what about the future?

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Hell, even WoW is a niche game.

In pure player numbers it is. Farmville wins. 80 mil vs 10 mil (And WoW is actually one of the biggest non-facebook games out there, the whole growth of silly facebook games has taken a lot of developers by surprise. Kind of a repeat of the gigantic growth of the casual games market a few years back). . Stupid simple games are bigger than more complex games.

But just to play with the MMORPGers a bit more. In the MMORPGers world most are actually niche games, at least compared to WoW. Eve online? 300k players. Small amount compared to the 10 Mil of WoW. So Eve Online is a niche in the MMORPG world. It targets a specific group of players who want SF space combat, and large scale corporate shenanigans. And still, shrapnel/IW would be very happy if Dom3 sold 300k copies. I think even half that would be great. . So yeah, niches can look very big, but it is still a small part of a larger market.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Damn, if niches are that big, what's the point of calling things niche games.

If the niche is that big, why do board game stores have such a hard time staying profitable? Why do almost all the large RPG/boardgame publishers go bankrupt or get taken over by a the giants? Why is it so hard for normal boardgames to stay in production?

Sure you can get The Settlers of Catan everywhere. But that is simple low strategy board game. Now try to buy Shogun/Samurai Swords somewhere. Big strategy board games get out of print often. Why? Because eventually the market is saturated. The avid war/boardgamers all have a copy. And the group of these is rather small so it doesn't really pay off to keep copies laying around for the small amount of sales you get. While Settlers still sells regular. Why? Because difficult board games are a niche, and settlers has a broad appeal.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Now someone just needs to release one that people actually know about and is polished, neither of which really describes Dom3.

Something like Age of Wonders Shadow magic perhaps? or Disciples III? Or HOMM? The games do excist, but somehow they are never as complex and interesting as Dom3.

Sure, the fantasy mod is popular. But if released as a stand alone game would it also sell? (Like the Jason Engle art btw)

But why are we still arguing if TBS games are niche or not? In the last 15 years TBS games have always been outsold by RTS and FPS games.

The focus should be on how do we get Dom3 to all the TBS players who currently don't own it. (Which is actually out of the question as development on Dom3 has halted, and IW is working on a non-Dom project. (If my information is correct)). Not, how do we increase the amount of players in the TBS games niche. (Which would be nice, but is difficult to do. I think the handheld TBS games have helped a lot, how is the one called with the little red and blue(?) tanks and soldiers?).