
Strategy games, pricing, and the enjoyment curve - just_observing
http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2013/11/24/strategy-games-pricing-and-the-enjoyment-curve/
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eps
Very good and intelligent article. One point I don't fully agree with is the
actual cut-off price. For iOS devices I have noticed that anything above $5
has the exact effect the author described - it forces to pay more attention
and cut the app more slack. Also, I would not even consider buying a $25 game
for iPad. But then if it were a desktop game, I would, meaning that that magic
price depends not just on the game, but also on the platform.

~~~
teamonkey
XCom: Enemy Unknown is $20 on iOS, only sightly cheaper than the PC version at
the time of launch, and is a more-or-less straight port of the PC game.
Despite the (comparatively) high price it was in the Top Grossing list for a
while.

Square-Enix have also been successfully selling $15 iOS ports of their Final
Fantasy series.

~~~
sesqu
I would classify XCom: Enemy Unknown as console game, not a PC game. But the
important point is that it's not an iPad game, and as such is automatically
"worth" more due to having a different anchor.

~~~
acheron
Why is that? It is a remake of a PC game, from a traditionally PC game
developer, and the interface is PC-centric. It's a PC game with console ports.

~~~
sesqu
The interface is far from PC-centric. It's PC-tolerable, but was clearly
designed for consoles.

Firaxis initially promised separate interfaces for both platforms, and
presumably for touch devices as well, but the differences ended up being
cosmetic at best.

If you want an example of a dual-platform game with a PC-centric interface,
the first example that comes to mind is Command & Conquer.

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asb
Has anyone played Democracy 3? I found Democracy 2 relatively shallow and toy-
like - the RockPaperShotgun "Wot I think" didn't make it Democracy 3 sound
like a significantly deeper experience
[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/31/wot-i-think-
democ...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/31/wot-i-think-democracy-3/)

~~~
frozen_tomato
Yes, I hadn't played Democracy 2, but I was going to buy Democracy 3 on a
whim, instead when I found the high price I pirated it.

I got well past the initial hour mentioned in the blog, but after about the
third hour or so my interest waned, it is pretty shallow and to an extent just
feels like you are 'playing' a spreadsheet with the occasional random value
thrown in.

I hope this doesn't sound too disparaging, since I did have fun for the four
hours or so I played, but I wouldn't call it deep strategy at all, and I would
have felt pretty let down if I'd paid full price for it.

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vacri
_Secondly, we have sunk costs. If you buy a game or $1 and after 5 minutes you
are stuck, bored or confused, who gives a fuck? Just uninstall it. But what if
you paid $25 or even $50? At that price, you often ‘force yourself’ to keep
playing_

Nope. If I'm bored or confused by a high-price game it just gets binned.
There's a ton of other stuff out there. Make a mental note that the publisher
of the game is probably crap in terms of future purchases. The days of
sticking with a game because there's no other options are over, thanks to
digital distribution, broadband, and a glut of games.

~~~
Tohhou
Psychologically speaking you are more likely to attempt to get results from a
product the more you have invested to acquire it. You may bin games if their
price is comparatively nothing in your daily budget, if you routinely buy
designer clothing paying hundreds a garment you only wear once then a $50 game
might be nothing, but if you paid $25,000 for a flight simulation setup you
might use it more than once before throwing it in the trash because you can so
easily next things.

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erikb
The argument is interesting, but most of my gaming experience contradicts it.
E.g. dwarf fortress, nethack, crawl cost all zero and I've spent more time in
them then in most pay games.

~~~
lifeformed
I think the $0 price point is extremely different from $0.01 or more. It's an
entirely different category in our minds. We don't think, "this game is so
cheap that it's free", but rather, "this is a game that the author decided not
to charge for."

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RyanZAG
If you're looking for a good strategy game, check out Dominions 4. It's
probably the deepest strategy game around and is very thematic.

[http://www.illwinter.com/dom4/](http://www.illwinter.com/dom4/)

~~~
sesqu
It's worth noting that this game also has a "high" price point.

~~~
wdr1
By "high price point" you mean roughly half of a typical Xbox game?

~~~
sesqu
I mean 25€, which is slightly higher than the $25 the article is about.

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comrh
Another indie that followed a lot of this logic is Kerbal Space Program. I'll
admit I pushed through the learning curve because of the price and really
found it very rewarding.

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qwerta
Does anyone know good Civilization like game? I played Civ4 and Alpha Centaury
a lot, but it is getting old. Civ5 does not work for me.

~~~
nolok
If you're not afraid of a space settings, Galactic Civilization 2 + extension
by stardock is a must have, cost pretty much nothing and runs anywhere.

It is a 4x in space not exactly the same as civ / ac, but it is very generic
yet complete, similar to what civ 4 + beyond the sword is in its branch, and
the general idea is the same: you start with a base planet (city), you have to
expand your area to more planets (cities) all the while dealing with diplomacy
and wars against several opponents ranging from nice and friendly to war
mongering slavers.

And if you end up liking the genre, there are a lot of other 4x available with
specialization in each specific area (sword of the stars, endless space, ai
wars, sins of a solar empire, stardrive, star ruler, ...)

PS: and if you have never tried it, the mod Rise of Mankind + A new dawn
breath a lot of new life to Civ 4 beyond the storm. The extent to which it
deepens the game is unbelievable.

~~~
yareally
+1 for stardock strategy games and an owner of Galactic Civilizations also.

I think I've bought nearly all of their history games on steam. Victoria 2 is
great if you want a unique military/economic strategy game that focuses on
1840 to 1920. When I get bored of playing one of the larger players in
imperialism, I delve into the "what ifs" and play as a more minor 19th century
power like Italy, The Ottomans or China. Arguably, I had more fun bringing
Japan into the industrial era than I did colonizing Africa with the UK. Also,
uniting Germany is also quite fun. Plenty of great user mods out for it as
well.

If you have an interest in 1920 to 1950, hearts of iron 3 is great. You can
even import your end game from Victoria to it and continue playing an
alternative reality 20th century.

Galactic Civ is turn based while Victoria and Hearts of Iron are continuous
time, where you can speed up or slow down (or pause) time. It's a little weird
at first if you're used to turn based, but the game flows much better as there
aren't 5 minute pauses in gameplay unlike civ5.

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ExpendableGuy
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the average user buying $1 apps on a whim is a
different audience than the user willing to spend >$5 on an app.

I've purchased $5+ apps that I've binned after not being impressed (even after
being swayed by reviews). But I'm regularly buying strategy games that are
priced that way.

