Blog post: Early access price and final price

Started by Tynan, September 02, 2018, 12:02:08 AM

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Tynan

Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Ser Kitteh

You could charge this game for 60 dollars and I'd still buy it. Not sure about potential customers however.

That being said, I think 40-50 USD sounds like the right amount. Unlike say, Fallout 4, there's no extra DLC to help the game get money post-launch.

Call me Arty

I know it's going to make me sound like a cheapskate, but is there any chance of a sale that may drop the release price of the game below the current early access price? I'm a bit frugal at the moment (not going to give you guys a sob story), and am a bit sale-reliant at the moment. No offense to the developers, I'm not saying your half-a-decade of hard work isn't worth $30-$60, I just can't pay that much in my current position.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Tynan

Ser K: I appreciate the vote of confidence :)

Arty: Well, we've had a no-sale policy for a long time and I'm not planning on changing that soon, especially around the 1.0 release. Of course, some day the game will be cheaper (likely years and years in the future) but for the foreseeable future it won't go on sale.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Call me Arty

Quote from: Tynan on September 02, 2018, 12:33:33 AM
Arty: Well, we've had a no-sale policy for a long time and I'm not planning on changing that soon, especially around the 1.0 release. Of course, some day the game will be cheaper (likely years and years in the future) but for the foreseeable future it won't go on sale.

Alright, understandable. I've spent a fair amount of time buying many games for cheap instead of one for full price, but Rimworld may be the game that breaks that rule. . . depending on how soon it takes some of my favorite mods that've missed an update or five to get picked up again (vanilla is fine, but I need my xenohumans!).
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Canute

Don't forget Rimworld isn't a AAA title like Fallout 4.
When new people watch the screenshots and see the price of $60 they think "What the heck, 60 bucks for that graphics!" and go away.



Namsan

I have played this game for 1554 hours so far, but I bought this game for only 30$.
This game entertained me a lot for 30$, honestly. ;D
Hello

RawCode

"Modern AAA games" is modern boogieman with endless payed DLCs, microtransactions in singleplayer and season passes for season passes...
Fallout 4 price actually over 200 due to this "features".

issue is not "work and talent not worth 60" issue with customers, not everyone ready and willing to pay 60 for isometric single player game.

and much more severe issue with customers that have specific expectations for 60 game, most noticeble are "trading cancer" and "cancervements"

Sjaa

I value a game by playtime value, not graphics.  There are many triple AAA games for $60 where you get < 100 hours of playtime.  It's not hard to exceed that on Rimworld.  Rimworld could be $100+ and it would be worth it (though, that would be a tough sell marketing-wise)

legendary

I would GLADDLY pay 59.99 USD for this game. This is just remarkable example of how indie games should be developed. In future I really hope that these things will improve a lot:

1. Graphics. Add a bit more candy to the eye ;)
2. Better performance with a ton of mods. Need an example with modded game performance? Look at https://www.factorio.com/
StarCraft | WarZone 2100 | Civilization | RimWorld | Homeworld - games that deserve your time of life.

Numar

I share the worry about graphics/looks and a higher price.

While Rimworld is without a doubt worth a lot, I wouldn't increase the price too much. Imho many people will look at the screenshots and turn away if the price is too high.

Regarding to numbers, I think an increase to 35 USD should still be fine, but not more than 40 USD.

Elendil

#11
I have over a thousand hours in Rimworld, and I think the game is worth more than I bought it for. Goes without saying that any potential price hike doesn't afffect me. But it got me thinking.

It wonder if this might hurt the sales not only in terms of copies sold (that's a granted) but also total money made. Currently Rimworld is 28€ in my client (32,5$) , Tynan says Rimworld is priced at 30$ so let's go with that. Let's say the price increases only to 35$. That's a 1/6 price hike. That means that if this price increase discourages more than 1 in 7 people, it's a financial loss (exactly 1 in 7 to break even).

If the price increses to 40$, than discouraging more than 25% potential buyers would be losing money.

That is of course a gross oversimplification. Not to mention the sales that this announcement itself will generate. But I do wonder, what market is there left for Rimworld? It seems to me that the people who are most likely to get it bought it already. The ones who haven't bought it yet is the more general audience, people who usually play different genras, who don't follow game developements, people who don't buy Early Access on principle etc. Those people are going to be looking at 'similar' titles (actually not similar at all, but clumped with Rimworld on Steam) such as FactorIo ($30), FrostPunk ($25). Visually, Rimworld might not be all that apealling to them (once again, I'm talking about the demographic not normally interested in colony sim kinda games). The question is, how many of them will be discouraged by the price. Will it be 1 in 5? 1 in 10? 1 in 3? They could go read some reviews, check out some let's play, or they could say fuck it and get an AAA title that's on sale for the same money. (I have personally seen people discouraged by the price on /r/basebuildinggames for example)

Of course I might be completely off the mark here, this is just pure speculation. I would be very surprised if Tynan didn't take all of this and much more into consideration. Plus he has all the charts and data, knows how his past announcements affected the sales, and probably has a very good idea of the potential market (certainly better than I do). Since Tynan obviously thinks this is the right move, I would be interested reading about how he arrived to the decision.

Once again I want to stress that I don't agree or disagree with the decision (since I'm not equiped to do so), nor do I think that I know better. We all want Rimworld to be a success (again, Tynan most of all) so I'm just being curious how he expects this to affect sales.

Crow_T

I'm curious if Steam has any data available for developers to get the most bang for their buck, that seems like it would be extremely useful.
(regarding dead man's apparel)
"I think, at the very least, the buff should go away for jackets so long as you're wearing the former owner's skin as a shirt."
-Condaddy20

RicRider

I'd easily pay $60 for this game. I'd say it was a good business decision to raise the price for 1.0 Maybe not to $60 but $40-$50 like others have said. I have about 1,500 hours in this (half of that probably idling in the background while I work - there's not many games I've ever left on like that! LOL) and I know most people have a lot more.

Arty: Just buy RimWorld for your birthday. I am a cheapskate like you but for my birthday I always spend $50 on a game I really wanted. No budget, no matter how strict you are, will tank from that!
##Coding Scrub##

mattig89ch

are we going to have to re-buy the game once it gets released into 1.0?