So no Dominions 4?

[Kraftwerk]

Well if you have money to burn, why not buy a second copy and give it to a friend? If they decide they're not into it, pass it along until you hook someone, rinse and repeat.

Seems like a better investment of money than, say, buying Two Worlds or Hellgate:London.

Because most of his friends dont live physically near him Kind of hard to snail mail around a copy. Of course I guess if you purchased it the cdkey is all you need, certainly other ways of getting the game alot faster than physically mailing the cd. But then you dont get a nice manual.

And those are horrible examples, hellgate londons company has fallen apart, and I assume you mean WoW, which sucks. But for cheaper than this, we could be playing any number of good strategy games. I pirated dominions 2 to play with a friend, and it convinced me to buy dominions 3 to play with the same friend.

But to get a 3rd into the group, is basically impossible, and its not like BOTH of us arent trying.

Its too expensive.

Besides, its just an MP game anyways, the AI is so horrible that SP is really just a way to check out the races and strategies for MP.

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.

[sector24]

Everybody has a birthday...and what better gift than one that is self-serving? Instead of getting a bowling ball with your name carved in it, get him a copy of Dominions 3 or split the cost with a friend. It's win/win.

[Kraftwerk]

I also think alot of people in this thread dont give dominions enough credit. It might not have the same graphics as the total war series, but theyre that much worse. Dom has appeal that I dont think people realize.

Im the lowest common denominator when it comes to games like this, I play unreal, halflife, quakewars, I like mmos, im in my mid 20s, im not a nerd or a grognard, I buy the movies and the games with the big budget development teams and swoon over the flashy graphics.

I was swayed to this game because I really enjoy playing games with and against other people, Ive played just about every multiplayer game you can think of. I just love being competetive. If I hadnt pirated dom2 to play with a friend who had purchased it, id never have purchased dom3. Ever. So theres a sale due to piracy even. But I dont advocate people running around willy nilly stealing every game they can. If you can purchase it, purchase it. Especially if its an indy game. So I cant just tell people pirate the thing, if you like it, buy it, but the price, certainly forces people to take that route (and hopefully most of them purchase it after they see how great it is) Lowering the price, just sending emails and having interviews and reviews on some good multiplayer strategy game websites, and pbem matching making sites, to remind people who, like me, saw this game first there, saw the price and never looked at it again (till someone i knew took the leap of faith and bought it) and lowering the price, is gonna snag all those people who saw the game, saw the price, and turned their back.

Just look at it this way.

All you guys like all the mods right?

Think about all the potential mods and mod makers out there, who wont buy this game because its too expensive. Think about what youre missing out on.

[Annette]

Kraftwerk said:
If I hadnt pirated dom2 to play with a friend who had purchased it, id never have purchased dom3. Ever. So theres a sale due to piracy even. But I dont advocate people running around willy nilly stealing every game they can. If you can purchase it, purchase it. Especially if its an indy game. So I cant just tell people pirate the thing, if you like it, buy it, but the price, certainly forces people to take that route (and hopefully most of them purchase it after they see how great it is) Lowering the price, just sending emails and having interviews and reviews on some good multiplayer strategy game websites, and pbem matching making sites, to remind people who, like me, saw this game first there, saw the price and never looked at it again (till someone i knew took the leap of faith and bought it) and lowering the price, is gonna snag all those people who saw the game, saw the price, and turned their back.

Tim and I took our daughter to the movies last week and were appalled at the high price of concessions. They wanted $4.00 for a box of Goobers! $9.50 for a soft pretzel and a Coke! Outrageous. But, boy, do we love to eat while we take in a flick. I mean, we're not just going to sit in the dark and not eat anything.

So when the cashier rang us up to the tune of $39.00 (we could have eaten big, juicy burgers with plump, crispy steak fries in a nice restaurant for that), we just took the stuff and ran. But you know what? It was so good - boy that pretzel was yummy. We ended going back for seconds, and this time we paid for it. So really, the owners of the theater should be happy, because even though we stole food, we were prompted to buy more. And it really makes no difference that there was guy set up in the corner of the lobby handing out free samples of the hot, doughy pretzels...that was not really enough to tell us whether we should take a chance on paying for what we desired to consume. I'm not saying everyone should do this, but it was okay for us.

This is a game publisher's board. You've admitted that you have stolen from us. We will not tolerate your coming here trying to justify to us and our community that you have a right to steal from us because you don't like our business model. End of discussion.

[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.