How turn Dominions from a niche game to an MMO

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by slMagnvox

It was important to quote all of that because this poster, alhorro, has a very good grasp of how money is minted with a video game in the 21st century. Imagine for a moment this could actually be done, a whiz bang, super friendly web UI for Dom3, digital distro, and llamabeast on the payroll.

Actually I quite agree. Id really like to see it done. And the many ways I mentioned that it could also be funded. Surely some internetneur is looking for such a concept.

[S.R. Krol]

Step 1. Dominions 3.
Step 2. Microtransactions.
Step 3. Profit!

It's that time of year, isn't it? Someone comes along and has the secret to bring the awesomesauce to Dominions 3. And while it's nice to see folks suggest taking the game to a higher state it should be noted that it seems to always be based on a faulty assumption that Dominions 3 is this mysterious, unknown game to the world at large and if only (INSERT LATEST IDEA) happened, then Dom3 would be bigger than the pope.

First off turning it into something in which you have to pay-to-play, no matter how small the amounts are, is going to be a huge turn off to a lot of folks. Free always trumps pay. Again, even if the amount is trivial there is still the psychological effect.

Next, frankly for a niche (and I'll get to that point in a moment) title Dominions 3 is already doing fantastic. It was released in September 2006 and continues to sell just as strong. It is still mentioned at gaming websites and the few periodicals left. Multiplayer games are constant. How many mainstream games from 2006 can say this? For an indie game it has been a huge triumph.

As far as being niche, make no mistake, this is a niche title as 99% of strategy games are now (the other 1% being games whose title has "Meier's" in them). No matter how big it may seem in the grand picture it's still a very tiny fish.

One last thing. As a company we are of course interested in revenue, so don't you think that if we saw value in something we would do it? I'm not saying that specifically about this particular MMO idea, but just in general. We're not the new kids on the block and we are continually evaluating the environment. So have some faith.