

Why I don't pledge for Carmageddon - elisk

Recently one of my favorite childhood games has opened a Kickstarter page to recreate the madnass that was Carmageddon, and for those who pledge early there is a special discount - $15 per game.<p>It all sounds so good, one of my favorite childhood games on sale for $15 bucks if I pledge before the game is ready. I should jump on the offer, only one thing bothers me — The $15 for the game for those who pledge early.<p>When a game studio goes out to make a game they want to make something that is profitable, something that will return the investment they put in the game before it hits the stores. This is the reason most of the high-quality games cost around $70 today — investors want a good ROI to go along with their popular game.<p>But with Carmageddon: Reincarnation the investors are us, the user, and we _don't_ want a good ROI, for us the ROI is a high-quality game that will give me hours and hours of fun gameplay.<p>So why is the $15 price tag is only for early pledges? Why not make it the price of the game once it hits the shelves? if the game would cost $15 when it goes retail more people could buy it and enjoy it, and every game sold after the game is funded by Kickstarter goes straight to the pockets of the studio and the developers.<p>So why does the game needs to cost anything above $15?<p>This time I'll pass on Carmageddon, but the next time one of my childhood heroes decides to drop by in 1080p and cool new features I really expect that the studio/developers will lower the price of the game after it has been funded to a point that is below the $20 mark. I won't be able to fund _every_ new game that comes out of Kickstarter-esque funding project, but I do want to enjoy the general marketplace that these kind of crowdfunding sites create and not only those games that I personally fund, so I hope this become some kind of a trend — Crowd funded games (known franchises or new ones) should have a more welcoming price, these games are not funded by big corporations, so they shouldn't have the same attributes (i.e. price).<p>P.S.
In a world where high-quality app for my mobile touch device costs usually less than $5, there is no reason that a game for my desktop should cost more than $20.
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coryl
I don't know that your assumptions on margins is accurate. Triple-A titles
have a ton of art, sound, and gameplay value that seems costly to produce.

Mobile games pricing however, is largely based on _cheap_ consumers who for
whatever reason, aren't willing to move far from a 99c price point. That might
be okay for some games, because you can do tons of volume, and your
distribution costs are nil except for 30% gross fee. However, just because you
can get a Triple-A quality port on your phone or tablet (Deadspace, Rainbow
Six) for a few bucks doesn't mean its at all economically viable for studios
to price it at those ranges.

