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

[PDF]

Well, overall Dom3 is rather expensive : 55$ plus postage (5$ for me in France) is clearly above average, for a "small budget" game. Not even counting possible VAT making it increase to 70$ !
I don't have any problem with that though, since Dom2 alone had for me 1000hr+ lifespan !
And I understand that Shrapnel and Illwinter wants to do some money with it. The only other solution good for developers and customers and allowing to lower prices is to distribute through download only, but that's not the way they did it.

[DominionsFan]

PDF said:
Well, overall Dom3 is rather expensive : 55$ plus postage (5$ for me in France) is clearly above average, for a "small budget" game. Not even counting possible VAT making it increase to 70$ !
I don't have any problem with that though, since Dom2 alone had for me 1000hr+ lifespan !
And I understand that Shrapnel and Illwinter wants to do some money with it. The only other solution good for developers and customers and allowing to lower prices is to distribute through download only, but that's not the way they did it.

Well yes...but like I said, the question is, what is the best way for Shrapnel and Illwinter to gain more money?

Example:
1. The retail price of the game is 45 euro. -> More people gonna buy the game probably.
2. The retail price of the game is 55 euro. -> Less people gonna buy it probably.

Frankly...I have no idea which one is better for the devs. All I know is that the price of the game gonna scare away xy number of players...it wont scare away "potential" costumers for sure however.

[Gandalf Parker]

Do you really think so?
I wish them well and all. I think its a great game. But I think the market for this game is measureable. Im not sure if the difference in the number of people who will/wont purchase based on that price change is enough to cover making the change.

Especially with the "bill rule". That people tend to base their purchase decisions based in sizes of bills. In the US thats 5, 10, 20, 50. Once it crosses from one denomination size to the next then everything in between is pretty much the same in the mind of most buyers. (the bill rule is also why you see so many things priced at 19.99 or 4.99)

Gandalf Parker

[Varjostin]

PDF said:
Well, overall Dom3 is rather expensive : 55$ plus postage (5$ for me in France) is clearly above average, for a "small budget" game. Not even counting possible VAT making it increase to 70$ !

Here in Finland an average game bought from a game store costs over 50 euros. I don't know about France. So would you tell me how much an average game costs there? Damn, after long browsing ah-so-lovely wikipedia page for VAT and the pages of the Customs Service, I have to say you are getting it right. According to the Customs Service I have to pay 22% or 17% of VAT (Value added tax) and a customs duty of a small sum, because the product comes from the U.S. This is of course in Finland.

It has to be remembered, though, that this tariff-jargon is a very complex thing to master and it's possible that no tax is being collected from a game. In any case every european buyer of Dom 3 should probably take the suggested 70$ and multiply it with the current exchange rate between euro and dollar, which is today 0.7203, when changing dollars to euros. This results 50.421, with which I presume you had came up too. The price is still the price of an average game in FINLAND. It's the final price rounded up (70 $) with tariffs and taxes counted with. So the information for the average prices in other countries is needed.

I'm sorry if I sound too argumentative or just micromanage too much. It's my style.