Illwinter's next project

[Gandalf Parker]

There is no marketing. Marketing involves money laid out ahead of the game. That has to be paid back before the devs see any profit. Same with shelfware, or other distribs. That is not the Shrapnel way (started by a dev for devs). There is no major contract, development pay, marketing, shelfware to have to pay back. Here its publicity and distro, not the marketing and shelfware model.

The publicity does pretty good. There isnt a game site that doesnt list Dom3 and the press releases show up instantly on the net. Pretty good for free. And people do hear about it that way. Standard marketing would be laughed at unless (like is forced in other game companies) it went 3D and major sound bytes. Sure more money could be made if the big-buis game was played but no one is interested in it

And the download is regretted enough without going steam too. Too expensive to maintain

[brxbrx]

A Steam sale can do wonders for a game's popularity.

People think "Why not? Sounds somewhat interesting, and it's very affordable. Why miss the opportunity?"
That's certainly influenced some of my purchases, the only such one I regret being Settlers 7.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes it could.
But its too much overhead to maintain steam. Its almost too much overhead to maintain direct download. Thats why most places only choose one form or another

[Deathblob]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

There is no marketing.

Well what are all those "I want my Dominions 3" ads, then?

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Deathblob

Well what are all those "I want my Dominions 3" ads, then?

Customer testimonies.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Deathblob

Well what are all those "I want my Dominions 3" ads, then?

You will see those in other places also. (anywhere that they are free)

[Finalgenesis]

I've always assume that low game exposure is intentional, maybe in the vein of staying off the beaten path and the like. The game really is HARD to find out about, I can guarantee that the exposure of dom 3 to it's potential customer base is very low.

[S.R. Krol]

Bear in mind the age of Dominions 3. The vast majority of games are discovered during their initial release period, when the reviews are out and folks are talking about the game on blogs, et cetera. In this regard Dominions 3 was no different. It's much quieter now because it's been what, six years since release? And actually when you consider you can find multiplayer games going on today on a majority of major gaming forums there is still exposure on a daily basis in some spots. How many other games from 2005 can say that?

[Gandalf Parker]

I do like that aspect of it. The many other forums have picked up where this one has dropped out.

I also love that if you google it, you are hard pressed to find any posts against it. Another of "how many games can you say that about"

Something else to consider, just as players.....
advertising might bring in more players but would you really want that? Now the players find out about it from serious gaming newsgroups and gaming sites.

[Valerius]

I prefer the Shrapnel or GOG model to Steam. No, I don't pirate software, I just don't like the idea of having to install third party software in order to activate/run a game. I wouldn't care if it were also offered on Steam, Impulse, etc, but would prefer that to not be the only option.

You can argue back and forth as to whether this would result in greater sales/profit and I don't know what the result would be. But even if the result were greater sales I'm not sure why that would matter to me as a player. Sure, if I like IW games (and right now I'm not sure if I like their games or like Dominions - COE3 will help answer that for me) then it's in my interest that the game sells well enough to encourage future development. But they seem content enough with the sales of D3 that they are working on another game, so that doesn't seem to be an issue (and I've always liked the fact that attempting to bludgeon them with "if you want to make more money you'll do so and so" doesn't get far). As has been mentioned, there's still plenty of MP games going on six years after release so I don't see a problem there either. The only other advantage of having more players that I can think of is you might have more mod content. That's not a big deal for me either but for some people that would be a benefit and is really the main advantage I can think of from a player's perspective.