So no Dominions 4?

[Edi]

If I compare value for money of the Dominions franchise to anything else I own on the gaming side, it's no contest. Dominions wipes the floor with everything else, though some other games I have played a lot and still play. I've bought every Dominions game and never been disappointed. Sure, I have my own gripes about some stuff and I haven't exactly been quiet (which is why I got put in charge of managing the bug reports), but in the end those gripes are minor. The price is not one of the sticking points for me.

Considering how much time I've spent playing the game and fiddling with it, $60 is nothing. I'd pay that in euros for this game, which would be $90 or more at current rates of exchange. I've got games I paid an equal amount for and didn't play a lot at all.

As far as the community goes, there is a fairly good amount of permanence here, as far as permanence wrt any game goes. That's because currently there is nothing that can hold a candle to Dominions in the turn based strategy genre. Notto mention that if you do fork over the 60 bucks for Dominions 3, not only do you get the game and the manual, you will also be able to use all the stuff that has been provided here for free. Which is a damn lot for an indie game, I should say. As someone who has actually made a lot of that free stuff, I can say that making it has also been fun, though frustrating at times. Been part of the value for money I've gotten for Dom3, the exploration.

As far as the Shrapnel Games decision to charge $55, that's theirs to make. They have all the data on how many copies they sell, what it costs to produce and they have comparison data from a lot of other things. They have been successful in this business for years, so they know what they are doing. If Dominions 3 is going to drop in price, it'll probably only be to $49 to cross the psychological barrier DonCorazon was talking about, but it certainly won't come down from that.

There is also the thing that lowering prices to bargain bin levels is what the mainstream games do because they have a market of tens of millions of users. Dominions does not, so lowering the price significantly is not going to recoup the costs. The people who are interested in this kind of game are generally willing to pay the $45 to $55 (that's counting periodic discounts) for it and they will usually feel they are getting their money's worth. Not everyone, but then, there is always someone who is disappointed.

[JimMorrison]

God I am not even going to bother quoting you this time. Kraftwerk, it makes me sad that you used such a cool name, because you truly are utterly clueless. It's like you're going through some crappy economics course in a community college, from a guy who thinks the biggest favor that he can do for you is to plug you in to the mainstream economy with both feet on the ground.

I hate to break it to you, but first off, Dominions (as has been stated earlier) is in fact, art. It is not a chair that you pay materials+ for, it is conceptual expression, and you will pay whatever it is worth to you, or not. If your friends won't try the demo to see if they want to buy it, then there is no reason whatsoever to assume that lowering the price will in fact incentivize them.

I'm going to skip your blather about cheaper indie titles, did it ever occur to you that they HAD to lower prices to stimulate sales, whereas you are being told by all comers that Dominions in fact does NOT have to lower prices to stimulate sales?

Then we get to the Starbucks fallacy. You're actually eroding your own argument here, and you don't even realize it. You see, Starbucks is Bioshock, and Oblivion. Dominions, is the little coffee shop up the block from your house, with the amazing pastries. You see, in the world of coffee, people are starting to turn away from the mass produced "lowest common denominator" garbage. Coffee (read: espresso) drinkers (I am one of them) are snobs, and Starbucks isn't cool enough anymore. Dominions players tend to be a bit snobby as well (though we hide it here, since we're all the cream at the top ), and it's only a matter of time before you grow up and you realize that all the mass marketed media that you're gorging on, really isn't very substantial. Somewhere around the time you realize you should come back here and apologize for stinking up the boards, your buddies will just buy the damned game for $60.

That is, if you're not working overtime every week as a dishwasher to support your 19 year old wife and three kids.

Now see, I promised myself I wouldn't get nasty, and look what you made come out of my fingers..... < sigh >

[Kraftwerk]

Then we get to the Starbucks fallacy. You're actually eroding your own argument here, and you don't even realize it. You see, Starbucks is Bioshock, and Oblivion. Dominions, is the little coffee shop up the block from your house, with the amazing pastries. You see, in the world of coffee, people are starting to turn away from the mass produced "lowest common denominator" garbage. Coffee (read: espresso) drinkers (I am one of them) are snobs, and Starbucks isn't cool enough anymore. Dominions players tend to be a bit snobby as well (though we hide it here, since we're all the cream at the top ), and it's only a matter of time before you grow up and you realize that all the mass marketed media that you're gorging on, really isn't very substantial. Somewhere around the time you realize you should come back here and apologize for stinking up the boards, your buddies will just buy the damned game for $60.

That is, if you're not working overtime every week as a dishwasher to support your 19 year old wife and three kids.

Now see, I promised myself I wouldn't get nasty, and look what you made come out of my fingers..... < sigh >

But at the local coffee shop, coffee is 15 cents a cup. At starbucks its 6 friggin dollars. So I dont get that. And shove the high and mighty mass media this and that, ma and pop mumbo jumbo, everything is mass media, this forum, the shirts you wear, the car you drive, the billboards you pass by, youre just as bombarded by it, and involved in its proliferation as anyone you want to point fingers at.

Fact is, the coffee in the cup is the same coffee. The bits and bytes are the same in every piece of software. You dont want to be subjected to scrutiny against mass produced products? Dont compete in a free market. Lifes tough, the markets are harsh, and the lowest common denominator at the end of the day, is where the bargain is, and in a world increasingly wary of spending its dollar, the lower common denominator is whats going to sell.

You dont pay out the wazoo for a print of a painting, theyre all about the same regardless of the artistic content.

For someone who apparently likes Kraftwerk, youd think youd know abit more about (or like) Andy Warhols POP! movement that kraftwerk was a result of. You can mass produce art and sell it for a reasonable price.

You dont have to be snobby smug intellectual to appreaciate it either. You can be a plain plum dumb consumer, and have just as much right to purchase a product at a reasonable price as anyone else, regardless of your level of appreciation.

Art is a product.

[Leif_-]

Kraftwerk said:
Fact is, the coffee in the cup is the same coffee.

That's like saying that the games produces by EA Games and Sid Meier are the same games. It's quite simply not the case.

For someone who apparently likes Kraftwerk, youd think youd know abit more about (or like) Andy Warhols POP! movement that kraftwerk was a result of. You can mass produce art and sell it for a reasonable price.

An Andy Warhol print is going to cost you a lot more than a copy of Dominions 3, even though there's gone more time and work into making Dominions 3. So what was your point again?

Art is a product.

But it's a product where there's no obvious relationship between the cost of manufacture and the value of the finished product.