hottest newest game, bought it at full price, and got burned by what ended up being a complete waste of time.

We take that hard lesson with us as we grow up, and even full grown adults with expendable income are reluctant to spend what they feel is a corporate big budget price for an indy game. Of course we can tell them what a fool they are for not getting Dominons, but there is reluctance all the same.

I'm not really sure how to fix this. Obviously the developers deserve the money, but maybe there is a way to create a price break for a Dominions "light" vs. a Dominions "gold". The light version costs less, has full functionality, but perhaps slightly less content. Fewer nations, maps, maybe just Early Era. The gold version would of course be the real deal. Dominions "Light" players could at some point in the future pay the difference to upgrade to gold if they wanted the increased content.

Maybe not the best example, but I'm sure there's some business model that could solve this. Personally, I had to buy a 2nd copy for my friend because he thought it was too expensive. Which meant that I had to wait for his birthday, which meant the world of Dominions went without their God for several months. What a travesty!

[Zeldor]

sector24:

Oh yes, Heroes of Might and Magic 4&5, what a waste of money...

With so many crap games today really many people pirate games and then buy ones they like. But it is not a thing to recommend to anyone. I just try not to touch anything made by EA and it makes choices much easier I have 2 games only now, Dom3 and ET:QW.

[jaif]

When you're younger, you have far less money and are far more attracted to flash rather than substance.

I don't think the price here is as much an issue as the total lack of flash. Forgive me, because I really do love the game, but I do not think it is marketed well. I think one web site with the descriptions of the kingdoms from the book, along with appropriate graphics, could really help sell this game to the right audience. I think most strategy/fantasy gamers will respond to things like "Atlantis is inspired by lovecraft" and so on.

Just a thought, and I make no claims as an advertising consultant, but I do think a bit more "art" needs to go into marketting this game.

-Jeff

[llamabeast]

I think that's a very good point jaif. When I come across a website with a load of background detail I always end up reading the whole thing and then really wanting the game. Dominions could do amazingly well like that.

[Endoperez]

jaif said:
Just a thought, and I make no claims as an advertising consultant, but I do think a bit more "art" needs to go into marketting this game.

-Jeff

I've been thinking of doing few Dominions-based animations some day. Huge battles, grass catching fire under the Abysian army, demonbred or three flying above it all and raining fire and brimstone over their enemies - and a pretender crushing the whole Abysian army with relative ease. At the moment I'm at the "trying to model a human body" phase though, so it'll have to wait for a while.

[S.R. Krol]

@ Agrajag: Heh heh.

@ Theonlystd: As you can probably already guess, my feelings run along the same line as Capnq's response. I wanted to take a moment to further point out a couple of more differences.

The mainstream retail market has conditioned consumers to expect to see games marked down within weeks of release. Depending on how popular the game is, this mark down could be as much as 50% for those not selling well. Online retailers, needing to (a) compete with the brick and mortar world and (b) needing to sell in large volume typically mark down their games. Again, this creates a condition whereas the consumer expects to never have to pay full retail price for their game.

One of the initial reasons the indie world sprung up was to give the developers/publishers control over their own destiny, such as avoiding the scenario painted above. An indie developer can set their price and not worry that in two weeks after release they'll have to cut the price by 10%, 20%, et cetera.

And where does the money go between mainstream and indie games? For mainstream developers they're lucky to see even a dollar off of every purchase. Sometimes they see nothing.
For the indie developer though they're seeing a nice chunk of change for each purchase, which in turn means things like for the next game they can afford to upgrade their computers, hire more artists, and so on. Why would anyone volunteer to essentially take a pay cut as time goes on? Does anyone at a "normal" job say, "Hey boss, I've been here a month, please cut my salary in half!"

It's also interesting to me that folks sometimes expect indie games to cost less, simply because they're indie titles. I think some of that comes from the fact that too many developers undervalue their products, and sell everything for $19.95, although this has never been true for other publishers such as HPS, Spiderweb, or Stardock.

But here's some food for thought: in the real world outside of computer games "indie" products normally cost *more* than their mass produced items. For example, when buying a one-of-a-kind handcrafted bed you're going to pay more than a made in China, pressboard bed. So really, shouldn't indie games actually end up costing *more* than mainstream games, since they're handcrafted labors of love?

What if we strip the indie label though? Why not look at Shrapnel as simply a publisher who doesn't sell in brick and mortar stores?

In the end, hey, I know nothing I said above will ultimately make a difference for your friends to decide to open their wallets. People spend money as they see fit. But I hope it at least provides some insight as to why things are as they are.

Finally, yes, as I mentioned and as others have, there are periodical sales, although you won't ever see anything approaching 30-40% off. I just checked Amazon and they have it for $49.99, and it ships free. But no, don't expect any drastic price reductions in the near future.

[Zeldor]

S.R. Krol:

I wouldn't really agree on that. There are aware and unaware consumers. They have different buying habits and there are way more unaware ones. That kind of people will buy many new games on the day of release and pay full retail price, even if he could buy it 20-30% cheaper, the same day, in different store. Other people will be more careful, they will often check demos and/or download pirated version. They will also look for the best price. But they are minority. At least it looks like that in US and I guess the same goes for Western Europe [situation in poorer countries is really different as many other factors come in the way].

The thing that works best on about 90% gamers are good advertisement [by good I mean lots of it, not quality] and nice graphics. Dominions doesn't have anything. But everything needs money, making a new game with good 3d engine costs at least $5M dollars, I guess that with the amount of nations and contents Dominions have it would be at least $10. And you would be able to post beautiful screenies. But even then you would have to spend millions on ads and to pay all that review sites to give you good scores [I guess no one here is naive enough to trust that sites]. And for that you would have to sell that game in B&M stores, so you would have to share your profits with the shop, publisher and so on.

They will get some money from Dominions 3 but it will be far from enough to make that campaign for Dominions 4. I just hope they will take regular salary and contribute all their time [40 hours per week at least ] for Dominions 4 or other great game

[Zeldor]

NTJedi:

IT is not about easier, it is what their bosses expect from them. Most companies make games for money, not for gamers. Illwinter is one of the few examples of games made 'by gamers for gamers'. 2 other that I can think of are Blizzard and Splash Damage/ID Software.

[NTJedi]

Zeldor said:
NTJedi:

IT is not about easier, it is what their bosses expect from them. Most companies make games for money, not for gamers. Illwinter is one of the few examples of games made 'by gamers for gamers'. 2 other that I can think of are Blizzard and Splash Damage/ID Software.

Neither state of the art graphics or state of the art artificial intelligence is easy. Each game has a senior lead developer who decides the features, content and graphics of a game. The boss of the senior lead developer typically give the deadlines and type of genre for the game.

Another company which made games for gamers was Bioware... hence Neverwinter Nights. Recently they've been bought by Electronic Arts... so things might change.