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[Papacheeks]

This is true. Selling 200,000 copies at $10 and selling 100,000 copies at $20 may get you the same gross at the time, but with the 200,000 copies example, that's twice as many chances to gain fans for your game and your company which can pay off with future releases.

This really depends and differs like other's have stated on content, and type of game it is.

If your game is a cheap 9.99 game but packs a lot of value, I could see it doing well. I feel the sweet spot for games has been 14.99-19.99.

Case in Point Shovel Knight is 14.99, production value wise looks like every other pixel game. But it's refined gameplay, boss's, level design, music and replay-ability is what help the game get popular.

That and releasing it on multiple platforms in a stagger release schedule with each having it's own marketing campaign per platform.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Not all indie games are equal, say Divinity Original Sin is a bigger game than many publisher-backed RPGs of the 90s, I don't see why it can't cost those €37. Being very successful at that price point allows the developer to remain independent and continue taking creative risks, while players are still happy with the value. Win/win for everyone.

Although technically indie, Divinity:OS is more of that AA type of game that's become less and less common these days - much bigger budget than your typical indie game, while not quite being AAA. $30-$40 for such a game is perfectly reasonable. I'm more referring to the small team games that are being launched at higher and higher price tags.

 

[Nabs]

Good thread. $15 is probably the perfect price for a good indie title. It's within impulse buy territory and it gives you room to push sales throughout the year, starting with a launch discount.

The games that have twitch.tv potential can be priced much higher and will still sell a stupid amount. Rocket League is almost at half a million sold in July.

 

[CazTGG]

I highly disagree with the idea that an independent game should be between some arbitrary price as much as I disagree with how every AAA title should be set at $60. The Order 1886 was a $60 title (more if you're from Canada, Australia, Brazil, etc.), one which most would agree that neither the quality nor quantity of the content justifies that price tag. In contrast, titles like last year's Shantae & The Pirate's Curse and this year's Axiom Verge were priced at $20 and offered more enjoyable experiences for a third of the price. Put simply, a game should be priced based more on its quality (forgiving for a moment that quality will differ from one individual to another) and budget than whether or not the people who made the game were independent or not. The rigid price structure that the industry steadfastly sticks to is detrimental to both AAA and indie developers that often devalues the work of the latter purely on the merits of their lack of a publisher.

 

[Zemm]

$20 is like £13? I think that's fine and probably the sweet spot. When you start hitting £6-£7 on release is when I start to think that maybe the game is tiny on content and become a bit more wary. When it's £20 then I start to think I'll wait a bit.

 

[Shinriji]

Indies at $20 screams "buy at $5 when is 75% off or wait for PS Plus".

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Every dev believes their content is of good quality.

I don't believe this to be true.

 

[Armaros]

Indies at $20 screams "buy at $5 when is 75% off or wait for PS Plus".

Only by people that group all non-AAA games together under one umbrella term of 'indie'.

 

[pizzacat]

Doesn't that steam early release thing have prices depending on what the devs want to charge?

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Define 'indie'. I don't think all games not made by a AAA dev should be priced the same. There has to be an evaluation of worth from the developer, and consumers will decide if they are right.

 

[AndyD]

I think this is a good point. Devs probably think about which price point they want to be at during a Steam sale. And if the game sells the most units during that time, and there's the appearance of getting a good deal, then it may be advantageous to price higher in anticipation of Steam sales.

Yep. Everyone wants a piece of the sale pie, and it was painfully obvious with the recent GTA5 debacle. Where they wanted to get full price, but also appear as if it was on sale so they did the odd bundles. I know it was not indie, but the same idea is behind it, where they had a target price and yet wanted it to appear to be on sale, so it gets the marketing slots on the sale pages.

I think $20 is beyond impulse buy, $15 is getting closer but $10 and below is impulse territory.

 

[charlequin]

I don't think this is a good universal generalization at all. A required price point has an extremely negative effect on developers who don't develop to the exact expectations of that price, regardless of whether it's on the low or the high side. Pubs and devs alike have been observing how the digital distribution world frees them up to target different price points, and I think the high-end growth in the indie world is an organic result of people feeling safer developing games that need to sell at $20 or $30, rather than some concerted cash grab.

Game X sold for $20 and did well: Chances are your game isn't the highly anticipated follow-up game to one of the best-selling indie games ever (Transistor/Bastion) or one of the best looking 2D games of all time with the direct backing of one of the most powerful companies in the world (Ori and the Blind Forest).

You can apply a test like this to success at any price -- most games don't fall into any of the categories that lead to predictable success, regardless of what price point they start at.

Even so, plenty of games are very successful at higher prices despite no obvious preconditions for that success. Survival sandboxes like Rust and ARK have become million-sellers at high prices despite coming from no-name devs. Banished got over a million at $20 despite being in a less popular genre and coming from a brand-new dev. Darkest Dungeon had only 10,000 Kickstarter backers but is at 400k sales at $20 now. Sunless Sea hit 160k and Invisible Inc. got over 100k.

A high price means I'll make a lot of money in sales: A high starting price conditions people to wait for sales.

This is funny to me since the Nintendo line has been the opposite -- selling games cheap encourages people to wait, so you should start as high as possible and never lower your price.

Regardless, I'm not sure there's any real evidence for this. SteamSpy is the best resource we've ever had for sales in a DD environment, and their data hasn't shown any type of discount-anticipation effect -- games don't get less frontloaded as their launch price increases, which suggests that the people who wait for a sale and the people who buy upfront are different populations.

I feel like once you reach $20, you're no longer at an impulse buy level. Now you're competing directly against AAA games that came out a few months ago.

I actually think a big part of why $20 is becoming a more appealing price point is that competing against price-dropped AAA titles used to mean 50+ high budget titles from the last six months, but nowadays means 5-6 titles from a full year ago.

 

[Cleve]

I think game pricing across the board needs to be more flexible, and I definitely feel like there's some indie games creeping upwards in price where it doesn't really reflect the effort to create the content. There's no definite answer though as just reading this thread you see a lot of perspectives about magic price points and what makes people interested buyers or skeptics just based on price.

I always find sales numbers for games fascinating, particularly when you start talking about pricepoints, sales, and stuff like ps+ deals.

 

[Iorv3th]

I think a lot of the higher prices is also to gain more money from sales. You can leverage sales better and get more from them. If your 50% off from 20$ your getting 10$ instead of say 5-7.50

 

[Toki767]

What if a game is regularly priced at $20 but at launch week is 10-20% off? Does that help with the psychological barrier?

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

This is funny to me since the Nintendo line has been the opposite -- selling games cheap encourages people to wait, so you should start as high as possible and never lower your price.

Nintendo also has huge marketing budgets, owns their own platforms, and are celebrated for decades of making some of the highest quality and most influential games of all-time. They can get away with rarely doing discounts on some of the most popular series ever; try the same thing as a small indie and you're probably going to get crushed.

In any case, I'm not say that all games should be a specific price. I'm saying that I feel a lot of indie games are pricing higher than they should be and that I think they'd find more success at lower prices.

 

[chubigans]

This is true. Selling 200,000 copies at $10 and selling 100,000 copies at $20 may get you the same gross at the time, but with the 200,000 copies example, that's twice as many chances to gain fans for your game and your company which can pay off with future releases.

Here's the thing though...I would rather sell 100k copies at $20 each and then do 50% discounts and lower to scoop up the copies I missed out on selling with the higher price, rather than going from $10 to $5. That's not to say I think most games should be priced at $20...that's a high premium, too high for most games...but it's all about the long game.

Here's my handy guide on pricing your indie game:

STEP 1: Calculate how much you think your game is worth. Determine how much time you've spent on it, the money spent on assets, the quality and hours of content and gameplay, and determine the exact price that you feel your game is worth to you.
STEP 2: Divide that price by two. Now subtract from that price another two.
STEP 3: Determine additional bonuses for the following:

• Brand New Game (no bonus)
• Port from PC to console (+$4)
• Port from console to PC (round down to nearest rounded ~$5 price, like $10, $15, etc.)
• Port from mobile to PC or console (round up to nearest rounded ~$5 price)
• Port from PC/console to mobile (price down to $10. If price was originally $10 or lower, go to $5, or insert F2P mechanics.)

STEP 4: Calculate additional bonuses for specific elements:

• First Person Shooter (+$5)
• Third Person Shooter (+$2)
• "A Unique Game/Completely New Game Mechanics" (-$3)
• Roguelike (+$2)
• Zombie related content (+$2, add an additional +$3 if Sept/Oct. release date)
• Pixel Art (-$6)
• Music/Sound related gameplay action/abstract puzzler (-$10)
• 2D story based game with no combat mechanics (-$8)
• 3D story based game with no combat mechanics (+$6)
• Local multiplayer only game (+$3)
• Online only multiplayer game (-$5)
• "Inspired by games such as..." (-$2)
• The word "retro" is used in the game description (-$3)
• Vehicle based game, arcade (-$5)
• Vehicle based game, sim (+$10)
• Minecraft-y (+$4)
• A quote from a YouTube personality is used in your description (+$1, plus an additional 0.01% of the subscribers they have, determined in pennies. For instance, a million subscribers is a bonus of $1. Round down for this bonus. Cap is at $10.)

STEP 5: Determine the final price. If you have gone below $5, consider utilizing F2P mechanics. Good luck!

 

[WiiRevolution1]

Cosmic Star Heroine

Well atleast something good came from this thread.

Cosmic Star Heroine will cost no more than $15. Thanks for the info OP!

Spoiler

No seriously thanks. I have limited monies.

Anywayz: Games should be priced whatever the developer wants them to be. $20 for Shantae or Outlast? Sure. $25 for Skullgirls 2? Go right ahead. People will just not buy them if they don't think its worth those prices and you'll start seeing discounts. And I think atleast the three above games all sold well. Wehile I don't own any of those three games (while I want them) they all seem worth the price to me and many others. (I'm paying off Dangan Ronpa 2.5 and Corpse Party Finale before buying anything else.) And if its worth those prices, then they'll sale at those prices.

 

[Peltz]

Every dev believes their content is of good quality.

Lol no.

 

[AmuroChan]

Not all Indie games are created equal. I don't think it's fair to just say that all Indie games should be no more than $15. Devs can release their games at whatever price they want. The market will validate whether that price point is a good one.

 

[OnPoint]

Too many assumptions and absolute statements being thrown around in this thread. Kind of surprising for such a nuanced and complicated issue.

 

[HyperCubed4]

ILower prices often benefit both players and the developer. Lower prices mean more people play your game. Lower prices often result in more positive reviews. Lower prices means more buzz around your game and more people tell their friends to play the game. Lower prices often means more total revenue for the developer as dropping the price in half often results in WAY more than double the sales.

That's a half truth. If Batman: Arkham Knight was $20 on PC, it would still be a shit game, just with less outrage. If you're talking about people attributing worth to a game, then sure. I can see people saying "Gone Home was a pretty good game for $5."

A lower price means more sales, but less incentive to play the game. A $60 purchase is an investment. A $1 purchase is an impulse buy. How many games did you buy during the Steam Summer Sale? How many have you actually played? "All of them" is a possible answer, but it sure isn't the most common. Steam "backlogs" (more often than not) are filled with games people bought at a discounted price. Money is great, but if you have any pride as a developer, you want people to actually play your game.

A low price means that people will think my game is not good: Maybe if your game is free or $1 this is applicable, but I've never seen someone say "I was going to buy this game but it's such a good deal that I'm afraid it's bad."

I just wanted to quote this because it pertains to my post. People don't say this explicitly, but this definitely happens. The Law of Diminishing Returns could apply to sales, although I have no concrete proof on this. Suffice it to say, when something is heavily discounted, people in general think that they're trying really hard to sell it.

 

[World SkiFree]

According to my calculations using formulas and stuff, the optimal point price for all games is $12.38. I don't necessarily agree with this number. I'm just the messenger for math.

 

[Coffee Dog]

lol, god these discussions are always great.

"open world games and shooters are worth $60" "I couldn't imagine paying full price for *insert niche genre*"

Garden state's DVD is the same price as The Dark Knight. Budget and scope does not correlate to quality or content. Fighting that stigma is the struggle of the young artistic medium.

 

[RMI]

It's up to the creators to price their games how they see fit. Some indie games are going to have more value than others, and should probably command a higher price, but without a huge marketing engine or tons of press access I can see where even great games would be a hard sell at $20.

You can spend almost $5 on a cup of coffee in some places, so at that price a game that you're even barely interested in might be a buy. $10 - $15 is a bit more of a risk, but you might still buy a game if you're a fan of the genre or it looks interesting enough. At past $20 you really need to be pretty sure that a game is going to be good, otherwise you might feel bad about wasting money if you don't enjoy it.

At a lower price point you can attract more people who might like your game if it is good, and for a small team without advertising budget, positive word of mouth is probably worth a lot.

 

[slash000]

To those saying,
"Well games should be priced at what the market is willing to pay for them, duh!"
That's what this whole discussion is asking: what is the market willing to pay for certain games such as to maximize revenue for the developer.

The market doesn't pick the initial price point, it only decides how many copies are sold at a price point. The dev can adjust later but that initial launch + price point can set the tone for the game's success.

But more importantly the market is heavily swayed by psychological factors, marketing, and a bunch of other things beyond just "the price" and that's what the thread topic is additionally pertaining to.

Yes, the market provides a flop for games priced wrong. But most devs don't know if their price is "wrong" until *after* they've priced it, sold it for X weeks, and review the ROI.

 

[DirtyLarry]

I personally feel it is not about the resources and team behind the game. It is about the quality of the game itself.
If it is a good game by a small team I have no problem paying for that game.
If it is a good game by a large team, I also have no problem paying for that game.
If it is a shit game regardless the size of the team, I do have a problem paying any price for it.

So if you make a good product I have no problem with you charging accordingly.
I do not personally feel just because the label "indy" has been thrown on a game that automatically equates to it should be $15 or lower.

However as a consumer, I do see things differently.
So I imagine it is quite the conundrum for developers.
This is why I still feel more than anything else, the demo is one of the best marketing tools out there for game developers.
Release a demo if you are not sure what you should charge. Let the game speak for itself.
If it is worth $20, people will purchase it. If it is not, they won't.

 

[Icyflamez96]

edot

 

[Ralemont]

I speak as a consumer, not a developer. You know what justifies a price for me? The quality of the title. Should developers use their perceived quality as a metric for setting price? Probably not. But you know what is a worse idea? Setting a static price under a much broader umbrella such as "indie".

As a consumer, you can only retroactively decide what a game was worth, which is irrelevant to a developer deciding the launch price of their game, which is what this topic is about.

 

[Vylash]

devs devaluing their own games is a problem, not a solution

 

[Vire]

I know this thread was inspired by N++ and I have to agree that $20 is significantly higher than it should be.


The previous iteration of N+ was $10. A simple, fun, and challenging platformer that you could purchase on impulse and feel satisfied.

Now at double the price, for essentially a stick figure art style game with no voice acting or 3D assets to develop ... it's definitely questionable and will make consumers think twice. I've heard the justification in the official thread is that this game has triple the amount of levels as N+, but I don't think that was necessary at all. The original game on XBLA already had 400 levels and definitely I didn't feel like I was starving for more in the slightest. I feel like Metanet bet on the wrong horse by developing over 2000 levels, it's overkill and most people won't even see that content. I'm not even sure if I am going to play all 2000 levels and I'm a huge fan of the series. They would have been been much better off sticking to the original vision at the $10-15 price point with less content.

 

[Salsa]

oh nice, day one for $2.99 Cosmic Star Heroine 😎


real answer tho; this market trend should give your game even more leverage and notoriety by pricing it low, no?

I mean, I gather these things shift the way they do according to the games / prices that come out so there's nothing to do except price your own games whatever you want


Im not entirely sure where I stand on this but I can say that $20 can seem like a tougher sell, yeah. Even tho it's just $5 it does make a difference, maybe in just marketing / seeing the price, even

last time I remember I had an issue of sorts with this was with Axiom Verge, but that was mainly cause the game did not get any sort of pre-order / release day discount on Steam whereas it did on Playstation platforms; on which it came out quite a bit earlier. Still think that was lame.

In the end I bought it anyway

 

[Glendemonium]

What would be a safe starting point for new indie games price wise? I just finished a platformer/puzzle-ish game that can take a few hours to finish, more for completion and priced it at 4.99 on Steam.

Perhaps a bit much. Some 2D games charge upward to ten dollars around average so I thought I could charge half since it's a new IP.

 

[DSix]

Sorry but no, really no. My first game was just me and a musician, it's a short and hyper focused game, so yeah, cheap is right in this situation (5$ for Proxy Blade Zero is a good place to be, I think).

But as I move forward, I'm working on longer, better looking, better games, and I have to bring in more people to help on the aspects I can't master myself.
Indies shouldn't be bound to a set arbitrary lower price just because they are indies, that's plain dumb and ignores the very wide variety and size of projects there can be.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Now at double the price, for essentially a stick figure art style game with no voice acting or 3D assets to develop ... it's definitely questionable and will make consumers think twice.

I'm going to single out this quote, not because of your opinion in particular, but because I think it's emblematic of a common mindset in the games industry.

People in this thread, do you believe that a film that is shot in a single location with three actors, or a low budget romantic comedy that takes place in cheap locations should charge less for their product than a blockbuster with crazy special effects and an avengers tier cast? Should it cost more to experience the Lord of the Rings than a comedy?

I think relegating low budget games as definitively lesser experiences is frankly destructive towards moving away from an industry obsessed with the monolithic all in one AAA game. It says "if you don't have money go play in the kids corner with the other hipsters for festival praise while real games that can afford to be real games compete for actual attention and GOTY awards". It further marginalizes a market that is already marginalized.

 

[ViolentP]

As a consumer, you can only retroactively decide what a game was worth, which is irrelevant to a developer deciding the launch price of their game, which is what this topic is about.

Which I both agreed and covered in a previous post.

 

[Cave Johnson]

Because the hundreds of hours you'll spend exploring NMS' randomly generated planets is equivalent to a 5 hour game with hand crafted level design.

Does anyone even care about quality level design anymore? It's hard to find games like Shovel Knight these days, I mean maybe there are many but they're literally hard to find in the massive pile of shit.

That depends if the effort between them are relatively the same. You can have the best levels in the world but if they don't cost as much to make I don't think you can justify the high price point unless you have enough content to back up the value.

That being said, OP's argument can apply to AAA titles. I have never, for a long time after TLOU have paid full price for a AAA title, EVER. If indie titles would have to lower their price point to get potential sales then I don't see why the AAA market is exempt. Let's not forget Evolve and their poor justification of microtransaction excuse.

 

[Vire]

I'm going to single out this quote, not because of your opinion in particular, but because I think it's emblematic of a common mindset in the games industry.

People in this thread, do you believe that a film that is shot in a single location with three actors, or a low budget romantic comedy that takes place in cheap locations should charge less for their product than a blockbuster with crazy special effects and an avengers tier cast? Should it cost more to experience the Lord of the Rings than a comedy?

I think relegating low budget games as definitively lesser experiences is frankly destructive towards moving away from an industry obsessed with the monolithic all in one AAA game. It says "if you don't have money go play in the kids corner with the other hipsters for festival praise while real games that can afford to be real games compete for actual attention and GOTY awards". It further marginalizes a market that is already marginalized.

Way to go, way to take my post completely out context, marginalize my post and instead corner it into another discussion entirely.

Regardless, I will address it. N++ should absolutely charge less than something that required triple the amount of artists, animators, and voice talent. As a consumer, I understand the cost of investment is incredibly high for producing lavish 3D games with voice acting and so I am absolutely willing to pay a premium as result. The reason those bigger budget movies do not cost more is because they expect a large return on investment based on the number of people willing to see the movie. This does not apply to the video game industry because it is a free market and could be priced any way you want accordingly. If bigger budget movie studios could, they would price those movies through the ceiling given the opportunity.The justification for the cost of N++ was that they developed literally thousands of levels. My point was that they should have never scope creeped out to a point of unreasonable levels when half the user base will probably never even see that content. The game would have been more successful if they had minimized costs/scope and keep the price point at a reasonable impulse level and would have generated more sales rather than banking on the fact that it's a niche title and people are willing to pay a premium for specialized games.

 

[slash000]

In a perfect world, games that are just as fun and have just as much playtime or whatever as any other game would priced the same.

In the real world games with big huge production values and amazing graphics are assumed, by the market, to be more valuable than games with far less or very basic graphics and production value.

It's not fair but that's how it is. If you price based on how you would hope the ideal world should be, chances are your game and business will suffer.


Fortunately the discussion is more centered on, what are the pros and cons of ~$10 to ~$15 vs. ~$15 to ~$20

The arguments on threads around the web seem to crop up when that $15 threshold is crossed. I think that says something.

 

[The Illiterati]

Totally agree with your main point. I will impulse buy at 10 erryday, 15 if it looks really good, but at 20 I have to be foaming at the mouth for your game. Does it make sense? No, but its true.

 

[hawk2025]

This is true. Selling 200,000 copies at $10 and selling 100,000 copies at $20 may get you the same gross at the time, but with the 200,000 copies example, that's twice as many chances to gain fans for your game and your company which can pay off with future releases.

But selling 100,000 copies at $20 allows you to capture the <$20 part of the demand curve afterwards, by reducing the price after a reasonable amount of time.

If there are an additional 100,000 people willing to pay $10 for it (as per your example), and 100,000 willing to pay $20, the total revenue over time is 3 million, rather than 2 million.

Of course, this simplifies matters significantly (part of your argument revolves around the externalities of building a large initial userbase right away), but the dynamics are very much important.

 

[Wiktor]

Depends on the game. I wouldn't want one price point to become standard. Not when under indie games we have petite 2 hour titles that can easily be sold for couple bucks as well as huge productions like Divinity: OS or Star Citizen that deserve far more than $20.

Not to mention that low price point only works if your game has big mainstream appeal. If a game is very niche (say...a flight simulator or grognard wargame) then lowering the price doesn't make sense, as regular gamers most likely still won't give this game a chance and the audience for it is more than willing to pay the higher price.

 

[ThaneKrios]

They should cost whatever the dev wants. Buy it if you like, don't if you not agree with the price.

Videogames are not a drug or vital medicide, it's not like you need that expensive dose...

 

[hawk2025]

They should cost whatever the dev wants. Buy it if you like, don't if you not agree with the price.

Videogames are not a drug or vital medicide, it's not like you need that expensive dose...

But that's a shallow point of discussion.

The point proposed in this topic isn't "Indie games MUST be cheaper", it's "indie games should be cheaper" -- the point being that Robert believes that, due to the way that videogames are marketed, front-loaded, and requiring attention at release, the benefits of lower initial prices outweight the benefits of a higher price initially and a steeper price curve over time.

Now, I do think he extrapolates a bit too far with the implications of the analysis, but you are not exactly addressing his point with this.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Indie games should cost whatever the developer feels is right for the game and for their business. If a customer does or does not want to pay that, that is their choice. Setting a standard price for anything will destroy niche genres overnight, because the less customers a game can have, then less money it can make and so may need to be priced accordingly.

 

[Wiktor]

But that's a shallow point of discussion.

The point proposed in this topic isn't "Indie games MUST be cheaper", it's "indie games should be cheaper" -- the point being that Robert believes that, due to the way that videogames are marketed, front-loaded, and requiring attention at release, the benefits of lower initial prices outweight the benefits of a higher price initially and a steeper price curve over time.

Now, I do think he extrapolates a bit too far with the implications of the analysis, but you are not exactly addressing his point with this.

The problem is...sure...15$ game will get bigger attention at launch. But you know what will get even bigger one? 10$ game. And you will likely reach even bigger audience with 5$. And imagine how much audience you can gain if you lower to 1$. And then we end up with another App Store diseaster.

 

[Piston Hyundai]

I barely buy AAA games over $20, so it's rare that I buy an indie game around that price, either. The last indie game I bought over $20 was Killing Floor 2, and I already regret that.

Their plan was to have the game out of Early Access by the end of the year, but they haven't updated the game in two months, and it's got like 5% of the playerbase it had at launch. The one time I buy an Early Access game and it bites me in the ass.

 

[hawk2025]

The problem is...sure...15$ game will get bigger attention at launch. But you know what will get even bigger one? 10$ game. And you will likely reach even bigger audience with 5$. And imagine how much audience you can gain if you lower to 1$. And then we end up with another App Store diseaster.

Right, so the question is: What's the optimal price, taking into consideration both:

1) The price path over time, including when to discount and by how much
2) The initial price, taking into account the attention the game will get and how much or little word of mouth your game can build given its initial sales


It's a very tough question. My point of contention with this thread in general is that it's very, very hard and game-specific, *and* it depends on a multitude of constantly changing factors -- I don't think there should be a closed, "Indie games should be cheaper" answer.
Does it have a chance of hitting it out of the park with streaming? Will it build natural word of mouth and keep selling as people adopt a new platform? Is it likely to be front-loaded and requiring a massive number of initial players, perhaps due to its online mode? Are the server-side costs particularly large, requiring the dev to mitigate said costs on the price? Is it a good idea to commit to not discounting for an X amount of months to avoid customers waiting for a lower price? How important is the competition with other games releasing during the same period? Should you consider delaying and/or bringing forward your game's release depending on what else is coming out, rather than adjusting the price? Is a PS+ discount worth going after? How about a full PS+ release?

If anything, I would argue that the variety, massive differences in scope, graphics, fanbases, and presentation should be increasing the variance of the prices. I expect to see more and more $20, $25, $30 and more indie games, as well as more and more lower priced ones, or games with faster/steeper discounts.

Physical copies, Kickstarter, differentiated versions, Early Access and more are all impacting the distribution of prices. As the market becomes more varied, so are the prices, and it's as it should be for profit maximization.

 

[sora87]

I always wait for sales, if I don't think AAA games are worth £50 I can't justify thinking indie games are worth £15-20.

 

[Man God]

They do, and give advice to small devs. One bit of advice I've heard, which robert disagrees with, that has been brought up already in this topic, is that you can price your game too low such that it's thought of as shovelware.

Hell someone recently priced a game so low on Wii U's eshop that they were losing money on every sale.

Hitting the perfect price for any new product is one of the biggest challenges there is when selling it. With software it's particularly important because the market won't accept price increases at all. Just about any other product or service, the price can go up because costs associated with it have gone up. Try that with software and people will riot unless you have iterated the product.

If you hit that sweet spot right away people will buy it on an impulse and believe they are getting a quality product. Another added benefit to the sweet spot is that when it does go on sale people on the fence about it will suddenly look at the new price and go wow, I was thinking about it for X dollars, but 30% off? Done deal.