Game price?

Started by Kickball, September 17, 2013, 05:24:31 PM

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The Ataraxist

#15
Quote from: Yarkista on September 21, 2013, 04:58:12 PM
Huh, are the games any good? Not trying to insult, just curious.

LOL you made me gigglesnort with that one.  ;D

Quote from: oasis789 on September 21, 2013, 05:13:59 PM
All things being equal getting 10 bucks from 10 people is better than 100 bucks from one, getting them on day 1 is better than on day 2.

This is also a strong point, selling the game for $10 or even $5 might mean that you get less per gamer, but people on the fence, like friends of mine who have NO IDEA what dwarf fortress was might be willing to pick up a game if it costs as much as their coffee.

I suppose this is part of the trade off eh?

In these situations, I always turn towards successful examples of other's work to model from.

Tynan

Thing is, the most successful example of this kind of game IMO is Prison Architect, which is past $7.6 million on their self-selling pre-alpha alone not counting Steam sales or anything else. They priced the base game at $30, but I won't be pricing it that high.

I saw an interview with the IV guys about why they set that price point. They basically said that they would like people to think about the game before they get it. They think the game is best experienced when you've thought about it a little bit and decided it's something for you. I basically agree with that notion. I don't really want to position RimWorld as an impulse buy like an iPhone app - at least not at release.

To pick up the $5-level players, I suspect the game will end up in some bundle or Steam sale in a few years. That's pretty much how game pricing seems to go these days.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

The Ataraxist

This is very true aswell,

I know I sure as hell have picked up games in the 5 dollar bucket years after release only because it was cheap, and not because I was interested in the game itself

Hypolite

I also agree on that point. I make a clear separation between games I want to play and games I should play. I'm ready to spend a lot more on the first category, even if the game is not ready yet, than on the second. Because there is so much games in the latter that by the time I'll be done with all the games there is in, new games belonging in that category will already part of cheap bundles.

I'm also ready to spend more on the first because there is very few games that get me really excited about them.

Syphus

Quote from: Tynan on September 22, 2013, 12:31:53 AM
I saw an interview with the IV guys about why they set that price point. They basically said that they would like people to think about the game before they get it. They think the game is best experienced when you've thought about it a little bit and decided it's something for you. I basically agree with that notion. I don't really want to position RimWorld as an impulse buy like an iPhone app - at least not at release.

So on the other hand, when I thought about PA, I had already played Uplink, DEFCON, and Darwinia, so I had plenty of faith that PA was going to be a game that I would get multiple hours out of and would evolve into a game that I would get much enjoyment out of. It makes the price more palpable since I need to stop spending infinite amounts of money on games.

thekillergreece

My opinion  on price for RimWorld:

Alpha: 15$(When the Alpha stages finished, people who purchased the game on alpha version, the game version will automatically enter FULL VERSION stage)
Full Version:20$(Only if People didnt buy Alpha version)

Hows that?

Yarkista

Quote from: thekillergreece on September 22, 2013, 01:16:12 PM
My opinion  on price for RimWorld:

Alpha: 15$(When the Alpha stages finished, people who purchased the game on alpha version, the game version will automatically enter FULL VERSION stage)
Full Version:20$(Only if People didnt buy Alpha version)

Hows that?

I don't think it's as simple as that.

oasis789

Quote from: Tynan on September 22, 2013, 12:31:53 AM
Thing is, the most successful example of this kind of game IMO is Prison Architect, which is past $7.6 million on their self-selling pre-alpha alone not counting Steam sales or anything else. They priced the base game at $30, but I won't be pricing it that high.

I saw an interview with the IV guys about why they set that price point. They basically said that they would like people to think about the game before they get it. They think the game is best experienced when you've thought about it a little bit and decided it's something for you. I basically agree with that notion. I don't really want to position RimWorld as an impulse buy like an iPhone app - at least not at release.

To pick up the $5-level players, I suspect the game will end up in some bundle or Steam sale in a few years. That's pretty much how game pricing seems to go these days.

The other close analogue is minecraft, which charged 10 and 15 pounds for alpha/beta respectively, and minecraft has made several orders of magnitude more than prison architect by now.

KarateKid

I've been lurking the forums for a week now.
Desided to register to pitch in on this thread.
I think the minecraft model is a really good one. Basically what they did was increase the price the closer you got to release.
But that is kind of hard to do with a kickstarter.

I'd easily pay 30$ for this game, especially if it means I can play the alpha version right away.
And I've already told a few select friends about it, that I know will enjoy this kind of game.
That is the exact same thing that happened with minecraft. A friend of mine bought it when it was 10$ tried it, love it and told me (and others)about it. And since it was only 10$ based on his enthusiasm it was a nobrainer for me to pick it up.

Yarkista

Quote from: oasis789 on September 22, 2013, 10:58:25 PM
Quote from: Tynan on September 22, 2013, 12:31:53 AM
Thing is, the most successful example of this kind of game IMO is Prison Architect, which is past $7.6 million on their self-selling pre-alpha alone not counting Steam sales or anything else. They priced the base game at $30, but I won't be pricing it that high.

I saw an interview with the IV guys about why they set that price point. They basically said that they would like people to think about the game before they get it. They think the game is best experienced when you've thought about it a little bit and decided it's something for you. I basically agree with that notion. I don't really want to position RimWorld as an impulse buy like an iPhone app - at least not at release.

To pick up the $5-level players, I suspect the game will end up in some bundle or Steam sale in a few years. That's pretty much how game pricing seems to go these days.

The other close analogue is minecraft, which charged 10 and 15 pounds for alpha/beta respectively, and minecraft has made several orders of magnitude more than prison architect by now.

Yes, but a large part of that success was because of letsplayers and youtube reviews.

Not saying yours isn't a good idea, just playing devil's advocate a little bit.


Hypolite

I think you overlooked something about Minecraft alpha success: Notch didn't care about piracy back then, which made the game very well-known, both because it was free to try and because the guy that made it was fine with that. If it wasn't for that try period that the creator didn't intend to make available but didn't mind it existed, I wouldn't have bought it at all.

oasis789

Quote from: Yarkista on September 24, 2013, 10:16:43 AM
Quote from: oasis789 on September 22, 2013, 10:58:25 PM
Quote from: Tynan on September 22, 2013, 12:31:53 AM
Thing is, the most successful example of this kind of game IMO is Prison Architect, which is past $7.6 million on their self-selling pre-alpha alone not counting Steam sales or anything else. They priced the base game at $30, but I won't be pricing it that high.

I saw an interview with the IV guys about why they set that price point. They basically said that they would like people to think about the game before they get it. They think the game is best experienced when you've thought about it a little bit and decided it's something for you. I basically agree with that notion. I don't really want to position RimWorld as an impulse buy like an iPhone app - at least not at release.

To pick up the $5-level players, I suspect the game will end up in some bundle or Steam sale in a few years. That's pretty much how game pricing seems to go these days.

The other close analogue is minecraft, which charged 10 and 15 pounds for alpha/beta respectively, and minecraft has made several orders of magnitude more than prison architect by now.

Yes, but a large part of that success was because of letsplayers and youtube reviews.

Not saying yours isn't a good idea, just playing devil's advocate a little bit.

true but where did all these LPers and youtubers come from? how did the hype train get started? surely it was those folks who bought in at the alpha price


Hypolite

I may have to repeat myself, but before actually buying the game in alpha or beta, a lot of people got it for free, either from Minecraft.net directly, with all single player features, or a cracked version allowing multiplayer on cracked servers. And that was totally fine.

Syphus

Quote from: Hypolite on September 25, 2013, 03:11:11 AM
I may have to repeat myself, but before actually buying the game in alpha or beta, a lot of people got it for free, either from Minecraft.net directly, with all single player features, or a cracked version allowing multiplayer on cracked servers. And that was totally fine.

And this happen to most games, but most games do not become Minecraft.

Hypolite

A developer voicing publicly being fine with piracy of its own game does not happen to most games. Most devs don't tell anything about it, some get angry at it, and a few make fun of it, like the devs of Game Dev Tycoon did.

It surely helped spreading the word, as it wasn't a "bad" thing to get the game for free. As you didn't feel like a thief or a pirate, it became natural for most people to buy it after a while. The game has many other qualities as well that made it that famous, but the "fine with piracy" aspect is often overlooked.