Why Not Digitial Distribution? - Page 19

JimMorrison · #**181** March 24th, 2009, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

However the "magic numbers" for changing such things are well known and have been for a long time to anyone who has ever taken a marketing class.

You don't have to go to a school to learn how a cost

efit ratio works.....

Gandalf Parker · #**182** March 24th, 2009, 07:04 PM

There isnt much you HAVE to go to college to understand. Its just a compilation.

But it includes more than cost/benefit. Many people dont understand why so many products are priced 5.99 or 19.99 or 59.99. Or diminishing numbers when operating on a niche market. Or the difference between marketing and publicity.

Theonlystd · #**183** March 24th, 2009, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

There isnt much you HAVE to go to college to understand. Its just a compilation.

But it includes more than cost/benefit. Many people dont understand why so many products are priced 5.99 or 19.99 or 59.99. Or diminishing numbers when operating on a niche market. Or the difference between marketing and publicity.

Well i understand why they havnt wanted to lower the price cause of a niche market and that good stuff at first ..

But its been 2 and a half years a price cut couldnt hurt or atleast digital distrubtion to help lower the costs on a allready expensive product wouldnt be that terrible either.

I really think a lack of digital distribution kills there chances at an impulse buyers.. I know when i bored i end up buying something off gamers gate or steam.. I wouldnt buy it if i was going to have to wait for it to ship to me threw snail mail .

And i dont think the game is that niche..

Kings Bounty has been pretty popular, The recently awful Heroes of might and magic series pumps outs expansions and sure another is in the work besides there browser one they are working on.. One of the most popular mods for Civ4 is the fall from heaven mod.. And Stardocks elemental war of magic is one of the more eagerly awaited games . All of these are turn based strategy fantasy games that are pretty popular .And these are just the ones i remember off the top of my head

Dom3 i've never seen it advertised anywhere , and it costs alot more than all those doesnt match up in the graphics department . So i know alot of people overlook it without a second thought.

But as said i harp on this everytime these threads pop up. And ill do it every time one comes up hoping something changes

. And no matter what the price is ill keep recommending the game to anyone i know who enjoys strategy games and maybe ill get someone to give it a try ..

JimMorrison · #**184** March 24th, 2009, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

There isnt much you HAVE to go to college to understand. Its just a compilation.

But it includes more than cost/benefit. Many people dont understand why so many products are priced 5.99 or 19.99 or 59.99. Or diminishing numbers when operating on a niche market. Or the difference between marketing and publicity.

Well the point is that if you had Shrapnel's sales figures, you had estimates of costs for DD solutions, and you had ballpark figures on the % of people who will only buy through DD, you can pretty easily see whether or not it would be cost effective.

I do agree, that I think it's silly that people who have not even one of those three pieces of information, try to argue the point.

Gandalf Parker · #**185** March 25th, 2009, 12:10 AM

Another point is that DD is not a finalized solution. It is a proven one, but not a finalized one. There is no ready-made package for providing DD which is secure for both customer and distributor. Its not like shopping carts, or online sales. Basically the concept of DD is still alpha for each company doing it.

Figuring in the possible gains of a slightly increased market vs the possible losses of putting the biggest money-maker onto DD too soon is likely to also fit into the formula.

Endoperez · #**186** March 25th, 2009, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Another point is that DD is not a finalized solution. It is a proven one, but not a finalized one. There is no ready-made package for providing DD which is secure for both customer and distributor. Its not like shopping carts, or online sales. Basically the concept of DD is still alpha for each company doing it.

I think this has started to change, or has been taken care of already. Valve's Steam has been around for a while, and it's offering services to third-party games. Steam's competitors might still have some quirks to take care of, but since they already have Steam to copy from they can focus on the security issues. Even the newest game consoles offer games (mostly small ones) through their network services.

Not that it necessarily affects Shrapnel Games' decisions.

Omnirizon · #**187** March 25th, 2009, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Another point is that DD is not a finalized solution. It is a proven one, but not a finalized one. There is no ready-made package for providing DD which is secure for both customer and distributor. Its not like shopping carts, or online sales. Basically the concept of DD is still alpha for each company doing it.

I think this has started to change, or has been taken care of already. Valve's Steam has been around for a while, and it's offering services to third-party games. Steam's competitors might still have some quirks to take care of, but since they already have Steam to copy from they can focus on the security issues. Even the newest game consoles offer games (mostly small ones) through their network services.

Not that it necessarily affects Shrapnel Games' decisions.

in the ramp up to the Wii, Nintendo actively stamped out any trace of ROMs of Nintendo published games across the interwebs; all because they intended to make all these old games available as downloads on the Wii and didn't want the presence of ROMs cutting in.

Not that it had any effect, seriously. First off, the experience of playing a game on an actual console, with proper sound, control, and a big TV is leagues beyond a ROM on an emulator. If I had a ROM on an emulator that I liked, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase it if I could play it on my console and it was as easy as getting it through DD. Second off, Nintendo didn't really do much by stamping out the presence of ROMs through direct download except to push connoisseurs to package all the Nintendo published ROMs in torrent downloads and provide a large population of active torrents for these ROMs, allowing them to all be gotten at once for much easier; Iron Law of Prohibition strikes again.

Back to my main point. DD is beyond alpha. It's being used by major corporations to give greater coverage to their marginal products.

Dragar · #**188** March 25th, 2009, 02:45 AM

Digital distribution issues aside, which I know next to nothing about, I don't know what the fuss is about the price.. maybe it's because games are so overpriced here in australia, but this was a lot cheaper than most games I'd find in a store. In terms of impulse buying, surely this isn't the kind of game that many people buy on impulse?

It is exactly because of the kind of game it is and the depth in gameplay alongside fairly primitive graphics that is why I don't see its value diminishing over time. Graphics were never the selling point, as they are in a lot of modern games. Gameplay is where dominions shine and that hasn't degraded relative to the competition whatsoever since it was released. It's one thing for a flashy new game with mint graphics built for the latest video cards, which 2 years down the track are outdone by newer games, but Dominions is still just as desirable to its niche audience, especially with all of the patch updates.

I also don't think you can really say there are lots of TBS fantasy alternates by pointing to a non-commercial mod (Civ 4's fall from heaven) or game that hasn't even hit beta (elemental), while HOMM is a very different game and hasn't had a new release for a couple of years now.

Sombre · #**189** March 25th, 2009, 04:57 AM

Compare dom3 in price to other fantasy strategy games released years ago. I don't think people are making a fuss about it, it's just that it's an expensive game. I don't know about pricing in Australia but dom3 still costs more than most new pc games in the UK, provided you shop smart. Something you aren't able to do with dom3.

Zeldor · #**190** March 25th, 2009, 08:04 AM

We have been talking about it long enough. I think that most people agree that downloadable version would be a good idea. But we are not Shrapnel. I don't like Shrapnel personally. They just happened to get one good game - Dominions. I think their business model is flawed and that they have no idea about selling games or doing any advertisement.

And yeah, pirating dominions is very easy. It's not hard to find it. It comes with full manual in pdf. But you don't get multiplayer. Or latest patches. Partly because hackers rather don't care so much about a niche game with small playerbase.

My dream is that Illwinter makes Dom4 with new code and most of desired features and releases it through someone else.