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Old March 25th, 2009, 10:12 AM

getter77 getter77 is offline
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Default Re: Why Not Digitial Distribution?

Much of this comes down to value perceptions on top of awareness. For example, Elven Legacy comes out in another week or so for about $30. Stardock's Elemental comes out in a year or so for about $50. Dom III runs about $60 for the last good while.

Is Elven Legacy a budget piece of junk due to such a low price? Doubt it.
Is Dom III overpriced considering the stream of content and fixes? Nope.
Is Elemental asking too much versus the cost of Elven Legacy? Nope

All 3 games have entirely different business situations and mindshare among the consumers going for them. Thus it is little wonder the pricing schemes are different. However, in terms of visibility, Dom III falls far behind the other two since they can leverage off of each other's presence in one or more high traffic areas for gaming enthusiasts.

None of these games are for "everyone". Thus, and has been showcased through the years from the sales of predecessors, there is a limited but decently sized market of players that either have bought into this style before, are currently doing so, or might be a candidate to do so due to gaming tastes in peripheral genres. I fall into the latter as a Roguelike guy and only discovered Dom III by a combination of accidents and sudden realizations.

So, if you've a pool to draw from, best take whatever low cost measures possible to get visibility and a sustained presence to said pool. The more choices the consumers can be informed about, the better the overall experience and competition between all concerned. There's ALWAYS overlap in a niche at some point, ALWAYS---so better sooner than later.

The price point in terms of perceived value to an enthusiast is also something to bear in mind. Think of it this way: If Dom III came out and never saw a single patch/update, same for the upcoming Elven Legacy and Elemental, would one really expect any of the titles to maintain their launch price a year after the fact and perceived value to the target enthusiast audience? I should think not barring a magical release of a perfect and fully realized product. Because the developers and community have continued to work hard and regularly improve the game well beyond when it was first released, I see it as perfectly logical that the price has not collapsed significantly as a reaction to the many people who simply then would not have paid the starting amount for a game abandoned after launch.
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