by revgiblet
I just wanted to post to expand on something that I think I should have made more of in my review.I've noticed a significant change in board gaming over the past couple of years. When I first started playing, expansions were the exception. These days, expansions are the norm. It just feels to me like every game that is being released these days is being released 'incomplete', so that someone can charge you money to add things. It's essentially the same as Downloadable Content on video games - it doesn't 'fix' the game, and it could have been included in the original game, but it isn't. The recent trend towards card games has just exasperated the situation, as expanding such games is often more straight-forward. In Australia, board games are already prohibitively expensive. The glut of expansions which offer nothing new seem like transparent attempts to cash in on gaming's growing popularity.
So what has this to do with Dungeon!? Well, regardless of whether or not expansions come out for this game, it's original price point is outstanding. I'm astonished that it's WotC, a company that could be accused of money-grabbing with its CCGs and D&D lines, that has released a game this cheap. It has passed on the savings it made in development and components to its customers - unlike so many other companies. I am not naive enough to claim that WotC's pricing for this game is totally altruistic, and I acknowledge that they can afford to take more pricing risks than other, smaller companies, but I think that this is a counter-cultural step, and as such should be acknowledged.
That is all.