Are we paying more for less?

[Arralen]

They're eager to get the demo, because shipping the 300-page manual (with CD included) all over the world does take some time.

Demo could be downloaded and help with waiting for the full game to arrive.

Why there's no download option for the full game has been discussed elsewhere. In short: pirated copies and technical issues.

And concerning the price tag: This has been discussed to death as well. In short: making 5000 or 10000 copies of Dominion3 (or maybe even 25000) is nearly as expensive as making 1.000.000 copies of The Sims. (or was it 15M?). Especially considering the 300 page manual full of content. Thats economics of scale.

And you know what? I have seen (not bought) quite a bunch of "A" titles which come at 45-55€ .. and NONE of them delivers the same playablitiy and re-playablity of the Dominions series. Lots of fancy graphics and gourgeous sounds - but no content.

I prefer content.

[Leif_-]

Speaking of Dominions3 costs... is it really worth it ?

It is for me, but it might not be for you. There's really no other answer than that.

[Theonlystd]

NTJedi said:

Very true... it will be the demo which will convince people whether or not it's worth the price. The dominions_2 demo only gave 40_turns hopefully the dominions_3 demo doesn't have the same limitation because many gamers downloading demos will ignore demos with turn limits and time limits.

True the demo will suck in some thats how it got me in dom2... But the demo covers very little of the game 5 EA nations and does it allow you to research up to lvl 9 in the magic? Or severly limited. The demo wont show some of the best parts of the game and is there a turn limit?. And heck alot of poeple just on principle dont pay this much for games no matter what they offer.



On an unrelated note i just ordered meh copy and expressed mailed..

[Warhammer]

Theonlystd said:
And heck alot of poeple just on principle dont pay this much for games no matter what they offer.

That's their loss then. Some people refuse to buy games, or refuse to buy undiscounted games, etc. That is their own decision and you can't reduce the price of your good to appease a small fragment of your customer base.

[Endoperez]

Warhammer said:That's their loss then. Some people refuse to buy games, or refuse to buy undiscounted games, etc. That is their own decision and you can't reduce the price of your good to appease a small fragment of your customer base.

He is arguing that it is more than just a small fragment of the customer base. There probably are many people who weren't sure about whether they should buy Dominions II or not. The fact that Dominions 3 has a hefty and pricy manual might actually make them even more wary, especially as DomII manual wasn't that great. I hope I never have to decide about marketing. It seems to be very complicated business.

[Theonlystd]

Warhammer said:

That's their loss then. Some people refuse to buy games, or refuse to buy undiscounted games, etc. That is their own decision and you can't reduce the price of your good to appease a small fragment of your customer base.

There not a majoirty.. But there not a tiny minority either...

Caduceus said:
Let's try his tactic. How many "discount" games do you buy a year? How many of those are you still playing three years after its release?

If you put $5 in a jar each month instead of buying a $20 disposable title-of-the-month and then dropped the $55 on Dominions 3 in a year, you'd have $185. You can tweak these numbers any way you want, of course. But, I think most of us are tired of getting burned with flash-in-the-pan games.

I have Eu2,Crusader Kings,Hoi,Hoi2,Victoria



I only payed more than 20 for one of them


Pic up the Civ games as discount also... The vast majority of the games i buy are at 20 dollars.. By time the game gets down to 20 i'll have a good idea at the quality of the game and it'll be decently patched up



The only reason i've got dominion is cause sadly i know they'll prolly never significantly lower the price.. And this is just the kind of game im always looking for and know that illwinter will come threw with the patchs.

But i doubt most poeple will have the same kind of hankering for this type of game as i do.. Or as know the kind of support illwinter will give

[Meglobob]

I personally liked the Dom2 demo, probably the most I have ever played a demo ever, when I got to turn 40 I just deceided have I won this game or not? It was more than enough to convince me to buy Dom3, after looking at the forums and finding out Dom3 was basically the same game but bigger, better. As I did not own Dom2, it was easy to buy Dom3.

However when it comes to indulging my favourite hobbey money is not the main issue with me. It's quality, how much play am I going to get, replayabilty value et... i would prefer to pay $60+ for a game I will play for 6 months+, then $40 for a game that lasts barely a week.

Also compare computer games with other entertainment, a book or dvd? A computer game wins every time for value, especially a 4xstrategy game with virtually endless replayability.

[Unwise]

I feel bad answering what is almost certainly a troll post, but I will anyway because I am bored.

Economics 101: suppliers do not set the price of a game, customers do. Oh, sit down and listen. Dom 3 is the most pre-ordered game in Shrapnel's reasonably long history. It will probably go on to become their best-selling game period. This means that either (a) they have priced the game to roughly what it is worth to the buyers or (b, and more likely), they underpriced the game.

So obviously from an economic point of view, the price is more than right when you take the target audience (older gamers who value depth and strategy over "production values").

Also, for the folks who will enjoy the game, the cost of the box is trivial. I will explain:

You will pay a certain amount of money to enhance your leisure time. The amount depends on your personal situation and personality. I for instance am not willing to pay $60 to watch a Will Farrel movie at the theater with my wife ($15 tickets, $15 food, $30 babysitter); that comes out to $30 per hour and it's beyond my comfort level. I am, however, willing to rent that movie for $4 in a few months... $2/hour for entertainment is within my comfort zone.

Likewise, I was willing to pay $20 for Half Life Episode 1, which ran around 6 hours long if your only play through it once... a bit more than $3 per hour, and I'm fine with that. Now look at Dom 2: in the past two years, I have played 20 multi-player games and God only knows how many single-player games. If you take only the multi-player games and assume that I spent a half-hour on each game every day for the past two years (a REALLY low estimate), that comes out to a handy 365 hours for the cost of $50... so 13 cents per hour.

I assume that I will get similar play out of Dom 3, and 13 cents an hour is so deep in my comfort zone that it is not even worth talking about.

Like I said, trivial.

[Voidhawk]

Well, let's see...

If I require 4 strategy games with high production values at average market price to keep me entertained for 6 months, but only one strategy game with decent production values at 1.25 times average market price to entertain me for a year...

I've always regarded Shrapnel as the game industry equivalent of one of those rare import furniture/home decor stores. The stuff is kinda expensive, but you can't get it anywhere else, and it's damn sure cooler than anything you could ever buy from Sears or Target.

Good strategy and war titles are a rarity these days, after all, so I feel the little bit of extra money spent is well worth the product that Shrapnel delivers.

[Nerfix]

The price is a turn off, but on the other hand getting twice the amount of pre-orders than Dominions 2 shows that there is some viability in their aproache. Shaving the price off a bit as time passes wouldn't propably be too bad as the amount of order slowly quiets down.

Then again, I, a student whose main income is refundable soda cans, am willing not only to pay for the game (50 EUR though, Umor bless the €-$ exchange rate) but also wringle a way to order it using another player as proxy.

We all have our treshold of getting stuff. I am quite the scrooge to be honest, but I think Dominions 3 is worth it.