Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?

[jBrereton]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

That would be great. That would be wonderful. That could totally turn things around for the better. New players who could appreciate the game and ask for things would be fantastic.

As much as I have hoped for it I am afraid Ive been pushed into cynicism on our chances of that. But I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. If some people make an effort perhaps they could lead the way. Create an environment that would foster that.

I know this is a somewhat different case, but since a near-constant sale on the Company of Heroes series on Steam, the game's GameReplays.org site has never been busier, and there have been many, many tournaments, both from the fans and from the developers themselves, with cash prizes from the devs to keep it going.

Yeah, OK, there are new players who are piss poor at the game, but the increased player base has meant for much easier experimentation with the metagame. Which is nice.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Well what does "everybody knows" agree on?
Lower price equals many more players?
Download equals more online questions?
$50 crowd is a different demographic than $5 crowd? by age? by education? working force vs non-working?

Other than "making more money" what are the benefits of the $5 horde, and to who?
The support position is open.

You are the only person making a problem of this. (literaly, I have never seen ANYBODY except you argue this. NOBODY execpt for you wants less dom3 players. (Even I somebody who used to chew people out on IRC for being stupid and not doing their homework want more dom3 players not less. Even if it bring more stupid questions. I rather have stupid questions than the recent silence).

Hell... I even welcome more piracy of dom3. So it has more players. I like the game so much that I do not even care if illwinter is paid. (And as illwinter does not care about the money, they should not care about this either).

[elmokki]

I wholeheartedly wish the new Dominions 3 price is under 20 usd (or eur thanks to price discrimination being so very easy). Preferably closer to 10 than 20 usd to be honest. I bet pricing like that would earn Illwinter more too, but supposedly they don't care about money. Well, yeah, there are two possible reasons that I find rational for stopping Shrapnel distribution: They want to sell more for more profit or they want to sell more so more people can enjoy the game. I bet that price elasticity of the demand for Dominions 3 is such that the optimal monopoly pricing is closer to $20 than to $30, but I can guarantee the game sells more with $20 than $50 price tag.

That said especially Steam but also Gamersgate and Desura will probabily give a hell of a lot more exposure to the game too than Shrapnel's obscure webshop.

The only single way that would make more players genuinely a bad thing is if you had to take newbies to multiplayer games due to servers being totally open - especially in very team play orientated games and public servers that is a real concern. However, in Dominions 3 you can choose who to play with should you feel like that.

More players means more players for multiplayer and also more user made content. That's just all good.

[elmokki]

I thought the "High price is actually better and Steam/Desura/Gamersgate are worse than Shrapnel" argument was extremely irrational, but apparently it was completely rational!

http://brokenforum.com/index.php?thr...to-steam.4042/

Pros and Cons. So far the sites that carry Illwinters other game havent thrilled me.
(Conquest of Elysium 3 on Desura, GamersGate, Steam for those interested)
But it does open positions for support and PR if anyone is interested.
Personally I want to snap up the PR if I can replace the referral income. The change shut down my income from my Dom3 shop.

No income from referring people to buy the game when it's on Steam/Gamersgate/Desura instead of Amazon etc! Personal gain does make all these arguments completely rational.

For most of the Dominions 3 community, potential players and even Illwinter Desura/Gamersgate/Steam and potentially (probably) lower pricing are just great. Obviously though people who profited from the old market price and distributor don't think so

[Admiral_Aorta]

clearly dominions 3 should only be purchasable by people with a annual income of $400,000 or more, so as to keep out inferior players that we don't want to associate with. more money=better than after all.

[Edi]

One of the rationales for stopping distribution through Shrapnel that I can think of is retaining (or regaining, depending on what sort of contract they had) full control over aspects of the intellectual property.

All the past arguments about the pricing of Dominions 3 were based on the situation where Shrapnel Games was the exclusive distributor and controlled the price point. As Tim and Annette and Scott explained many times in many threads, for their business model, they found that the high price worked best. Not knowing any of the numbers regarding sales, all I can do is take their word for it.

The new situation with new distribution channels, once that becomes a reality, may well work very differently and we'll see. However, it is absolutely no use arguing about it here now, especially if the arguments are just warmed over rehashes of the earlier ones based on the previous setup, which no longer exists.

Personally, I regard anything that expands the community a good thing. As long as the people who join actually put some thought and effort into it, that is. Buying a game at any given price is absolutely zero indication of the potential caliber of the person to the community, as we have previously witnessed in the forms of the late, unlamented Lord Bob and numerous others of the same sort.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by elmokki

but I can guarantee the game sells more with $20 than $50 price tag.

That has always been something everyone could agree on.

That said especially Steam but also Gamersgate and Desura will probabily give a hell of a lot more exposure to the game too than Shrapnel's obscure webshop.

Shrapnel has a PR person who did press releases for each version and delivered them to sites that rate games. As far as I could tell, it was pretty extensive. But as I said, it does make the PR position open for any fanboi who writes well. Search out the sites and make sure they know whats coming.

Steam does seem to have a large crowd who go there regularly and eagerly stays aware of any changes on that site. It will definitely have an impact. Many new players. There are many people here who pressed for the game to go to Steam and some of them said they wished it for the good of Illwinter, and the good of the game in general, not just a price break. Now can be their chance to step into it and be ready to catch that incoming flow of new players. Id love to see that happen.

The only single way that would make more players genuinely a bad thing is if you had to take newbies to multiplayer games due to servers being totally open

Well I have certainly done my part there. Ive pushed the server aspect in many forums and helped them get started. There are now easily half a dozen, and another dozen or so doing more private games.

That reminds me. I should scrape those threads.

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Shrapnel has a PR person who did press releases for each version and delivered them to sites that rate games. As far as I could tell, it was pretty extensive. But as I said, it does make the PR position open for any fanboi who writes well. Search out the sites and make sure they know whats coming.

Shrapnel press releases. Seriously? Does any media of any kind even make news based on those? Well, probably some niche internet sites might mention it. Just putting a -25% on the title and potentially getting it to Steam front page is probably hell of a lot more exposure than that.

That said best publicity for sales is probably just having it available easily (Steam etc), have a low enough price point for impulse buys and have friends who recommend it. First two Shrapnel did not have and the third is pretty much generated by the first two.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well they generated LPs which generated a lot of people. Whatever. Same thing, different words.

OK so if Steam is going to be the only PR then who is taking in the Steamers? I dont steam so I dont really know. Steam has forums doesnt it? And some sort of game server arrangement?
Problem solved?

[momfreeek]

With steam moving in the direction of linux support (http://steamforlinux.com/) dom3 could presumably have a more prominent standing in that market. Perhaps that exposure isn't significant next to the advantage of simply being available on steam for windows though.