
Stages in Pricing Computer Games (2014) - phenylene
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-youre-going-to-price-your-computer.html
======
minimaxir
I bought two indie games recently based on word of mouth alone: Undertale and
The Beginner's Guide. Both are $10 on Steam (and coincidentally, both are made
mostly by solo-developers).

Undertale
([http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/))
is one of the best games I've played in years. I wish I could have paid more
for it. If you're reading this, _buy Undertale now_.

The Beginner's Guide
([http://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/))
is...very indie, to put it mildly. And almost made me feel like I wasted my
money.

There's a lot of risk with buying games freely, which is one of the reasons
why gamers are unwilling to buy at high prices. However, Steam Refunds may
help with this and may make gamers more willing to buy at higher prices.

~~~
throwaway7767
> However, Steam Refunds may help with this and may make gamers more willing
> to buy at higher prices.

Don't trust that you can get a refund on steam. Their policy is you get one
refund, and that's it. I have a steam account with hundreds of titles, bought
over many years. The amount of money I've spent with them is in the low
thousands of dollars. I've once requested a refund, because I disagreed with
particularly onerous terms in the ToS for a game (shown after the purchase,
during the install). They refunded me, but made it _very_ clear that this was
a one-time thing and I would never again be able to have a product refunded,
as per their policy.

It kinda put me off them TBH. I mean, of course you have to protect against
people gaming the system, but this was clearly not the case here.

Your experience may be different if you're a famous name on
reddit/twitch/whatever.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
They completely overhauled their refund policy recently. Now you can get a no-
questions-asked refund for any game you've played for less than two hours.

[http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/](http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/)

~~~
throwaway7767
Interesting, thanks, that's good to know. The game in question had about 8
minutes "played", so this would cover that.

Good on them for improving their service.

------
dyates
I don't like the idea of basing too much of the price on hours of playtime: if
you've got something really inventive and different with a short enough
playtime to not overstay its welcome, that's undervalued. Many games with long
playtimes are boring and full of grind.

As a player with a dayjob and many interests besides games, I don't value
million hour playtimes: I value novelty and innovation. So I'm glad to see and
pay for something like The Beginner's Guide for $10.

Although that's probably a minority opinion: look at the Steam discussion
forum for any indie game priced at or higher than $10 and you'll see at least
one thread complaining that it's too expensive for such a short game(/not
being written on a custom engine in C++).

------
smacktoward
This feels like a weird post to me, because it's got all this discussion about
discounts and bundles and so forth but the part that the title indicates is
its main thrust -- deciding what price is going to be "full price" for your
game -- basically just says "make it $15 or $20, because that's what people
charge these days."

Which, OK, but this feels like a subject that could use a lot more
investigation. _Why_ is $15-20 what people are charging these days? Does it
vary based on genre, platform, theme, depth (hours of expected playtime), art
style, phase of the moon? Does a high initial list price that you discount
steeply later pay out better than a low initial list price with less dramatic
discounting? There's so many angles you could attack this question from beyond
just throwing a dart.

It's an especially interesting question given that Spiderweb's games appeal to
a relatively small but quite passionate audience, so you wonder if he'd be
better off charging higher-than-market prices at launch (when those passionate
audience members, who are probably less price-sensitive, will be buying) and
then moving quickly to deeper discounts once the hard-core fan base has tapped
out.

~~~
jonnathanson
Agreed, but pricing is a real bear. Doing the analysis, along with all of
one's assumptions and guesstimates and strategic choices, is a PITA that is
hard to do well and prone to being blown away by Week 1 results anyhow. So I
took his advice as "advice to the indie developer who wants to focus on his
game and recognizes that he has little business acumen or inclination." Which
is sort of a lazy person in theory, but in practice, is sort of like the
"self-publishing fantasy fiction writer who wants to focus on his book and
recognizes that he has little business acumen or inclination." Etc, etc, etc.
The author is basically saying, "Do all the analysis you want; in the end, for
you, your most efficient strategy is likely to be pricing at the industry
standard."

Pricing well above the going rate can be a signal of quality, prestige, etc.,
but generally speaking, people have to know you to accept your implicit claims
to those things. You have to have an audience. Your game is what economists
call an 'experience good,' meaning that people won't be able to judge its
quality until they've tried it. A high price is a barrier to trial. (This is
why high-priced games often feature free, playable demos or other low-barrier
trial mechanisms.)

The other challenge with pricing high at the outset, then discounting later on
is that it may breed market resentmemt. Pretty much everyone expects that a
game will cost more if purchased in its first week of release than if
purchased two years later. But a lot of people might feel burned if your game
costs $X in its first week, and .5X a few months later. It might also
encourage fans, even the hardcore, to simply wait out the clock until the
expected discount period occurs.

On the whole, however, I agree with you. But pricing is hard.

------
flashman
I am one of Jeff's true fans, having played his games since the mid 90s, which
makes me think he's understated one important point: you have to have fans.
You can't expect to stand out on the strength of your ideas, gameplay or story
alone. You have to work to find an audience for them, and then work to get
those people to buy your product, at full price. Good games are _almost_ a
commodity now. The developer is one of the few points of difference buyers pay
attention to.

"You can be 50% off one sale and then 75% the next. Nobody will notice." I
disagree with this; once you put it on a temporary sale or in a bundle, many
people are content to wait until it goes on sale for lower. I've lost count of
the number of Reddit threads where people asked, "Will [game x] go lower than
$1.49?"

~~~
dexiwz
Indie games have become a race to the bottom, and devs are content on watching
them slide. If I had a nickel every time I saw a downward sloping sales graph,
with a single spike for that one Front Page day, I would have enough for the
latest bundle.

------
dexiwz
I am always shocked at how marketing-adverse indie game devs are. Developers
invest a ton of their base commodity (time) into a game, but refuse to
advertise it or fail to save cash to do so. Instead they rely on front pages,
bundles, and sales. Then 9 months latter they do post mortems, where they
correlated sales graphs to events. I want to see a sale graph for conversions
based on Facebook ads. Mobile/FB Game companies pump out mediocre games, but
maintain huge user bases just because people find their games.

Everything thinks that they are going to be Notch and their game will spread
by word-of-mouth, because they have a unicorn. Turns out your time-bending,
retro, 2D, pixel-art shooter/platformer doesnt have the genius of Virtual
Legos, and no one cares about it.

~~~
flashman
In my opinion, if you do CPM/CPC/Facebook marketing for your indie game, you
are wasting your money. You are competing with the marketing budgets of
industry giants, which are ten to 100 times larger. Your ads won't be seen.

Your effort should be spent convincing influencers to play your game, so that
they will convince others. These are not people best reached by advertising.

~~~
dexiwz
Have you ever seen anyone try it and report numbers? Ads for Facebook are
fairly specific. Its creepy how finely you can segment your audience. Industry
giants may have larger budgets, which just means that they can cast a wider
net. Well targeted ads may have better returns.

Facebook is not the only platform. Reddit, Polygon, and Twitch all have users
that would fit your demographic more. Social media personalities (Twitter,
Youtube, Tumblr, etc), all will mention your game for the right price. If you
have ever seen 'Featured', 'Promoted', or 'Partner' content, then it was paid
for. Communities and forums are overvalued for the time investment, especially
because they rely on other people to spread your game.

We live in a consumerist society driven by ads. Refusal to use them is silly.

~~~
chipsy
It isn't a one-size-fits-all market, and lumping together "marketing" with the
industrial sales funnel does a disservice to the numerous games that used
other marketing techniques, on their own or accompanied by a traditional push.

That doesn't mean that marketing isn't important - if your goal is commercial
then it really should be up in that 60% of developer time range - but the way
in which you do it requires at least as much design thinking as making the
game. The whole premise of the game needs built in sales value or else you're
part of the crowd, fighting to break out.

Most of the tricks you can do with advertising and production values only
reduce reasons for people to say "no" to a game. They don't make people say
"yes", and if nobody says "yes" then all you can do is churn people through
the sales funnel, because your game doesn't and never will solve anyone's
hair-on-fire problem.

------
IIAOPSW
As someone who has a game sitting on my hard-drive for lack of publishing and
pricing knowledge, I appreciate this.

For those that are curious (and don't mind a bit of self-promotion) here is my
personal side-project game:

playinverse.com

~~~
HCIdivision17
Then there's stuff like this. Where there just aren't that many games like it.
Echochrome, Antichamber, Monument Valley, Oquonie, and Fez feel like they're
in a similar category, and I would happily throw more money at clever games
like that. I'm super stoked about The Museum of Simulation Technology and
Miegakure for the same reason.

To go along with another commenter who notes that if you've fans, you're set:
if you work in a sufficiently difficult or niche genre with a following,
you've got a head start. I'll buy damn near any space-warpy game just on the
off-chance I get that fix for a clever and unexpected plot twist; in this case
probably a literal shift in perspective.

Edit: spelling and +1 game

~~~
IIAOPSW
Perhaps you'd be interested in this

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pF8JRqGEWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pF8JRqGEWc)

~~~
HCIdivision17
I won't lie. I was hoping for leads on other games. Relativity looks
fantastic. It's an odd thing: I have no idea if it looks _fun_ to play or not,
but I have no doubt that it will be worth whatever price simply for the
atmosphere and style. A spectrum runs where a game can be fun for its
mechanics or enjoyable for it aesthetics. For me, I suppose I'm willing to pay
$10 for anything that does _something_ well. If Relativity is merely an
interactive work of abstract art, I suspect I would be happy with that. And if
the game is merely a few shapes and lines with a fun mechanic, I feel the
same.

(And thanks also for the lead on Witness - a Myst by The Guy Who Did Braid? I
can't see that disappointing (and no idea how I hadn't heard of it yet!).)

~~~
IIAOPSW
You want a list of spatial mind blowers? You should have just asked.

Box game:
[http://www.sophiehoulden.com/games/boxgame/](http://www.sophiehoulden.com/games/boxgame/)

The bridge:
[http://thebridgeisblackandwhite.com/](http://thebridgeisblackandwhite.com/)

EOF: [http://gamejolt.com/games/end-of-file-
prototype/41818](http://gamejolt.com/games/end-of-file-prototype/41818)

Curved spaces (more of a toy than a game):
[http://geometrygames.org/CurvedSpaces/index.html.en](http://geometrygames.org/CurvedSpaces/index.html.en)

colortone(I haven't played it yet):
[http://gamejolt.com/games/colortone/68905](http://gamejolt.com/games/colortone/68905)

parallax:
[http://steamcommunity.com/app/32506](http://steamcommunity.com/app/32506)

As for relativity, its more than art. The guy showed up on reddit to explain a
bit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/comments/3amnj0/as_a_fa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/comments/3amnj0/as_a_fan_of_antichamber_this_was_one_of_my/)

short version: spatial puzzle embedded in a 3-torus.

------
tempestn
"I’ve been thinking about this a lot. The pricing part, as thinking about
marketing makes me break out in fear hives."

Fortunately, that part seems to have taken care of itself!

