Pricing Hurting Sales?

Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!

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Kayoz
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Kayoz »

ORIGINAL: Lithari
I am a bit cautious about spending nearly £63 all at once for a single game and 2 expansions.
Erik has posted that there will be a bundle discount when Shadows is released. I'd suggest waiting for Shadows before buying, if you want to save a few bob.
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Lithari
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Lithari »

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Lithari
I am a bit cautious about spending nearly £63 all at once for a single game and 2 expansions.
Erik has posted that there will be a bundle discount when Shadows is released. I'd suggest waiting for Shadows before buying, if you want to save a few bob.

Already bought the game and the 2 expansions, though the game is confusing me all to hell. lol

Still trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want, the right stuff automated and stuff like that.
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Mansen
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Mansen »

ORIGINAL: Lithari

Still trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want, the right stuff automated and stuff like that.

The easiest way to adapt to the game in my opinion is to head over to the options menu and automate everything on the left side, and change all of the right side options to "Suggest". This way you can let the AI handle the game for you, but still allowing you to take control of anything you wish - and it suggests everything to you, so that you know what is appropriate to do at the time.

Watching a few episodes of Das's playthroughs on Youtube doesn't hurt either to get acquainted with the interface and initial goals.
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Kayoz
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Kayoz »

ORIGINAL: Lithari
Still trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want, the right stuff automated and stuff like that.

I's suggest Jeeves' "quick strategy guide". It has most of the "gotchas" for new players covered. I have some quibbles with her methods (her advised custom base research megacenter seems like a rule-rape, and she doesn't mention chromium as a common resource bottleneck). That said, it's probably the best, most comprehensive starter guide I've seen.
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Bleek
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Bleek »

ORIGINAL: Lithari

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Lithari
I am a bit cautious about spending nearly £63 all at once for a single game and 2 expansions.
Erik has posted that there will be a bundle discount when Shadows is released. I'd suggest waiting for Shadows before buying, if you want to save a few bob.

Already bought the game and the 2 expansions, though the game is confusing me all to hell. lol

Still trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want, the right stuff automated and stuff like that.

Make sure you watch Das's walkthroughs on YouTube, they will help you a lot!
I've been beta testing myself for decades.
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Mansen
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Mansen »

Any chance you could divulge when the sale will be on, Erik? My cold turkey is starting to itch [:D]
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Bleek
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Bleek »

ORIGINAL: Mansen

Any chance you could divulge when the sale will be on, Erik? My cold turkey is starting to itch [:D]

You should see a doctor about that.
I've been beta testing myself for decades.
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Webbco
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Webbco »

ORIGINAL: Bleek

ORIGINAL: Mansen

Any chance you could divulge when the sale will be on, Erik? My cold turkey is starting to itch [:D]

You should see a doctor about that.

[:D] Too much info. Hope Shadows will be enough to scratch his Cold Turkey good and proper.
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Mansen
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Mansen »

One can only hope - I have to admit it is a very addictive game. [:)]
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necaradan666
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by necaradan666 »

ORIGINAL: Lithari
Still trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want, the right stuff automated and stuff like that.

It's probably not necessary to add.. read everything.
kids these days can't figure games out even when it says 'press X to continue' right on the screen, so I'm just making sure.
Lithari
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Lithari »

ORIGINAL: necaradan666
ORIGINAL: Lithari
Still trying to figure out how to make it work the way I want, the right stuff automated and stuff like that.

It's probably not necessary to add.. read everything.
kids these days can't figure games out even when it says 'press X to continue' right on the screen, so I'm just making sure.

I have noticed that, but I have been playing video games for 20yrs, this game is quite complicated.
Numdydar
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Numdydar »

If you thing DW is complex, you have been playing the wrong games lol. DW is a breeze imho [:)] Of course after you play Japan a few times in WitP AE, then almost anything is easy after that lol.
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Webbco
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Webbco »

Compared to most mainstream games (including 4X) DW is definitely quite complex. You only have to go to the PCgamer website and look at the comments after the recent article on the new Sins of a Solar Empire DLC to see this. People think that Sins is complex there!!
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Numdydar »

Then I am definately hanging out in the wrong forums lol. Wow!

I actually have Sins and have tried to play it a few times, but it just seems lacking in so many ways. At least to me anyway. Of course the reason i got DW was beacuse I was playing Aurora and wanted someting similar but with an actual publisher behind it [:)]
Lithari
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Lithari »

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

If you thing DW is complex, you have been playing the wrong games lol. DW is a breeze imho [:)] Of course after you play Japan a few times in WitP AE, then almost anything is easy after that lol.

Oh, I have played many games over the years and this game is complex compared to the other games.
whiran
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by whiran »

I registered here just to pot this:

I found out about Distant Worlds from the Youtube Let's Plays by Das24680. The game intrigued me so I came here to learn more and maybe buy the game. I love 4x games but I tend to be hesitant about real time 4x games.

Das24680 is playing Shadows at the moment so, naturally, that's what interested me.

I went to the products page and was surprised. Not in a good way. In a bad way. First, finding out how to buy the game was surprisingly complicated. I was interested in the game so I started hunting for the game. There was no easy link to buy it as such. There is a link to buy Distant Worlds that brings up the Distant Worlds product page but then you get to fumble around and figure out if you need expansions. Well, it turns out that you need -all- the expansions for Shadows.

This amounts to $43 + $27 + $27 + whatever price Shadows will be (I'm guessing $27) so $124 in total. This turns me off making the purchase. I decided to follow the link of the download (digital) purchase and discovered that there is a 20% "discount" to making a full purchase. So, to buy without Shadows it would be $85.90 +whatever Shadows will be (probably $27 and a discount to existing users for $21?). That's still over $100 for this game.

That is an issue. That is a serious barrier to entry.

Why would I spend $100 on this game when I can get other 4x games for significantly less? And, oddly (disturbingly) there is no demo for a game that was released in 2010. While this game looks interesting to me it definitely does not look $100 interesting. Heck, I wasn't even certain if it looked $40 interesting and according to what I've read you don't want to just play the base game by itself - you really do want to play with the expansions.

So, my final purchasing decision: Pass on this one due to primarily price and a lack of a demo given that the price is so high. I suspect that I'm just not enough of a fan of the 4x real time space genre for this game to be my style anyway. Good luck with this product!
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Bleek
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Bleek »

Every person I recommend the game to says exactly the same thing.

Damn shame because us 'hardcore' fans want DW to get more exposure, more players and so a bigger community for us all to enjoy.
I've been beta testing myself for decades.
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Erik Rutins
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Erik Rutins »

I'll note here again that when Shadows releases there will be a more significant promotion, so I hope posters like whiran above will check back then.

I also understand the desire to get everything at once, but it's also not entirely fair to ignore the fact that there are in fact much lower price points and the game is still fine at those point. I'd recommend to any new player to get DW + Return of the Shakturi as a great starting point which is much less expensive. The other expansions can be added as time and budget allow and your risk in case you don't like the game is much reduced as well. I know that as a gamer, I'd want to jump in with both feet as well though so I do understand this argument doesn't work for everyone.

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piderman
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by piderman »

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I'd recommend to any new player to get DW + Return of the Shakturi as a great starting point which is much less expensive.

It's still €60, that's the equivalent of a full AAA title at launch. I can get Civ V (which is younger than DW by half a year) with G&K and *all* DLC for €40 and that is without a Steam sale. So now when Brave New World is released there is a nice low barrier to entry for newer players. So yeah I'll check back at Shadows release for that promotion, but even then I'll have a good night's sleep about it [;)]

I would also like to note that in Europe it's customary to have the VAT included in the listed price. Having another 20% added at checkout is a nasty surprise.
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Mansen
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RE: Pricing Hurting Sales?

Post by Mansen »

ORIGINAL: piderman


I would also like to note that in Europe it's customary to have the VAT included in the listed price. Having another 20% added at checkout is a nasty surprise.

Yeah you're right - that is typically the business standard everywhere to have the VAT labelled straight away. It's a minor thing though. :)

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