what about the future?

[thejeff]

Even in the office chairs the reason you don't buy the 5 year old chair, is that they don't make it anymore. You don't get to choose between the most recent high-end design and the high-end design from 5 years ago. You choose between this year's top end and this year's middle or low end.

[Zeldor]

Why are you guys comparing it to different stuff? Furniture, electronics etc have high fixed costs. They can be lowered, but still take high %.

When it comes to software, fixed costs are very low. Maybe 10% tops. Other things are labour/marketing/desired income. Sure, it has to be divided between many people, but just selling a game does not take much time or money. You just sacrifice small fixed part. Rest is pure profit - costs of obtaining it depend on how good you are at doing business. If Shrapnel says they cannot lower it much [but Amazon can still sell it for $50 and free shipping] it just means their business model sucks and their costs are way too high.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

[but Amazon can still sell it for $50 and free shipping]

Amazon has a tendency to cap prices and sell stuff for a loss just to get market share. They also have a highly automated sales process (benefit of scale). So they tend to do stuff cheaper.

(Not saying that perhaps Shrapnel should take a look at their costs and in that way make the games cheaper (If they can reduce their constant costs of each sale by 10% a 10% reduction of price would increase the sales numbers) but there are two sides to the story).

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Now you are making a little mistake here imho. You take furniture in general, and pick one example of a high end product, for which there are replacements etc. And try to invalidate his whole claim. But it was about furniture in general. Not the high end products. A simple folding chair which costs 5 bucks 10 years ago, still costs 5 bucks now. (Modulo, inflation, costs of plastics etc). A piece of high grade wooden furniture to (to let your grandchildren inherit) still costs the same now as it did 10 years ago. In general furniture prices stay the same. (Sure high end innovative stuff such as expensive office chairs is a counter example. Or fasionable furniture (don't know how people call the furniture fasion industry). But all of these invalidate the previous generation. So that is why the previous generation drops in price).

mistake? I was simply giving an example, obviously 1 example can't count an entire field, but it doesn't make it any less valid. moreover, office chairs, a high end product? am I missing something here...? but if you insist, you can pick regular(as in kitchen) chairs, desks, tables, even outdoors furniture, whatever you want... even your example of a simple 5$ folding chair(outdoors furniture) can be made from better materials, have better axises, have longer longevity, etc. not that you can go much lower than 5$ but you can make the old 5$ chairs irrelevant by offering much better products for the same 5$s. you were just looking at my example, not my entire reasoning before that example, which was your main mistake.

Heck, the whole point of technological progress is to make production as a whole cheaper, otherwise there would be no economical logic behind investing money in making better technologies in the first place...

There are loads of different reasons to improve technology, making production cheaper is one of them. Radical innovation (which tends to make new products more expensive) is another one. Gradual innovation tends to either make products more affordable, or better. Sometimes companies just create new products because a "New" sticker on the product increases sales. (That is why shampoo bottles tend to chance colors and bottle types every few years. Most of it is just marketing).[/quote]

I wouldn't call "radical innovation" as "technological progress". radical innovations is mainly in the realm of theories. if engineers or whoever else actually find useful products to be made out of these radical innovations than they usually try to make them with current technologies. it is rare for technological progress to happen on the basis of some crazy theory.

keep in mind that technological progress is not usually done by universities or other research institutions, unless said institutions found some miraculous break through. technological progress is normally done by corporations, and to a lesser extent smaller companies, as in the private sector. the private sector thinks economically, so if a technological progress doesn't improve their production lines in any way than they just won't bother with it.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd

I wouldn't call "radical innovation" as "technological progress". radical innovations is mainly in the realm of theories. if engineers or whoever else actually find useful products to be made out of these radical innovations than they usually try to make them with current technologies. it is rare for technological progress to happen on the basis of some crazy theory.

keep in mind that technological progress is not usually done by universities or other research institutions, unless said institutions found some miraculous break through. technological progress is normally done by corporations, and to a lesser extent smaller companies, as in the private sector. the private sector thinks economically, so if a technological progress doesn't improve their production lines in any way than they just won't bother with it.

Radical innovation is a term used in economics. Radical innovation creates new types of products, new markets, and doesn't happen all that often. It is more than just thinking about a new crazy theory in a ivory tower.

Incremental innovation tends to increase already existing products. Example: New types of screens, lighter products, small feature increases.

For example, transistors, personal computers, creation of the internet, working strong AI are all examples of radical innovations. They created whole new product and markets lines where none where there before.

While for example all the recent products Apple released are just gradual innovations. (The power of Apple, or at least Steve, is to make them look like radical).

You are utterly wrong about the source of radical innovation btw. Both types of innovation are done in the private sector and by universities. Private sectors do it to try to keep ahead of the competition, if your competition is ahead with developing something radical, they have a huge competitive advantage. (Sorry if my tone is a bit off here, but I did a minor in technological management, which spend a lot of time discussing innovation, different types of innovation, economics etc).

[fantasma]

Zeldor, I think they could lower the price but lack the incentive to do so because lowering would not increase sales to any significant amount. That is my guess, and, as far as I can tell, theirs as well.

I think there are two completely different aspects about dom3, games in general, let's leave out the chairs, please:

1. the idea, concept, depth, content and whatever else makes for a high replay value. Dominions is top in this category, IMHO, there are few others, sure, but few. And this does not change or lose value over time.

2. The other thing is graphics, the UI, the sound, all that can be summed up as technology and markup, and here dom3 is getting old, I agree, it was so even when it was released. This is the part of the game that gets obsolete, that demands a discount because it is far behind the standard.

That said, my opinion is that I bite the bullet of mediocre usability and arts for a high replay value, and that comes from depth and content. And if others hadn't made pledges for improvements I for sure would have. I own this game for two years at least and have maybe played have the nations beyond expansion.

Sure, I want a better graphics and especially better interface to handle micro, but I also understand why a two man developer team has better things to do than keep a running game updated, I mean in a big way, they still do minor tweaks, anyways. And I can very much understand that they have bad feelings about giving away their code to others to work on.

I forgot what the original point of the thread was, but I doubt reducing price will increase sales significantly and I tried to argue why. I wonder how much in total went to Illwinter over the years, I doubt it has accumulated to a decent wage considering the effort and knowledge put into the game. And then it is a top seller for an indy project, no?

[13lackGu4rd]

Soyweiser, while all of you're examples were indeed made by the private sector, you're missing the main point. those are actually technological improvements, not radical innovations. radical innovations were the steps prior to the actual products, in the case of the transistor for example, the radical innovation was the whole concept of semiconductors. Transistors were 1 of the first technological usages of the radical innovation called semi conductors. sure, the transistor was an entirely new product and the begining of the major field called consumer electronics today. however it is also a technological improvement to what was available before it, for example, the previously available larger radios instead of pocket/mobile radios available with the transistor. same deal goes for personal computers and all your other examples. while they were major breakthroughs they were still technological implementations of radical innovations, not the radical innovations themselves.

radical innovations have nothing to do with products, at least not at their first phase. radical innovations that prove to be useful and profitable tend to become the begining of entire product lines if not entire product fields, however not all radical innovations prove to be useful to the private sector, and remain in the theory field or in the research institutions in which they were founded.


fantasma, you're problem is that you're only taking your own opinion into your equation. however you're in a vast minority here, the majority of the Dominions3 consumers are very much different from yourself. so basing an argument on a very limited minority, or even worst, your own personal experience alone, is just plain wrong.

[thejeff]

Really? The vast majority of Dominions3 consumers prefer "graphics, the UI, the sound" over the "idea, concept, depth, content and whatever else makes for a high replay value"?

What the hell are they doing here then?

I'll grant you, you'd get more customers if you prioritized the first over the second. That's what the mainstream games do. But the result wouldn't be Dominions. And I probably wouldn't be playing it.

[Tim Brooks]

Let me ask one question. If you were starting a business and you were told that you could either:

1) sell 100,000 units of your product at $10.00 each (Gross $1,000,000) but you would have to hire 50 people to support that effort or

2) you could sell 1 unit of your product at $1,000,000 and you wouldn't have to hire anyone, you could do all the work yourself,

which would you do?

[13lackGu4rd]

quite an easy question in my opinion Tim Brooks, obviously the first. the reason is also simple. sure, you will need to pay salaries for 50 people, netting in less net income than if you do all the work yourself. however it also opens up the ability to manufacture more products, which in turn will increase your net income by a lot more than what you would have otherwise saved in salary fees. moreover, time equals money, even your own, so by letting other people work for you, you free your own time to do other things. those things can result in a higher income if that's what you wish, or they can be spending more time with your family, etc. it's your freedom to decide what to do with your time, and that can be worth a lot more than 50 salaries.