Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?

[Gandalf Parker]

Yeah it sounds like crap. It gets done a lot, pricing for target demographic with no basis on the product. Everything from music to clothes and even foods. But its not something corporations own up to much. Even those that dont do it on purpose end up with the results apparently.

I dont think any corp cares who buys it and uses it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well what does "everybody knows" agree on?
Lower price equals many more players?
Download equals more online questions?
$50 crowd is a different demographic than $5 crowd? by age? by education? working force vs non-working?

Other than "making more money" what are the benefits of the $5 horde, and to who?
The support position is open.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Well what does "everybody knows" agree on?
Lower price equals many more players?
Download equals more online questions?
$50 crowd is a different demographic than $5 crowd? by age? by education? working force vs non-working?

Other than "making more money" what are the benefits of the $5 horde, and to who?
The support position is open.

You are the only person making a problem of this. (literaly, I have never seen ANYBODY except you argue this. NOBODY execpt for you wants less dom3 players. (Even I somebody who used to chew people out on IRC for being stupid and not doing their homework want more dom3 players not less. Even if it bring more stupid questions. I rather have stupid questions than the recent silence).

Hell... I even welcome more piracy of dom3. So it has more players. I like the game so much that I do not even care if illwinter is paid. (And as illwinter does not care about the money, they should not care about this either).

[johan osterman]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Hell... I even welcome more piracy of dom3. So it has more players. I like the game so much that I do not even care if illwinter is paid. (And as illwinter does not care about the money, they should not care about this either).

Who has decided illwinter doesn't care about money? Just because they aren't money maximising homo economicus doesn't mean that they don't prefer to have more money than less money. That they mostly work on stuff because they enjoy it doesn't mean that they are saintly hermit developers that have turned their backs on the world and reject wordly goods. If they were utterly uninterested in monetary compensation they would obviously not bother with publishers at all. This is not a black and white issue where you either only work for money or only for fun.*

As an aside both JK and Kristoffer has for periods of time cut down on their day jobs, thus earning less in order to work on illwinter stuff. They aren't for the most part dependent on the money from sales, though I know JK at least would quit his day job if illwinter had ever generated enough to live comfortably of.

*I have some trouble expressing myself, but what I am trying to get at is that they make games for fun, and would probably do this or something similar wether people bought the games or not. But that if illwinter generated enough money to provide a comfortable living while still being fun they would prefer to live of that rather than punch the clock.

[jBrereton]

As a European student, let me just say that if it wasn't for a very good Let's Play topic on the SomethingAwful site, I would have never considered paying $60 for it, especially with an extra cost to be able to download it for longer than about a week, and another from my bank for using a foreign currency. I don't regret my purchase, but if I had anyone other than myself to support, I wouldn't have bought it at that price.

The last real mainstream coverage I can recall for the game was about five years ago, when it got a relatively positive single page review in PC Gamer UK. The supply of grogs with $60 to spend on a game there's so little information about probably isn't exactly massive, especially when they're getting counterbilked by other devs making things like WORST JULY: SOMME. Manage the whole of the Somme, step by bloody step, shot by shot, 3ft hex by 3ft hex (features distressingly accurate pony damage model)'.

I doubt putting it out there for £25/30E/$40 is going to ruin IW.

As to the impact on the community - presumably if it gets released on Steam or whatever, there'll be forums for it there, so you can either ignore the povo scum/give new players some useful tips/recommend MA Marignon with a straight face, etc. etc.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by jBrereton

As a European student, let me just say that if it wasn't for a very good Let's Play topic on the SomethingAwful site, I would have never considered paying $60 for it, especially with an extra cost to be able to download it for longer than about a week, and another from my bank for using a foreign currency. I don't regret my purchase, but if I had anyone other than myself to support, I wouldn't have bought it at that price.

Out of curiosity, did you play the demo as well or were you sold from reading the LP? I will very rarely buy a game over $20 unless I can play a demo (the Dom 2 demo and Bruce Geryk's walkthrough sold me on Dom).

[jBrereton]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Out of curiosity, did you play the demo as well or were you sold from reading the LP? I will very rarely buy a game over $20 unless I can play a demo (the Dom 2 demo and Bruce Geryk's walkthrough sold me on Dom).

I decided to just risk it for a biscuit. Worked out well.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I dont HAVE to be non-insulting anymore but I generally try anyway. Not YOU but others over the years have pushed the money aspect rudely while Illwinter has explained the joy and job satisfaction aspect. The two do not go hand in hand. by some methods, they can even be counter.

As far as this goes, I've always liked the fact that IW was highly resistant to the "if you want to make more money you'll do what I say" approach. Which is why I mentioned that if there were an influx of players that could be motivation simply because you have more people who are enjoying and enthusiastic about the game (even if the increase in players was offset by a reduced price such that IW wasn't actually making more money).

That's pretty much the main potential benefit to me of selling more copies/having more players. Obviously I'm not getting a cut of the revenue so that doesn't matter to me. And even with the MP scene split among several forums there isn't really a problem filling games so I don't care overly much about that. And I'm not a competitive enough player to be much concerned with an increased pool of opponents to test myself against.

But probably more than anything it's just an academic interest in how the game will do with a different pricing/distribution model.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Valerius

As far as this goes, I've always liked the fact that IW was highly resistant to the "if you want to make more money you'll do what I say" approach. Which is why I mentioned that if there were an influx of players that could be motivation simply because you have more people who are enjoying and enthusiastic about the game (even if the increase in players was offset by a reduced price such that IW wasn't actually making more money).

That would be great. That would be wonderful. That could totally turn things around for the better. New players who could appreciate the game and ask for things would be fantastic.

As much as I have hoped for it I am afraid Ive been pushed into cynicism on our chances of that. But I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. If some people make an effort perhaps they could lead the way. Create an environment that would foster that.

[jBrereton]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

That would be great. That would be wonderful. That could totally turn things around for the better. New players who could appreciate the game and ask for things would be fantastic.

As much as I have hoped for it I am afraid Ive been pushed into cynicism on our chances of that. But I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. If some people make an effort perhaps they could lead the way. Create an environment that would foster that.

I know this is a somewhat different case, but since a near-constant sale on the Company of Heroes series on Steam, the game's GameReplays.org site has never been busier, and there have been many, many tournaments, both from the fans and from the developers themselves, with cash prizes from the devs to keep it going.

Yeah, OK, there are new players who are piss poor at the game, but the increased player base has meant for much easier experimentation with the metagame. Which is nice.