Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

I've been hosting games for people in an off site community for a while now. One thing I've noticed is that beyond the price tag (which is helped at least by the periodic discounts you guys offer), the biggest reason people post about not buying the game is they literally don't want to wait for it in the mail and would prefer to download it.

Dominions is a great series (been playing since the second one) and it sucks that more people aren't exposed to it. Have you guys considered getting joining up with steam or offering your own download service?

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

I've said the same thing before.

I would *really* like to see this game out on Steam. D:

Jazzepi

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

*sigh* Not again... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

We do offer digital downloads. Not Dominions 3 though.

And really, what's the big deal about waiting a couple days to a week for it? They don't have it now, right? Is an extra seven days of not having it really going to make a difference?

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

The thing is that you are missing out on the impulse-buying market. Occasionally I will just sit down in an evening and think "I'm bored. I haven't spent any money for a bit - I should treat myself", and then go and do something like buy the latest GalCivII expansion, or Portal, or something else like that. Since people can't do that for Dominions the decision has to be a more considered one. Upon further consideration, buying games often seems far from essential, so they just won't do it.

If you really wanted to sell more copies of Dominions, there is a lot you could do. Imagine a website with descriptions and backstories for all the races. You'd get people frothing at the mouth.

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

You are kidding, right? Of course it's going to make a difference. That's why people offer digital distribution. The manual could be given out on PDF, and the game downloaded the same day. I really like the sales model this guy uses. I bought the game, and when you purchase it you download everything right away. You could even make corrections in the PDF, add player made content to the PDF, and/or add player made content to the game by bundling it with the download. It would reduce overhead and increase revenue at the same time. How cool would it be if you could download all the nice, polished mods when you bought DOM3 straight from the website?

http://www.basiliskgames.com/

It might be seven days in the states, but it's much longer for people outside of the US. I know some person had to wait a month+ for their game. Digital distribution would solve all of that.

Jazzepi

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

Even though alot of people seem to be against it, I support this too. I've spent plenty of money that I probably wouldn't have on things that couldn't be downloaded.
Digital Distribution is so much fun n_n.

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

With Gal Civ 2 I was able to Download the game/cd key online and pay an extra 5 bucks to get the CD's shipped to me. Perhaps with Dom3 they could do it where you could download the game and get a password for the "I want to play now" aspect and then the person would get the actual CD/manual in the mail a week or two later.

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

I may be wrong here (and feel perfectly free to tell me so) but I think Shrapnel is very sensitive to piracy, far more so than some companies. Digitial download opens the dark door to the scary place. Some companies believe that the increased sales outweigh the small percentage of pirated copies, but I have never seen any hard numbers on this subject.

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

I got it the usual way. I also got DomII usual way, but I had to wait for more than 6 months for that, because I couldn't order it on my own and my parents thought it would have a negative effect on my grades.

That reminds me, even though the Shrapnel stuff probably knows the numbers a bit better then me, I'm pretty sure if you sold Dominions 3 on retail you'd have even more buyers! All those impulse-buyers who wander around in PC shops looking for something to buy would see it and buy it, because Dominions is so well known. Also, there are a lot of people who can't or don't want to buy games online, and I bet they'd all buy Dominions as well. Also, translating the game and the manual to multiple languages would be great. Something like esperanto would be perfect - there are probably speakers of esperanto in all countries of the world, which would be a huge boost in your market when compared to just those who understand English. Also, it would be so cool to buy Vatican-version of Dominions to play Marignon. Latin for the win!

Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?
 

I always find this type of argument very silly. Steve Jobs wrote an interesting piece talking about how the vast majority of music sold by CD-labels is sold DRM free, or with DRM that is so easy to circumvent that it might as well not even be there. CD ripping software is easy to use, and convenient.

On the flip side, said Jobs, the DRM you buy from digital downloads is atrocious.

Why then, if the vast majority of your output is unprotected, do you mire a rather small proportion of it in this draconic, DIVX style, DRM? The answer is, you shouldn't be.

So to make the comparison complete, the DRM on Dom 3 (CD-key) is relatively trivial. Pirated copies are out there on the internet, available with CD-keys. This is a reality of modern gaming that applies readily not just to Dom 3, but to all games.

So the idea that releasing it into a format with digital downloading would somehow increase piracy, when the game is already readily available in pirated form, is just silly. The genie is already out of the metaphorical bottle. By making the game available for download on say, Steam, which has decent DRM in place that would not require any more work by the illwinter staff AFAIK, they'd be able to reach a whole new audience.

Personally I'd /love/ to see Dom 3 turn into a block buster multimillion dollar product for the designers of the game. That way they could actually hire some people, and churn out Dom 4 with all sorts of neat goodies. Of which I would be first in line to pre order the gold version http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Just to nip this in the bud, I have both a legitimate copy of Dom 2 and 3. I was thinking about taking a photo with my copy of the Dom 3 manual, but I seem to have misplaced my digital camera during the move =\

Jazzepi