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[blueblimp]

Clarifications:

• Assume the client quality is at least as good as Goko+Salvager.
• If you've paid for Dominion Online already, imagine that you haven't.
• Large expansion = Intrigue/Seaside/Prosperity/Hinterlands. Larger and smaller expansions would cost proportionately more or less, respectively.
• Currency is USD.

[Awaclus]

I voted $10 because there wasn't an option between $5 and $10, but I probably wouldn't actually pay $10 for a large expansion.

[jsh357]

I voted $5.  It isn't that I don't think Dominion is better than $5 per expansion; I'm just being realistic.  Whenever I buy digital games, I generally get them on sale or for very low prices.  Maybe just because I grew up when everything you could buy was physical for the most part, I don't see as much value in digital items.  If I lose computer access, suddenly I've got nothing, whereas if I have a physical game, well, I still own that.  I've bought all the physical Dominion sets too, most of them at full price, and I thought they were worth that even though I play them less.  Plus, I never had much faith Goko/whoever would still be around in a few years, so I waited for them to lower the price they were initially asking for.

For pointless analysis, I'll look at two other games I own digitally that I love almost as much as Dominion.  I got Dark Souls for $5 and have played over 300 hours of it so far.  I got Plants vs Zombies for $1 on two different platforms and have played probably 100+ hours across various devices, plus my wife has played it almost as many.  That is a ton of mileage out of a tiny cost, much less than I paid for Dominion Online.  I've probably played more Dominion than that, but if we go by those dollar amounts the whole thing would still only be 'worth' $15 tops.  Obviously these games are incompatible, but I think a lot of PC and mobile gamers have this experience.

So I'm saying $5 per expansion is fair, but I'm just saying that because I like Dominion as much as I do.  To the average computer game player, it probably seems steep since I imagine they tend to buy things on the cheap as well. That said, I have played Dominion online enough to probably justify having spent hundreds of dollars on it (but they don't charge monthly so I guess they didn't get all that from me).

[blueblimp]

I voted $10 because there wasn't an option between $5 and $10, but I probably wouldn't actually pay $10 for a large expansion.

What do you think a more appropriate option would be? I was thinking of $10 as being something like $8-$12, but I guess there's a pretty big difference between $8 and $12.

[Awaclus]

I voted $10 because there wasn't an option between $5 and $10, but I probably wouldn't actually pay $10 for a large expansion.

What do you think a more appropriate option would be? I was thinking of $10 as being something like $8-$12, but I guess there's a pretty big difference between $8 and $12.

Well, I think a more appropriate option would be around $7, but I'd be willing to pay a bit more.

[jaketheyak]

I voted $10 because there wasn't an option between $5 and $10, but I probably wouldn't actually pay $10 for a large expansion.

What do you think a more appropriate option would be? I was thinking of $10 as being something like $8-$12, but I guess there's a pretty big difference between $8 and $12.

If you want each price point to represent a range, wouldn't it be better if the poll choices reflected that?

[blueblimp]

I voted $10 because there wasn't an option between $5 and $10, but I probably wouldn't actually pay $10 for a large expansion.

What do you think a more appropriate option would be? I was thinking of $10 as being something like $8-$12, but I guess there's a pretty big difference between $8 and $12.

If you want each price point to represent a range, wouldn't it be better if the poll choices reflected that?

Yeah maybe. I didn't think through the poll options very carefully.

[mustang255]

I misread the question, ended up voting $50 instead of $5.

I think the price should be fairly low, as most people want all of the sets for the "true" dominion experience. With 7 large expansions (counting Guilds + cornucopia as one, excluding alchemy and base set), it puts the whole shebang at about what you'd expect to pay for a game these days.

I'd say that $30-60 for everything is a reasonable price.

[blueblimp]

Sorry that I didn't sufficiently emphasize that it's a per-expansion price in the poll. The reason I chose the per-expansion price is for the reason Donald X has given in his posts:

The game is free; if you want to complain about price, there is only the price of individual expansions to complain about, and complaining about the total is like saying an author wrote too many books, a band put out too many albums.

The way I see it, you can get a perfectly fine Dominion experience with not every expansion. Lots of people do that in offline play, after all, and lots of people were happy playing on isotropic, which only had expansions up to Hinterlands.

[AdamH]

I know it was $50 per expansion, and that's what I put anyways.

I figured I was willing to pay more than $50 for my IRL expansions (when you include the price of sleeves), and I'd use the online version more.

Such is the magnitude of my obsession with this game.

[Cuzz]

I know it was $50 per expansion, and that's what I put anyways.

I figured I was willing to pay more than $50 for my IRL expansions (when you include the price of sleeves), and I'd use the online version more.

Such is the magnitude of my obsession with this game.

This is what I don't quite get about people claiming that $90 for all expansions is some kind of offensive non-starter. It's as if the price that access to Dominion is worth to you (person who spends lots of time playing and reading about and talking about Dominion) should be based on things like the price of the Ascension app.

[markusin]

I know it was $50 per expansion, and that's what I put anyways.

I figured I was willing to pay more than $50 for my IRL expansions (when you include the price of sleeves), and I'd use the online version more.

Such is the magnitude of my obsession with this game.

This is what I don't quite get about people claiming that $90 for all expansions is some kind of offensive non-starter. It's as if the price that access to Dominion is worth to you (person who spends lots of time playing and reading about and talking about Dominion) should be based on things like the price of the Ascension app.

Yeah like honestly I'd be willing to pay $20-50 for each expansion. Sure they aren't selling physical stuff, but a quality product for a game I really like that lets me play it in a much more convenient way has value. You can charge less if you can afford to due to popularity of the game.

Ultimately, you still want to have prices that are attractive enough for the general population. The more people start playing from the beginning, the more the game spreads through word of mouth. Even with all it problems, Goko/Salvager's player base has been gradually growing. You play today and you'll find the first 4 lobbies full with 4 more being half full. That wasn't the case like a year ago.

Maybe that rate of growth isn't fast enough to maintain the old $45 for everything price, but it could have been if the game client quality was higher. I worry that the upgrade might not offset the drop in desirability to purchase the game at the new $90 price.

Also, why no warning for the price hike? Lots of other retailers don't mind announcing price hikes ahead of time (advertised as "limited-time only deals) if it means they'll get a surge of people rushing to buy the product at the low price before the "deal" ends. More players means more chance to spread in the long run after all.

Edit: The sad part is that the mobile community is a lot stingier than the desktop community. Maybe it's because they had to spend a lot on the mobile device in the first place, or they just buy so much for their device à la quantity-over-quality mindset. Man, I totally paid that $50 or whatever it was for Civ: Beyond Earth on Steam.

[Cuzz]

I know it was $50 per expansion, and that's what I put anyways.

I figured I was willing to pay more than $50 for my IRL expansions (when you include the price of sleeves), and I'd use the online version more.

Such is the magnitude of my obsession with this game.

This is what I don't quite get about people claiming that $90 for all expansions is some kind of offensive non-starter. It's as if the price that access to Dominion is worth to you (person who spends lots of time playing and reading about and talking about Dominion) should be based on things like the price of the Ascension app.

Yeah like honestly I'd be willing to pay $20-50 for each expansion. Sure they aren't selling physical stuff, but a quality product for a game I really like that lets me play it in a much more convenient way has value. You can charge less if you can afford to due to popularity of the game.

Ultimately, you still want to have prices that are attractive enough for the general population. The more people start playing from the beginning, the more the game spreads through word of mouth. Even with all it problems, Goko/Salvager's player base has been gradually growing. You play today and you'll find the first 4 lobbies full with 4 more being half full. That wasn't the case like a year ago.

Maybe that rate of growth isn't fast enough to maintain the old $45 for everything price, but it could have been if the game client quality was higher. I worry that the upgrade might not offset the drop in desirability to purchase the game at the new $90 price.

Also, why no warning for the price hike? Lots of other retailers don't mind announcing price hikes ahead of time (advertised as "limited-time only deals) if it means they'll get a surge of people rushing to buy the product at the low price before the "deal" ends. More players means more chance to spread in the long run after all.

Edit: The sad part is that the mobile community is a lot stingier than the desktop community. Maybe it's because they had to spend a lot on the mobile device in the first place, or they just buy so much for their device à la quantity-over-quality mindset. Man, I totally paid that $50 or whatever it was for Civ: Beyond Earth on Steam.

I'm not totally sure that the casual fan would even view it as a $90 price tag, though. Someone new to the game is not necessarily gonna be starting off with a need to own every expansion. The base game is free.

Obviously the spontaneity of the price hike is frustrating.

[popsofctown]

But Isotropic had Archivist!

[Kirian]

There's not much point talking about the price the truly obsessive would pay for the product because (1) it's a tiny fraction of the market, and (2) most of those people have already bought all the expansions.

The reason for comparing to Ascension, which Donald dismisses out of hand for some reason (sure, it's an inferior game, which doesn't matter to casual players, and in fact would be disputed by many people) is that most of the market is made up of casual and semi-casual players.

That last group is the most important for the comparison.  Those are the people who don't care to discuss the deep strategy of Dominion, but who read the iOS blog on BGG, and/or read Pocket Tactics or similar blogs.  They know the deal with Goko.  They've watched Ascension (and Player in general) win a ton of awards, while Dominion Online has won awards like "Disappointment of 2013“.

Those are the people MakingFun must rely on to spread word of the new version.  And they're not going to recommend Dominion to their friends as long as it costs ~$10 per expansion while Ascension costs ~$3 per expansion.

[Cuzz]

But the truly obsessives are the ones currently having the conversation. The title of this thread is "How much would you pay...."

It all strikes me as a teensy bit disingenuous when it's phrased in terms of concern for the "casual fan" or what the "market" demands, when the conclusion always happens to be that it costs too much.

[Kirian]

But the truly obsessives are the ones currently having the conversation. The title of this thread is "How much would you pay...."

It all strikes me as a teensy bit disingenuous when it's phrased in terms of concern for the "casual fan" or what the "market" demands, when the conclusion always happens to be that it costs too much.

I see what you're saying.  I'm not actually concerned about casual players.  I'm concerned with the question "What can MF reasonably charge?" That's the question that MF should be asking.  But yes, that's not the question that started the thread.

[IanP]

I voted $10 because there wasn't an option between $5 and $10, but I probably wouldn't actually pay $10 for a large expansion.

What do you think a more appropriate option would be? I was thinking of $10 as being something like $8-$12, but I guess there's a pretty big difference between $8 and $12.

Well, I think a more appropriate option would be around $7, but I'd be willing to pay a bit more.

My thoughts too.  I was thinking about US$8.  To complicate this is the fact that the value of the dollar varies, and many of us are paying in our local currencies.