Any Plans

[NTJedi]

Zeldor said:
sector24:

Oh yes, Heroes of Might and Magic 4&5, what a waste of money...

Very True... these developers like many others were more concerned about providing great graphics and thus came at the cost of reducing game content, map size, game balance, and other features. I recall watching one Heroes_IV interview where a developer was so happy displaying the pretty graphics... made me want to stuff gernades down his throat after discovering the stuff missing/reduced from Heroes_III. Unfortunately many developers push a game with a main focus on graphics for career reasons... it's easier to show what you developed than explain the importance of a powerful artificial intelligence you created.

[Zeldor]

S.R. Krol:

I wouldn't really agree on that. There are aware and unaware consumers. They have different buying habits and there are way more unaware ones. That kind of people will buy many new games on the day of release and pay full retail price, even if he could buy it 20-30% cheaper, the same day, in different store. Other people will be more careful, they will often check demos and/or download pirated version. They will also look for the best price. But they are minority. At least it looks like that in US and I guess the same goes for Western Europe [situation in poorer countries is really different as many other factors come in the way].

The thing that works best on about 90% gamers are good advertisement [by good I mean lots of it, not quality] and nice graphics. Dominions doesn't have anything. But everything needs money, making a new game with good 3d engine costs at least $5M dollars, I guess that with the amount of nations and contents Dominions have it would be at least $10. And you would be able to post beautiful screenies. But even then you would have to spend millions on ads and to pay all that review sites to give you good scores [I guess no one here is naive enough to trust that sites]. And for that you would have to sell that game in B&M stores, so you would have to share your profits with the shop, publisher and so on.

They will get some money from Dominions 3 but it will be far from enough to make that campaign for Dominions 4. I just hope they will take regular salary and contribute all their time [40 hours per week at least ] for Dominions 4 or other great game

[Zeldor]

NTJedi:

IT is not about easier, it is what their bosses expect from them. Most companies make games for money, not for gamers. Illwinter is one of the few examples of games made 'by gamers for gamers'. 2 other that I can think of are Blizzard and Splash Damage/ID Software.

[Theonlystd]

S.R. Krol said:
@ Agrajag: Heh heh.

@ Theonlystd: As you can probably already guess, my feelings run along the same line as Capnq's response. I wanted to take a moment to further point out a couple of more differences.

The mainstream retail market has conditioned consumers to expect to see games marked down within weeks of release. Depending on how popular the game is, this mark down could be as much as 50% for those not selling well. Online retailers, needing to (a) compete with the brick and mortar world and (b) needing to sell in large volume typically mark down their games. Again, this creates a condition whereas the consumer expects to never have to pay full retail price for their game.

One of the initial reasons the indie world sprung up was to give the developers/publishers control over their own destiny, such as avoiding the scenario painted above. An indie developer can set their price and not worry that in two weeks after release they'll have to cut the price by 10%, 20%, et cetera.

And where does the money go between mainstream and indie games? For mainstream developers they're lucky to see even a dollar off of every purchase. Sometimes they see nothing.
For the indie developer though they're seeing a nice chunk of change for each purchase, which in turn means things like for the next game they can afford to upgrade their computers, hire more artists, and so on. Why would anyone volunteer to essentially take a pay cut as time goes on? Does anyone at a "normal" job say, "Hey boss, I've been here a month, please cut my salary in half!"

It's also interesting to me that folks sometimes expect indie games to cost less, simply because they're indie titles. I think some of that comes from the fact that too many developers undervalue their products, and sell everything for $19.95, although this has never been true for other publishers such as HPS, Spiderweb, or Stardock.

But here's some food for thought: in the real world outside of computer games "indie" products normally cost *more* than their mass produced items. For example, when buying a one-of-a-kind handcrafted bed you're going to pay more than a made in China, pressboard bed. So really, shouldn't indie games actually end up costing *more* than mainstream games, since they're handcrafted labors of love?

What if we strip the indie label though? Why not look at Shrapnel as simply a publisher who doesn't sell in brick and mortar stores?

In the end, hey, I know nothing I said above will ultimately make a difference for your friends to decide to open their wallets. People spend money as they see fit. But I hope it at least provides some insight as to why things are as they are.

Finally, yes, as I mentioned and as others have, there are periodical sales, although you won't ever see anything approaching 30-40% off. I just checked Amazon and they have it for $49.99, and it ships free. But no, don't expect any drastic price reductions in the near future.

Well i wouldnt be asking about this only a few weeks after release.. Its been over a year ..

And it wouldnt really be a pay cut unless of course the game is still selling at rates comparable to when it was just released ..


When you buy a 1 of a kind handcrafted bed some guy spent countless hours on making that one just for you.. Unless every copy thats sold is reprogrammed from scratch or something thats not a good comparison . The reason console games and such cost 60 dollars now is cause you need a team of hundreds working 8 to 5 for months at a time to get graphics up to the level expected . And thats also the reason people expect indy games to be cheaper is cause they dont have the costs involved in hiring a team of artists and all that. Which makes subpar graphics acceptable to.


Personally i think a price cut would help get some more people interested in buying the game and such..

But if you have no plans on doing that..Well its your guys game

[Stryke11]

My friend was also a bit skeptical about the cost, so I bought him a copy!

Seriously, I can say that no other game I have (except Rome: Total War, and that's only because of the mods Rome: Total Realism and Fourth Age: Total War) has kept me as involved and interested as Dom. It is worth every penny.

I also don't think it's just money. Some (most) people just don't want to spend the time/have the time to learn a game as complex as Dom.

That being said, I'd be more than willing to pay some more (though not full price) for a expansion pack/Gold edition that has an updated manual with all the new nations, and a complete bugfix.

[capnq]

sector24 said:Obviously the developers deserve the money, but maybe there is a way to create a price break for a Dominions "light" vs. a Dominions "gold". The light version costs less, has full functionality, but perhaps slightly less content. Fewer nations, maps, maybe just Early Era.

That is basically what the Dominions 3 demo does.

Costs less = free - check.

Full functionality = OK, I suppose this is arguable, but I don't think that not being able to check out the map editor(s) is going to change anybody's purchase decision. The only limits to game play I've noticed in the demo are the upper limits on research and number of turns, both of which fall under "less content", IMO. (Haven't tried to do a network game, so I don't know if that's functional.)

Less content, fewer nations & maps, Early Era only - check x4.

I don't see how a "lite" version between the demo and the full game would be anything but extra work for less return for the developers.

[S.R. Krol]

@Zeldor: Actually you'd be surprised at how little advertising matters. What really impacts sales? Good reviews. For all the folks who say "Bah, I don't read reviews because the reviewers all suck/are on the take/only grade in 7-8/yadda yadda yadda" there is always an immediate spike in sales when a new review crops up. And if there is one thing that Dominions has gotten is plenty of reviews, from the smallest publication to the powerhouses. Hell, the Bruce versus Tom column in CGW (now GFW), which wasn't even a review, brought a lot of fresh eyes on the game.

@Theonlystd : The argument about cutting the price to attract more people crops up periodically and the response is always the same. At what point do you stop cutting the price?

It sells for $54. Okay, we cut it to $44. Now someone comes along and goes, "If it was only $10 cheaper I bet more people would buy it..." Okay, so it's now $34. And it goes on and on and on, until finally someone goes, "Hey, if it was free then you'd even get more people to play it!" That's fine if you're doing it as a hobby, but rather silly from a business perspective.

And really, no offense to those that argue that they'd buy it if it was only $___ (insert whatever price here) cheaper, but we're not talking about something that is selling for hundreds or thousands of dollars. Really, if you can afford $44 you can afford $54.

Oh, one last thing. Dominions 3 had more pre-orders than any other game we've ever offered, and has been in our top three sellers every month since its release. So yes, it continues to sell quite well.

As suggested have your friends check out the game. I'm sure they'll come around and realize they can forego something else in their monthly budget for Dominions.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Well, the huge amount of pre-orders might correlate with the fact that pre-orders were 10$ less, if I remember correctly...

[S.R. Krol]

The pre-order price was $47.50, so seven and change cheaper than the normal price. I really doubt that was the reason for all the pre-orders though, as most folks aren't going to pre-order a product unless they already have an interest no matter how discounted the pre-order is. Rather, I would think most folks pre-ordering where already fans of the series, with a smattering of people they've talked into joining the cult.

[NTJedi]

Zeldor said:
NTJedi:

IT is not about easier, it is what their bosses expect from them. Most companies make games for money, not for gamers. Illwinter is one of the few examples of games made 'by gamers for gamers'. 2 other that I can think of are Blizzard and Splash Damage/ID Software.

Neither state of the art graphics or state of the art artificial intelligence is easy. Each game has a senior lead developer who decides the features, content and graphics of a game. The boss of the senior lead developer typically give the deadlines and type of genre for the game.

Another company which made games for gamers was Bioware... hence Neverwinter Nights. Recently they've been bought by Electronic Arts... so things might change.