So no Dominions 4?

[S.R. Krol]

Theonlystd said:
I know about the the lisencing fees or whatever one calls it to have a game released for the console and that the hardware is sold at a loss.. But production costs,and development time and all that is a factor to .

Supposedly GTA 4 cost over 100million dollars to develop..

And if anything just goes to my point. You take out the "tithe" as you said.. And you'd have games that tooks years and millions upon millions to make selling cheaper than a 2 year old indy game with subpar graphics...

If I go see a movie that cost $150 million to make and then one that only cost $30 million to make I'm still paying $8 to see both. It is up to me, the consumer, to decide whether that $8 is equal in both cases.

Dominions III may not stand equal in the visual department of a 100 million dollar franchise, but it sure beats most where it counts: gameplay.

[Theonlystd]

S.R. Krol said:

If I go see a movie that cost $150 million to make and then one that only cost $30 million to make I'm still paying $8 to see both. It is up to me, the consumer, to decide whether that $8 is equal in both cases.

Dominions III may not stand equal in the visual department of a 100 million dollar franchise, but it sure beats most where it counts: gameplay.

Dom3 is easily one my favorite games of all. Its graphics stink but its gameplay is awesome..

Im just suggesting a price cut.. And giving the impression i got from other people i've talked the game up to as to y they didnt find the game wroth the price.

[Kraftwerk]

S.R. Krol said:

If I go see a movie that cost $150 million to make and then one that only cost $30 million to make I'm still paying $8 to see both. It is up to me, the consumer, to decide whether that $8 is equal in both cases.

Dominions III may not stand equal in the visual department of a 100 million dollar franchise, but it sure beats most where it counts: gameplay.

Youre comparing a theatre, which purchases a movie then rents out space for viewings, and they pay different amounts for different movies, the way they "charge more" for 150 million dollar movie as opposed to a 30 million dollar movie is to put it on more screens, it stands to reason Independence Day is going to draw a larger crowd than Sense and Sensibility. So S&S that AMC only paid a million to put on at its numerous locations, will only appear on 1 maybe 2 screens where as ID4 that cost them maybe 5 million to put on at their locations, will get 4 to maybe even 8 screens.

Your example is actually proof of what im saying. If you charge 8 dollars for something, people are more inclined to pay for it than if you charge 60 for it. While it might work to charge 60 dollars for a ticket to ID4 and put it on at just as many screens as S&S, something tells me alot of people wouldnt see a movie that costs considerably more than other movies of the same or BETTER quality.

Bottom line, the price keeps people from buying it. This isnt the first time this has come up over the years, and it wont be the last.

The price hurts the community. Every month, someone shelfs this game. If there arent warm fresh bodies, eventually the community dies, and you end up like Master of Magic. A game people DL for free, a decade later, because the community dried up, where the developers could still be getting checks , and the community could still be actively creating mods and purchasing the game, and hopefully, providing an opportunity for a sequel.

Seriously, if you guys arent going to make a dominions 4, why should i even convince friends of mine to purchase this game? So you can retire to florida? Put gas in your tank? Why should we pay new release price for a old game, when a current version isnt being worked on, wheres the money going? A greedy publisher? Solid gold champagne glasses? For serious....why should you get far more than somethings worth.

Its like buying a beer at a bar. Sure its three times as expensive as a store, but theyre providing an atmosphere, and a promise of many more beers than you could buy at one time on tap. What are you providing for the 15 more dollars your charging over the competition.

[Dragar]

I don't quite get your viewpoint Kraftwerk..

Are you saying that $60 is too much because you and/or your friends think its not worth that much, or that Shrapnel/Illwinter are pricing stupidly and would make more money at lower cost?

If the latter, presumably Shrapnel understand the demand elasticity of their game pretty well and have their price point for a reason? They, afterall, would have the best information to make that judgement. Personally I can't imagine a drop of $15 would have a massive impact on sales. I certainly don't see the depreciation argument - does a book depreciate? Games only really devalue when they are superseded by something better, and I'm not aware of any comparable game that does it better than Dom 3. As was mentioned, only if Dom 4 came out would there be reason to drop the price on its predecessor.

If you personally think its too expensive, why did you buy it? If your friends won't pay for it, either you haven't sold it to them well enough or its not really their thing. No point trying to sell Dom 3 to the average gamer, its a niche interest. No-one I've spoken to about the game considers the price an issue, although only one paid convert so far! Either way, no need to get upset over it, its their prerogative to sell at whatever price suits them.

Personally, I think Dom 3 has saved me a lot of money. For $60 it has taken away hours and hours of time I would have had to find other things to do in, which all-in-all would have cost me a lot more! Doesn't take many videos, books, or drinks out to cover $60, given the hundreds of hours I expect to play on this game before I have enough. The only downside is lost sleep

[JimMorrison]

Seriously. My roommate buys new games constantly. Most of them he plays for a day or two, declares them to be the "worst (insert genre or adjective) game ever!", and then throws them at me. Me, I am a gaming gourmand. If it will run on my computer and has a sword or a gun somewhere, I'll probably play it beginning to end.

But Dom3 requires refined taste to truly appreciate. And, it will require a very special effort to surpass.

Is Dom3 a niche game? Yes it is. Will it ALWAYS be a niche game? Of course it will. Until someone, anyone (I mean ANYONE, Galactic Civ comes the closest in recent times) produces an AI that can grasp a game well enough to give a thouthful player a run for their money - then there will absolutely be a "turn based PBEM strategy game" niche. While many people continue to play Dom3 SP, and find ways to keep it interesting and enjoyable, the niche that it is most catering to, is the PBEM crowd (which I was not part of until I joined this forum). Now, since the PBEM has always been and always will be a small segment of the game, what is the incentive to cut price.


Net effect - lowering price would mostly only serve to massively increase the number of low-brow twitch gamers who accidentally buy a "bargain bin" title, and then spam other forums and review sites with their complaints about the "terrible graphics", the "lack of tactical battles", and how they think it's "still too expensive, and they wished they had only wasted $10".

Now, that being the probable outcome of this issue, the result for Shrapnel/IW is - one time jump in sales, equating to very minor increase in profit due to slashing of margins, followed my irreversible sales slump caused by the glut of negative reviews covering up the glowing reviews posted by the intended purchaser of the game.

Now shush, that's 3 times I have won this argument. The first stage of insanity is denial. Move on to anger or something.

[Kraftwerk]

Dragar said:
I don't quite get your viewpoint Kraftwerk..

Are you saying that $60 is too much because you and/or your friends think its not worth that much, or that Shrapnel/Illwinter are pricing stupidly and would make more money at lower cost?

If the latter, presumably Shrapnel understand the demand elasticity of their game pretty well and have their price point for a reason? They, afterall, would have the best information to make that judgement. Personally I can't imagine a drop of $15 would have a massive impact on sales. I certainly don't see the depreciation argument - does a book depreciate? Games only really devalue when they are superseded by something better, and I'm not aware of any comparable game that does it better than Dom 3. As was mentioned, only if Dom 4 came out would there be reason to drop the price on its predecessor.

If you personally think its too expensive, why did you buy it? If your friends won't pay for it, either you haven't sold it to them well enough or its not really their thing. No point trying to sell Dom 3 to the average gamer, its a niche interest. No-one I've spoken to about the game considers the price an issue, although only one paid convert so far! Either way, no need to get upset over it, its their prerogative to sell at whatever price suits them.

Personally, I think Dom 3 has saved me a lot of money. For $60 it has taken away hours and hours of time I would have had to find other things to do in, which all-in-all would have cost me a lot more! Doesn't take many videos, books, or drinks out to cover $60, given the hundreds of hours I expect to play on this game before I have enough. The only downside is lost sleep

Yes a book depreciates, though considering the rate, if you dont consider inflation it looks like books go up in price. Picked up a Harlan Ellison, 'I, Robot' the other day with a cover price of 1.35 in 1971, just a small paperback, and i bought it for 3.50. Inflation would put it about 6 or 7 bucks, so it certainly depreciates. Age depreciates just about everything. Besides wine and women.


And its both, its both too expensive for people i know to shell out on something that at first or second glance is an obvious pass. I passed for quite a while myself, and ill admit, i didnt get dominions 2 the best of ways, but it prompted me to purchase dominions 3. Now I dont advocate doing the same thing for friends of mine, but i know theyd like the game if they actually played it for a while, but all of them cant physically sit at my computer for a few hours getting into it. They have to buy it, or "try it", and 60 dollars is a bit steep of an investment in a video game thats not an advertised A+ title. You know what youre getting 30 hours of when you buy Bioshock, or Oblivion, or Diablo III when that comes out. You know youre going to get a quality title.

Its not exactly enticing new customers at the current price tag.

[Omnirizon]

the people who buy dominions do so because their tired of wandering a world of "next craze next phase next nothing new" games that makes up quality titles like Bio "rip-off system shock" shock, Obli "same impoverished RPG models" vion, or Dia "beat a dead horse some more" blo III.

The people who buy Dominions do so because they crave its uniqueness and personality.

The people who buy Bioshock do so because they crave the warm familiar feeling of sitting in a warm pile of [censored]; they've been trained by society and media to enjoy and celebrate the same ole [censored].

[Lingchih]

Hey, hey Omni, lay off. Bioshock is an extremely good game, and in a totally different genre.

[Kraftwerk]

Omnirizon said:
the people who buy dominions do so because their tired of wandering a world of "next craze next phase next nothing new" games that makes up quality titles like Bio "rip-off system shock" shock, Obli "same impoverished RPG models" vion, or Dia "beat a dead horse some more" blo III.

The people who buy Dominions do so because they crave its uniqueness and personality.

The people who buy Bioshock do so because they crave the warm familiar feeling of sitting in a warm pile of [censored]; they've been trained by society and media to enjoy and celebrate the same ole [censored].

Uh Warren Spector, who made system shock, made bioshock. It was basically the whole looking glass crew.

It wasnt a rip off, it was sort of a sequel/pre-quel/alternate reality

The simularities are intentional.

Ever play Dues Ex? Same thing. Spector loves his inventory managing FPSs

Both are great games.

And system shock suffered from too high a price for an unknown title as well. I bought it, but i remember it took all my christmas money as a kid heh.

[Edi]

If I compare value for money of the Dominions franchise to anything else I own on the gaming side, it's no contest. Dominions wipes the floor with everything else, though some other games I have played a lot and still play. I've bought every Dominions game and never been disappointed. Sure, I have my own gripes about some stuff and I haven't exactly been quiet (which is why I got put in charge of managing the bug reports), but in the end those gripes are minor. The price is not one of the sticking points for me.

Considering how much time I've spent playing the game and fiddling with it, $60 is nothing. I'd pay that in euros for this game, which would be $90 or more at current rates of exchange. I've got games I paid an equal amount for and didn't play a lot at all.

As far as the community goes, there is a fairly good amount of permanence here, as far as permanence wrt any game goes. That's because currently there is nothing that can hold a candle to Dominions in the turn based strategy genre. Notto mention that if you do fork over the 60 bucks for Dominions 3, not only do you get the game and the manual, you will also be able to use all the stuff that has been provided here for free. Which is a damn lot for an indie game, I should say. As someone who has actually made a lot of that free stuff, I can say that making it has also been fun, though frustrating at times. Been part of the value for money I've gotten for Dom3, the exploration.

As far as the Shrapnel Games decision to charge $55, that's theirs to make. They have all the data on how many copies they sell, what it costs to produce and they have comparison data from a lot of other things. They have been successful in this business for years, so they know what they are doing. If Dominions 3 is going to drop in price, it'll probably only be to $49 to cross the psychological barrier DonCorazon was talking about, but it certainly won't come down from that.

There is also the thing that lowering prices to bargain bin levels is what the mainstream games do because they have a market of tens of millions of users. Dominions does not, so lowering the price significantly is not going to recoup the costs. The people who are interested in this kind of game are generally willing to pay the $45 to $55 (that's counting periodic discounts) for it and they will usually feel they are getting their money's worth. Not everyone, but then, there is always someone who is disappointed.