Pre-ordering is a benefit not for the buyer...

[Endoperez]

Varjostin said:
Hello people.

I'm an old school Dom PPP player and became interested in Dominions 3. I have followed the conversation here in secrecy (buahaha) and decided to join the forums. Hope you will stand me. Ok, lets move onto the matter.
I have seen many here critizing the preorder price of Dom 3. I don't know how it's for Americans but here in Europe it isn't so costy to buy. Ok, I have to admit the general level of prices differ greatly in Europe, but my main point is that currency exchange rate between dollar and euro is benefiting european buyers. I paid about 41 euros for the game with transport costs.(Discount?) Now the price in euros is 43.50 with transport expenses which is below the price of a normal game. However, I'm not absolutely sure, because Finland has one of the highest price levels in Europe. Gasp.

A-ha! Another Finn joins our merry group of addicted gamers.

I agree with both Varjostin and PDF: the game isn't that expensive, especially with the pre-order discount, and I wouldn't pay extra to get any crap with the game. Most collectors' editions are much more expensive than the normal versions, and the extra stuff just takes up extra space.

We also get paper manual, AFAIK, and that is becoming kind of rare these days.

Varjostin, have you tried out DomII at all? You might want to adjust a little to the user interface, because the change from Dom:PPP to DomII was much bigger than it seems to be from DomII to Dom!!!.

[Gandalf Parker]

This isnt some huge corporate publisher. Its a developer who has added publishing in order to help other independents get published. I never thought of pre-ordering as being helpful to the buyer. I always thought of it as my way of telling the developer that I have faith in them creating a product I will want, and Im willing to give them some profits ahead of time in order to help that happen.

If Shrapnel doesnt see fit to put some big price break in there then its not a dealbuster for me. After all, such a price break would be tactical. It would have to come from someones cut. Shrapnels, or Illwinters. And it would have to be expected to create some sort of gain such as "loss now to generate hype which leads to more sales later". I dont think this game has the community that would work well for. What if most of the people who will buy Dom3 are already in these forums? Then such a price break would be bad.

In fact, Ive always been leary of BIG prices breaks on pre-orders. The only really good reason I could figure for a company doing it was that they knew the after-release conversations of players who got the game was going to kill further sales

[Varjostin]

Endoperez said:

Varjostin, have you tried out DomII at all? You might want to adjust a little to the user interface, because the change from Dom:PPP to DomII was much bigger than it seems to be from DomII to Dom!!!.

Well, I have played the demo and the whole game at a friend, but I couldn't convince my parents again to lend me their credit card back then, because they (or my mother) became aware of the so-called dangers of e-buying. Yeah, it's the policy of my family. Since I now have a Visa Electron I was able to buy Dom III and I thought it's not worth of buying Dom II this late.

I have looked at the screenshots and feature lists and they look awesome. I can't wait to get my copy of the game. I presume it's published in June, right?

[Nerfix]

Varjostin said:Well, I have played the demo and the whole game at a friend, but I couldn't convince my parents again to lend me their credit card back then, because they (or my mother) became aware of the so-called dangers of e-buying. Yeah, it's the policy of my family. Since I now have a Visa Electron I was able to buy Dom III and I thought it's not worth of buying Dom II this late.

Goodnes, a fellow finn with same problem as I have.

Except my VE can't order stuff abroad.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive worked for internet providors and I often recommend that people get some cheapo credit card that is NOT tied to your main bank account. Something like a $200 limit. And mark it as "for internet use".

Of course you are more likely to lose your credit info by carbon copy theft using it somewhere like cheap restaurants or gas stations, so its generally a good idea to get a minor card like that and mark it for daily spending also.

[PDF]

Varjostin,
Here games are also in the 45-50€ range... I forgot the $ was so cheap these days, when I preordered rate was rather 0.85 !

DominionsFAN,
Sure the publisher choice on price is dependent on the "price elasticity" he etimates... Maybe Shrapnel thought that the game has a rather big "sure audience" (eg fans) that won't be scared by higher price, or that to the contrary not much additional people will buy it even if it's cheap.
BTW I understand their analysis, Dom is a rather demanding game that will never sell in very high numbers (however good it can be)

[Varjostin]

Yes PDF, it's certainly amazing how such an esoteric thing like an exchange rate can affect our gaming hobby this much. I actually started to follow the economics pages of our newspaper after discovering the price difference caused by the exchange rates! I think I managed to buy Dom III just in the right time.

[Agrajag]

Lucky for you.
No matter how weak the (USA) Dollar gets, the NIS (New Israely Shekel) always gets lower.
So here 55$ is quite expensive (roughly 237 NIS, 267 with shipment), which isn't far from the average computer game, costing 220-240 NIS.
Which is still very overpriced compared to buying power of an average consumer in here.

Also, getting a special benefit for pre-ordering is extremely rare, and pre-ordering is just a means of slightly decreasing the chance the shop will run out of stock when you try and buy the game.

And people are surprised digital piracy is high in Israel :\ (especially the people who think we live in tents and drive camels to work)

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:

Goodnes, a fellow finn with same problem as I have.

Except my VE can't order stuff abroad.

I got Dom:PPP when my dear godmother bought it from an otherwise non-games computer shop in Helsinki. I have since visited there once myself, just to see the place from where I received the Swedish blessing.
I hoped to get DomII for my birthday in December or Christmas, but for some reason my parents thought it to be better for me to wait until summer holidays.
Thankfully, I have no problems with Dom!!!. Being 18 does help, even if I don't care about alcohol or cars.

Do you other Finns remember the wonderful, wonderful review the Pelit magazine wrote for DomII? It was titled 'Tulkoon sinun valtakuntasi' (May thy kingdom come). I adore it. I have thought about scanning, printing & framing it. As far as price is concerned, if reading the review of a game I'm already familiar with makes me giggle, laugh and act unnervingly happy, it is worth its price. How did Gandalf sum it up, again? Digitalized crack? Pixelized crack? He was right!

[Nerfix]

I've read it. The best, but politicaly incorrect, subtitle there was "Nothing new on the West Bank"...