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The Success of Dominion
From Rio Grande's latest newsletter comes the startling statistic that Dominion and its expansions have collectively sold more than one million copies when summing sales across all languages. One million plus! Does that make designer Donald X a millionaire? At any rate, with two expansions being released this year, that staggering number is only going to grow, and as Dominon slowly makes inroads into the mainstream, it's surely primed to become a mass market cash cow. Make no mistake, deck-building is in. While Dominion owes a lot to ideas borrowed from the grandfather of CCGs, Magic the Gathering, and other games in that genre, there's no doubt that by successfully taking these concepts to the world of modern board games, Dominion has helped father an entire new genre of its own.
Who would have guessed that the game would have such an impact when it first appeared in 2008? It's interesting to look back at some of the discussions about the game after it first made a splash at Essen that year. I dug up some old correspondence with a gamer friend, who wrote me at the time: "Oh, have you checked out the game Dominion which got released at Essen -- I think it looks pretty enticing. It is available by pre-order right now at a few places for 30 bucks. I am very, very tempted to consider pre-ordering it. I am certainly convinced that it would be an awesome game." Was he ever right! Mind you, I didn't take much convincing - here's what I wrote in reply: "Dominion looks perfect for us! Especially with our MtG background! A must-buy, methinks!" We both ended up pre-ordering it, and were among the first to have it in our hands when it hit North America. After playing it intensively for a few days, Dominion became the subject of one of my first ever comprehensive pictorial reviews - this in turn went on to be one of the most thumbed reviews of all time on BGG, so I'm personally indebted to the game as well! Here's part of my concluding commments in that review: "The unique mechanics, interesting decisions and potential for synergistic play, combined with quick game-play and remarkable replayability/variety all really make this game the success that it is proving to be. Overhyped? Maybe, and perhaps somewhat unfortunately so. Because only time will tell whether the game can maintain its current momentum and what people will be saying about it in five years from now. But there's no doubt that Dominion is something special."
Since then, Dominion certainly has proved to be something special. In an unprecedented fashion, it cracked the BGG Top Ten in a matter of less than a month - something that not everyone was happy about (see here) - and hasn't looked back since. Its list of conquests includes the coveted Spiel Des Jahres, and many a Game-of-the-Year-Award in many a country. Now barely two years down the track, it's already a millionaire, and shows no signs of slowing its pace. Congratulations Dominion!
Want to learn more? See my full review on Dominion:  So you're wondering about the game with 500 cards that everyone is talking about
The Sons of Dominion
While the Dominion train has enough momentum to support new expansions rolling out on a semi-annual basis, the amount of new deck-building games emerging all the time means that the genre is quickly becoming crowded for the rest of the field. Big names like Thunderstone and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer quickly placed themselves as strong contenders in the new market, but the question for publishers wanting to add a horse to the deck-building race is fast becoming: do we have any chance of getting a good run? And can we bring anything new to the table? Are there any future prospects for the offspring of Dominion? The good news is that there are new and exciting deck-building games that are still emerging, drawing on the richness of the ideas and gold that can be mined from the wealthy heritage of CCGs.
Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than with Heroes of Graxia, the 2010 release by Petroglyph Games. It's a deck-building game that certainly owes a great deal to Dominion for much of its mechanics, but offers a very fresh approach to the genre by incorporating significant elements from games like Magic the Gathering, most notably the notion of player-vs-player combat. In contrast to the 25 different kingdom cards amongst the 500 cards of Dominion, the 240 cards of Heroes of Graxia feature more than 50 uniquely different characters, equipment, spells and monsters, and they're also packaged in a much more compact and portable box. The artwork is quite stunning and attractive. Heroes of Graxia clearly owes an enormous debt to Dominion in game-play, for example, the basic concept of building up a deck; spending money from cards in hand to buy face-up cards and put them into your discard pile; discarding your complete hand and drawing five new cards at the end of your turn.
But while the core of the game is something familiar and proven, from there it forges its own path in a new direction. First of all, cards can be used either for their gold value, or for their special ability as a unit, equipment or spell - so you'll rarely feel thwarted by the luck of the draw. But the biggest change is the addition of player-vs-player combat. Once you put characters into play from your hand, they remain in play, so that you can build up an army with units, improve them with equipment, and then use this well equipped legion in combat against monsters and other players. It's a brilliant concept that's interactive and innovative, and has a lot to offer. Unfortunately it's not entirely without flaws, and you will find some concerns about excessive math in calculating legion strength, and mixed feelings about how effectively the player-vs-player combat works. But there's some interesting and good ideas here, and we've had enormous fun with it in the dozen or more times we've played it, particularly with older boys and teens. And with reports that the publisher is further polishing their product with improved rules, and planning to add a sequel later this year, it can only get better. Also looming on the horizon is the imminent release of Nightfall, another deck-building game featuring inter-player attack. The future looks bright for the sons of Dominion.
Want to learn more? See my full review on Heroes of Graxia: A Dominion-style deck-building game with MtG-style player-vs-player combat
Join the discussion: What has your experience with deck-building games other than Dominion been? What do you think the future holds for deck-building games?
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Who would have guessed that the game would have such an impact when it first appeared in 2008? It's interesting to look back at some of the discussions about the game after it first made a splash at Essen that year. I dug up some old correspondence with a gamer friend, who wrote me at the time: "Oh, have you checked out the game Dominion which got released at Essen -- I think it looks pretty enticing. It is available by pre-order right now at a few places for 30 bucks. I am very, very tempted to consider pre-ordering it. I am certainly convinced that it would be an awesome game." Was he ever right! Mind you, I didn't take much convincing - here's what I wrote in reply: "Dominion looks perfect for us! Especially with our MtG background! A must-buy, methinks!" We both ended up pre-ordering it, and were among the first to have it in our hands when it hit North America. After playing it intensively for a few days, Dominion became the subject of one of my first ever comprehensive pictorial reviews - this in turn went on to be one of the most thumbed reviews of all time on BGG, so I'm personally indebted to the game as well! Here's part of my concluding commments in that review: "The unique mechanics, interesting decisions and potential for synergistic play, combined with quick game-play and remarkable replayability/variety all really make this game the success that it is proving to be. Overhyped? Maybe, and perhaps somewhat unfortunately so. Because only time will tell whether the game can maintain its current momentum and what people will be saying about it in five years from now. But there's no doubt that Dominion is something special."
Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than with Heroes of Graxia, the 2010 release by Petroglyph Games. It's a deck-building game that certainly owes a great deal to Dominion for much of its mechanics, but offers a very fresh approach to the genre by incorporating significant elements from games like Magic the Gathering, most notably the notion of player-vs-player combat. In contrast to the 25 different kingdom cards amongst the 500 cards of Dominion, the 240 cards of Heroes of Graxia feature more than 50 uniquely different characters, equipment, spells and monsters, and they're also packaged in a much more compact and portable box. The artwork is quite stunning and attractive. Heroes of Graxia clearly owes an enormous debt to Dominion in game-play, for example, the basic concept of building up a deck; spending money from cards in hand to buy face-up cards and put them into your discard pile; discarding your complete hand and drawing five new cards at the end of your turn.
