Support NeoGAF

[Pyrrhus]

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. People will buy your $20 game if they really want it and that's about it. Whereas at $15 or especially at $10, you're much more likely to get people who have some interest, see positive reviews, and decided to buy it on impulse.

This is exactly how it is for me as a consumer of indie games. $20 is the point where I begin to ask myself if I really want it that badly. But $10 is like one lunch. I'm fine with buying a title at that price and maybe hating it or maybe just never getting around to it at all. It's just a psychological threshold that is crossed. I'll just wait for a sale for the more expensive stuff unless it's a particularly desired title.

I'm sorry, but even a very good indie game is going to have a hell of a time commanding the prices I would have paid for SNES and PS1 games back in the day. We just live in a different world.

 

[Wiktor]

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.
.

Yep. I agree. In the end it's up for every company to decide and the more games they release they more they know exactly how they can price it to get the most profit. Plus that's the beauty of digital..you can change the price, do sales, get data and adjust.

 

[Krejlooc]

I think that's a problem for some people - but I've never looked at a game and thought "that's too cheap."

I never really consider the price of anything either way, so I'm typically an abysmal source to talk to when it comes to pricing ($300 can still "impulse buy" territory for me...), but I still think there is a group of people who think that cheap games means poor quality. It's some sort of psychological factor at works.

I'm the kind of guy who would go buy the cheap off-brand cereal because it all tastes the same to me, but you know there is a market out there that thinks the sugar crunchies they get from the kellogs box is better than the sugar crunchies they get from the bag at the end of the aisle, even if they are the same thing.

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

Well that's pretty stupid and I don't think that's at all what robert means. Obviously you need to price your game to at least break even with your development costs. Nobody should lose money through sales.

Someone else said this topic was likely inspired by N++ and I agree with that.

 

[Caronte]

I have never bought a game because it was cheap. I buy it because I'm interested (being cheap helps obviously, but it's not the main reason). And if the game is $20 then I'll pay that and the developer will make more money.

If you believe lowering prices is such a fantastic idea make everything you do free to play and go fight for the scraps of the big money makers in mobile. You'll do great.

 

[Krejlooc]

I have never bought a game because it was cheap. I buy it because I'm interested (being cheap helps obviously, but it's not the main reason). And if the game is $20 then I'll pay that and the developer will make more money.

If you believe lowering prices is such a fantastic idea make everything you do free to play and go fight for the scraps of the big money makers in mobile. You'll do great.

The argument is about hitting a sweet spot where you can maximize your sales (and ultimately profitability), not "shame on greedy devs for asking for more money." That means telling Robert to go join a very saturated market isn't a logical extension of his argument at all, there was no reversal of logic in your response.

 

[AeornFlippout]

(Race The Sun developer here.)

Oh man, I disagree so hard with this.

• A MUCH bigger problem is that indies don't value their own work, and too often underprice.
  
• People DO see sometimes cheap games on PC as shovelware, and don't bother. Just ask the people who participated in our "Not on Steam" sale. The cheapest games, discounted to $0.99 for the sale, didn't do very well compared to the $10-$20 games. Price communicates quality in a very direct way.
  
• Pricing higher gives more room for sales and discounts later. A $20 game at 75% off in a Steam Christmas sale is a helluva lot more attractive than a $10 game at 50% off.
  
• I think we should be doing everything we can to fight the race to the bottom, and the perception that games should be super cheap or free.
  
  Our next game will likely be at least $10 - maybe as high as $20 depending on the depth and production values.
  
  And when Race the Sun launches this week on iOS, it'll be $4.99. So there

 

[Fuchsdh]

I really think some games are sold too cheaply initially.

One of the best (worst) examples I know of is Ghostlight pricing Elminage Gothic, a huge dungeon crawler, at $10 initially.
What this means is that you are missing out on money from people who would have bought the game at a higher price, you are missing out on the opportunity to offer a significant preorder discount which drives early sales, and you are missing out on the option to show off higher percentage values during sales and still make a healthy per-unit profit.

I guess you brought all these arguments up in the OP, but I really do believe they have merit. I'm certainly not saying that all games should be $50, but if you have a quality product with a lot of content and price it at less than $20 initially you are almost certainly leaving money on the table.

Yeah considering how there are huge legions of PC gamers who basically refuse to buy anything unless it's on sale, it makes far more sense to price your game higher and just give it that big "50% off!" tag to goose the people who pay more attention to that then the absolute prices.

 

[Krejlooc]

Yeah considering how there are huge legions of PC gamers who basically refuse to buy anything unless it's on sale, it makes far more sense to price your game higher and just give it that big "50% off!" tag to goose the people who pay more attention to that then the absolute prices.

Is the market of people who never buy anything unless it's on sale really that big? Big enough to trump the sort of market who buys stuff simply because it's cheap?

Like, which likely has higher volume sales: the dollar store, or k-mart during a blue light special?

 

[Warablo]

Can't wait to see the price of No Man's Sky, and the defense force for it.

 

[Zeenbor]

No doubt, the race to the bottom has opened up the market. As a consequence, F2P business model requires some developers to think more like used-car salesmen instead of game designers.

I can't blame indie developers for raising prices if it means they can get out of the demoralizing F2P business model and provide real long-term value to the player.

 

[Caronte]

The argument is about hitting a sweet spot where you can maximize your sales (and ultimately profitability), not "shame on greedy devs for asking for more money." That means telling Robert to go join a very saturated market isn't a logical extension of his argument at all, there was no reversal of logic in your response.

His line of thought is the exact same that happened on mobile. First it was 99 cents, and then that wasn't enough so free was the only possible way to go. When every single indie costs what he thinks they should cost then he'll want to release games for even a lower price, assuming that will help.

The indie market is saturated in general already, not just mobile. The best way to be profitable is to create something noone else is making. And in some cases that'll mean selling your game for $20 because the complexity of the game increased the budget or the market for that type of game just isn't big enough. Not make a cheap game and put it out for a low price. That doesn't work.

Edit: Also, look at those games Sony released on consoles for $40 instead of $60 hoping that would do something to help. They bombed as they would have if they were full priced.

 

[bomblord1]

Cost is directly related to perceived value. By raising the average price the perceived value of those games will increase over time with it 1 random guy limits his audience by launching at a higher price point but devs in general increasing their average price point (assuming the quality can match it) can increase perceived value and have people value your software more highly so it actually doesn't limit the audience or decrease profits if the market as a whole heads that direction.

I personally think Indie devs shouldn't be afraid to launch at a higher price point. If the game is good it's good it shouldn't be $5 good or $20 good. Don't devalue your software.

 

[Krejlooc]

His line of thought is the exact same that happened on mobile. First it was 99 cents, and then that wasn't enough so free was the only possible way to go. When every single indie costs what he thinks they should cost then he'll want to release games for even a lower price, assuming that will help.

Robert isn't advocating a race to the bottom. It's not "go as absolute low as you can go." It's go low enough that you still fall into a psychological price range.

The indie market is saturated in general already, not just mobile. The best way to be profitable is to create something noone else is making. And in some cases that'll mean selling your game for $20 because the complexity of the game increased the budget or the market for that type of game just isn't big enough. Not make a cheap game and put it out for a low price. That doesn't work.

That doesn't really reflect the reality of development. And this isn't talking about making games cheaply.

 

[Lautaro]

We are already in a race to the bottom with prices and sales, putting artificial caps to indie games will only stop any chance of making more ambitious indie games in the future.

In fact, I dislike the idea that you can put a price to a group/genre of games instead of an individual case.

 

[Caronte]

Robert isn't advocating a race to the bottom. It's not "go as absolute low as you can go." It's go low enough that you still fall into a psychological price

Again, I think you really overestimate the impact of pricing your game cheaper. Do you think a game like Wasteland 2 would have sold a lot more if it was like $10? It's a tactical turn-based game, it has its market, and it's not that big. Games like Paradox games (Europa Universalis, etc) are really complex and it doesn't matter if they price them at $1, they are never going to sell millions. The best they can do is to appeal to their fans as best as they can and price their games as they would normally do.

Nintendo does the same, by the way, and despite having hardware failures (Wii U, Gamecube) they are always profitable.

 

[Adam_Roman]

I'm happy to pay $15 for a game like Freedom Planet of Super Meat Boy, and $40 for Wasteland 2 or Divinity Original Sin, because those prices are easily reflected when you look at the games, the content they offer, the size of the dev teams, etc. That's what you need to look into with pricing a game. You need to consider how many people are working on the game, how ambitious it is for that team size, how long they've been working on it, and how much they need to make to survive, let alone live comfortably to continue doing this.

Granted I'm just starting to learn coding right now (my background's modeling/animation) but I know my first few original games, I probably won't even sell. They'll just be little free things, and that's what a lot of developers on early access that are flooding the indie scene are skipping. People forget Edmund McMillen got his start making half a dozen free flash games on Newgrounds and didn't just jump into Gish or Super Meat Boy. Just because what you make resembles a game doesn't mean you should charge for it. Sometimes it may be more effective to throw it on Steam as a free to play title and include a PayPal donate button on your site for people to give what they want.

That being said, I'm definitely not gonna tell people what to do with their art because the market will tell them what they think with their wallets.

 

[Dog Problems]

(Race The Sun developer here.)

Oh man, I disagree so hard with this.

• A MUCH bigger problem is that indies don't value their own work, and too often underprice.
  
• People DO see sometimes cheap games on PC as shovelware, and don't bother. Just ask the people who participated in our "Not on Steam" sale. The cheapest games, discounted to $0.99 for the sale, didn't do very well compared to the $10-$20 games. Price communicates quality in a very direct way.
  
• Pricing higher gives more room for sales and discounts later. A $20 game at 75% off in a Steam Christmas sale is a helluva lot more attractive than a $10 game at 50% off.
  
• I think we should be doing everything we can to fight the race to the bottom, and the perception that games should be super cheap or free.
  
  Our next game will likely be at least $10 - maybe as high as $20 depending on the depth and production values.
  
  And when Race the Sun launches this week on iOS, it'll be $4.99. So there

Nothing to add to the conversation, but I wanted to say that I really enjoy Race The Sun! One of the better "endless runner" type games I've played. Will buy the new DLC on Steam soon.

 

[Krejlooc]

Do you think a game like Wasteland 2 would have sold a lot more if it was like $10?

...yes?

 

[thomasmahler]

First post nails it.

As a developer, I think people should get great value, not cheap value. We made Ori and gave it our very best. We got tons of people telling us that the 20$ price-tag was a steal - that's for 10+ hours of entertainment. 20 dollars to get something that 20 people have invested 4 years of time into.

What baffles me is that the same people who complain about a 20 dollar game then go and buy an overpriced coffee at Starbucks with no regrets. Why is what a Starbucks barista makes more valuable to you than your favorite hobby?

People asking for cheaper and cheaper games will result in everyone ending up with cheap value - Look at the iOS market. Nobody can afford making complex, amazing games on the appStore, simply because they wouldn't sell, because people have been trained that everything has to be 99 cents. Bottomline, we can't afford selling the games we want to make for 99 cents. Or 5 bucks. Or even 10 bucks. We charge the amount of money we need to charge to actually stay in business.

 

[Pyrrhus]

...yes?

I'd own it now rather than waiting for a really good sale, at any rate. Now, admittedly, I'm at a certain point in my life where I don't have the disposable income I once did. I agree that a game should be sold for what the maker thinks it's worth. But conversely, the higher the price goes the more I have to think it's a sure bet before I'm comfortable buying it. The truth is that because we have so many options these days, it's easy enough to pass up what may surely be a good game in its own right if the price is more than you want to pay at the moment. The volume of titles is currently pretty insane and it's not decreasing.

 

[vagabondarts]

I've only bought one or two indie games that I felt were overpriced after playing through them.
The rest seemed more than fair for the amount of content in them.

Edit: reading through this thread, seems I'm an outlier.

I'll add I love WHOAH Dave, but if I hadn't gotten it on the cheap in the humble Nintendo bundle I never would have tried it.

 

[Caronte]

...yes?

It would have sold more (obviously) but not enough to compensate for the price reduction. The market is not that big. That genre died for a reason.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

For awhile, it started feeling like $20 or $25 on an indie game on PSN was meant to make it seem like it was worth "more" when it was day 1 on PS+ or that a $3 day 1 discount was more substantial. I think it just stuck over the last year and they stopped putting on as much of a show.

I'm absolutely the antithesis of people who think 2D anything should be damn near free, and that downloadable, arcade or indie games are cheap crap that isn't a real game... those kind of games are what makes my world go 'round, actually. Still, like everyone else on GAF, I have wayyyy too much I need to play already, and $20 or more for anything makes me think twice about something I'm not super hyped about to play day 1 without any hesitation. Years of Steam and Vita already has me up to my neck.

Then again, why bottleneck stuff into just two brackets - $60 ($40 for handhelds or redux), and sub $20 for everything else. I pretty much don't like what most people think of as mid-tier games (True Crime, Nightmare Creatures etc spring to mind), but if Dragon's Crown or Helldivers are midtier, then I'm with that. If something like Darkest Dungeon can be $10-20 more ambitious than it is, I won't object... though I don't know what exactly that would entail, because I don't want to just pay $20 more for superfluous inflation like voice acting or some kind of halfbaked multiplayer or whatever, depending on the game.

 

[Krejlooc]

What baffles me is that the same people who complain about a 20 dollar game then go and buy an overpriced coffee at Starbucks with no regrets. Why is what a Starbucks barista makes more valuable to you than your favorite hobby?

Because of psychology. We don't consider everything in absolute values. Food is a necessity, hence we are willing to pay lots of money for great food. People are pretty alright on the idea that more money = better food. Comparable to other foods, $5 isn't a lot. It's comparatively cheap.

Video games aren't a necessity, and most people aren't ok with going around spending $100+ on a really good game. Most people won't exceed $60 for a "really good game." Comparatively, in their mind, $20 isn't a very steep discount from the high end.

It would have sold more (obviously) but not enough to compensate for the price reduction. The market is not that big. That genre died for a reason.

Well, again, this isn't talking about pricing yourself outside of a profit. And there is something to be said for cultivating an audience.

Don't blame me because you chose a terrible example. Of course Wasteland 2 would sell more at $10. That's not really what this topic is about, and it's a pretty good example of specifically how you're misreading it. It's not a race to the bottom, it's about hitting a sweet spot price point.

 

[Pejo]

$20 is out of impulse buy territory, especially since you can't resell or trade them. That and I know they will come down in price.

This is exactly my thought too. I have no problem with Indie games being more expensive, but 5 and below is "ok it's only 5 bucks, lets try it". 20 is actually making me think about it, and then I think about my huge backlog, and then I decide to wait for a sale.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I love how even when professing how generous they are, people still manage to be self-centered. "I'm happy to pay 20$ or more for a good indie game". Great, but this isn't about you: it's about indie developers and helping them optimize revenue when selling their product to more people than "you".

Games should be priced at whatever price it sells... Indie devs shouldn't be beholden to some random standard invented by someone or someones just because... My god this is economics 101!

An experienced indie dev is offering his insight, gathered from many years with several successful projects, on the optimal price point to generate the most possible market penetration and revenue. In a serious business environment this would be welcomed as invaluable information: however for some reason here people feel the need to spam with their own irrelevant buying habits and countering this expertise with their own useless gut feelings, as armchair analysts with zero experience developing games, let alone marketing them.

But yeah, "invented by someone just because", that's exactly what's happening here. For fuck's sake.

(Race The Sun developer here.)

Oh man, I disagree so hard with this.

• A MUCH bigger problem is that indies don't value their own work, and too often underprice.
  
• People DO see sometimes cheap games on PC as shovelware, and don't bother. Just ask the people who participated in our "Not on Steam" sale. The cheapest games, discounted to $0.99 for the sale, didn't do very well compared to the $10-$20 games. Price communicates quality in a very direct way.
  
• Pricing higher gives more room for sales and discounts later. A $20 game at 75% off in a Steam Christmas sale is a helluva lot more attractive than a $10 game at 50% off.
  
• I think we should be doing everything we can to fight the race to the bottom, and the perception that games should be super cheap or free.
  
  Our next game will likely be at least $10 - maybe as high as $20 depending on the depth and production values.
  
  And when Race the Sun launches this week on iOS, it'll be $4.99. So there

I don't understand. Considering Race the Sun (great game BTW, got it on PS+ for Vita, I have to play some more of it) is priced at 10$, and your last bullet point about 5$ on iOS, aren't you actually undercutting his proposed 10-15$ price tag? At best you are falling exactly within the price range he proposes.

 

[Dr.Acula]

I think indie devs, being independent from publishers should be able to set their own prices. Logically, we all can say that three sales at 10 bucks is better than one sale at 20, but that's making a lot of assumptions about a market we aren't in. The biggest pubs are pushing 60 and 70 dollar price-points and they have professional economists and statisticians working for them. They clearly think selling a five year old Call of Duty game for 40 dollars makes more sense than selling it for five, while throwing old Arkham Batman games around for 5 dollars is also good business.

If some indie out there thinks that 20 bucks is the price point that earns them the most profit they should charge 20.

 

[lord_of_flood]

I would agree to an extent. Most indies should be right before the point where the buy isn't considered an impulse buy anymore. That's usually right around $15. I'm more likely to buy a game right away if it were at that price rather than, say, a $20 purchase. It certainly prevented me from buying The Swapper and Shantae & the Pirate's Curse on Wii U until they went on sale, and I still have yet to buy Affordable Space Adventures.

 

[AeornFlippout]

...
I don't understand. Considering Race the Sun (great game BTW, got it on PS+ for Vita, I have to play some more of it) is priced at 10$, and your last bullet point about 5$ on iOS, aren't you actually undercutting his proposed 10-15$ price tag? At best you are falling exactly within the price range he proposes.

I took Robert's post as primarily talking about pricing on Steam/PC and consoles. iOS has a really different set of expectations. $4.99 is a pretty high price there - where it's sort of "bottom of the barrel" on Steam.

 

[Molemitts]

Maybe we shouldn't homogenize indie games and we should judge the price of games on a case by case basis. Same for AAA games.

 

[Aesnath]

C'mon, why should indie games be inherently cheaper? Price should be based on business (for the company) and (hopefully) quality. I feel like the price spectrum should be fairly wide.

 

[kadotsu]

Steam indie games are launched at prices to go on sale later because 66% off $30 looks better than 33% off $15. Also has the bonus of bleeding your biggest fans at launch.

 

[Knurek]

It's such a pity that Steam/other DD storefronts except for itch.io and IndieGameStand don't allow for a PWYW scheme.
With a minimum payment being what the game is going on for now, and an additional tip that each and every user can add whenever he feels like.

I know you can buy gift copies now. Not really the same thing though.

 

[Htown]

I actually think Zeboyd's games might be too cheap.

At some point you look at the game and think, "well what's wrong with it that it's only 3 bucks or something?"

Sometimes if a product, any product, is too cheap, you assume it's low quality. You don't go to the dollar store for the good shit.

Inexpensive is good. Cheap is bad.

That said, I've played plenty of cheap games that were totally great.

 

[Raonak]

Price should be relative to quality.
The cool thing about this gen is that indies arw starting to replace the mid tier devs that have disappeared.

The truth is not all indie devs are striving to make games in the $10 range. More ambitious games would naturally cost more to make.

I wouldnt mind if there was $60 indie games as long as it was of very high quality

 

[MegaSackman]

The simplistic way I see it: Gaming is an expensive hobby, pay or don't play.

 

[Nose Master]

Nah. When indie games are a dime a dozen, you get that steam sale effect. Sure, they sell a lot more. You also buy a lot more of them, and often don't even touch them for more than an hour or so. Higher prices make you think and care a lot more about your purchases. I'd rather not have all of indie gaming turn into a sea of dollar horseshit you have to wade through to find anything substantial.

 

[Armaros]

It's such a pity that Steam/other DD storefronts except for itch.io and IndieGameStand don't allow for a PWYW scheme.
With a minimum payment being what the game is going on for now, and an additional tip that each and every user can add whenever he feels like.

I know you can buy gift copies now. Not really the same thing though.

Because as Humble bundle gift steam keys for $0.01 and then resold on the market proved, it was insanely abuseable.

 

[me0wish]

I never take release and buy indie games on day 1 because the raise in price, imo its rare for an indie game to be worth 15+ and most of them aren't even worth 10$.

I would of bought Retro City Rampage on day 1 if it was 10$, but because it got a price raise on release I lost interest and decided to wait for it to be around 2$.

 

[JasoNsider]

(Race The Sun developer here.)

Oh man, I disagree so hard with this.

• A MUCH bigger problem is that indies don't value their own work, and too often underprice.
  
• People DO see sometimes cheap games on PC as shovelware, and don't bother. Just ask the people who participated in our "Not on Steam" sale. The cheapest games, discounted to $0.99 for the sale, didn't do very well compared to the $10-$20 games. Price communicates quality in a very direct way.
  
• Pricing higher gives more room for sales and discounts later. A $20 game at 75% off in a Steam Christmas sale is a helluva lot more attractive than a $10 game at 50% off.
  
• I think we should be doing everything we can to fight the race to the bottom, and the perception that games should be super cheap or free.
  
  Our next game will likely be at least $10 - maybe as high as $20 depending on the depth and production values.
  
  And when Race the Sun launches this week on iOS, it'll be $4.99. So there

(Starwhal dev here)

I have crazy respect for all you guys, but I think I side more with wanting a higher price. The "race to the bottom" is absolutely real. Its effects ripple through the entire industry and force everybody to make crucial decisions to stand together to buck a trend or follow it down. To say we should be thinking of getting as close to $0 as we can is potential suicide at worst, and volatile at best.

But there is certainly a sweet spot here. Even if you don't want to grab Axiom Verge on day 1 for 20 dollars, say, you can be sure to grab it down the road for less.

Either way, I know you guys want the best for all of us. One thing we can all agree on is this market changes so fast. Even though we watch it closely every day, it feels like it's almost unrecognizable year on year sometimes.

 

[Caronte]

Price should be relative to quality.
The cool thing about this gen is that indies arw starting to replace the mid tier devs that have disappeared.

The truth is not all indie devs are striving to make games in the $10 range. More ambitious games would naturally cost more to make.

I wouldnt mind if there was $60 indie games as long as it was of very high quality

Yep. That's what indie developers should aspire to, becoming mid-sized developers, not glorified mobile ones.

 

[charlequin]

I sure as hell don't. More content shouldn't equate to a higher price tag. What if that content is crap? People say they don't like the open worlds that Ubisoft provides. What if you had to pay more for Ubi games because of that content?

You can't look at content as this linear scale of "hours of gameplay" or whatever, it's a much more holistic judgment. There's clearly a big difference between a short and sweet story-driven single-player game and a sprawling title with numerous features, single-player and online-multi modes, etc. etc.

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?

Well, to start with, that already happens. 3D and Collector Edition Blurays are ways to bump the ASP on big blockbuster titles relative to stuff that goes straight to the bargain bin. But even putting that aside, it's not the most straightforward comparison. Single movies aren't the only unit of video content; you have free Youtube shorts and full collections of TV shows and boxed sets of trilogies, with different pricing expectations for each.

Yeah considering how there are huge legions of PC gamers who basically refuse to buy anything unless it's on sale

What's your evidence that this group is "huge"? In physical console gaming in the past, there was a notable group of extremely price-conscious gamers who primarily bought things like Greatest Hits releases, used games, etc. but they weren't anything like dominant in the market. Based on the info we have from SteamSpy it doesn't seem like there's actually a big problem with games being able to sell pre-discounts either.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

Maybe we shouldn't homogenize indie games and we should judge the price of games on a case by case basis. Same for AAA games.

Yeah, we can and do ourselves, on a personal basis. I think this is more advice on how to compete in the market with whatever resources you've got available to you.

A $60 game trying to fleece people for another $40 in DLC usually has a monumental marketing budget behind it telling millions of mainstream consumers to buy their game and why, with the media machine greased to reach just as many inbetweeners with press events, access and coverage agreements etc, making sure it's on everyone's radar. They're able to spend money to make money, and sometimes it works big time. For $30-40 games, a lot of them have rabid fandom and "director's vision" style legend status working in their favor either.

 

[Kinyou]

I'm also bothered how $20 has become the new standard. Of course is it up to the devs to judge what their games are worth, but I personally just noticed that I have overall bought much fewer games at that price point. Especially considering how often indie games end up on PS+ or Games with gold it just doesn't seem worth it

 

[alexandros]

I'm honestly surprised that Robert was the OP, I didn't expect an indie dev to take that stance. Very courageous of him! As others have already said, I think pricing should be determined by a game's content and production values, as well as its place in the market. For instance, I payed around $20 for Amnesia:The Dark Descent at launch and the game was worth every single penny. It had a decent length, it was well-made with respectable production values and it was one of the only true horror games out there. I would be far less inclined to pay $20 for yet another twin-stick shooter or 3-hour puzzle platformer.

 

[Ranger X]

(Race The Sun developer here.)

Oh man, I disagree so hard with this.

• A MUCH bigger problem is that indies don't value their own work, and too often underprice.
  
• People DO see sometimes cheap games on PC as shovelware, and don't bother. Just ask the people who participated in our "Not on Steam" sale. The cheapest games, discounted to $0.99 for the sale, didn't do very well compared to the $10-$20 games. Price communicates quality in a very direct way.
  
• Pricing higher gives more room for sales and discounts later. A $20 game at 75% off in a Steam Christmas sale is a helluva lot more attractive than a $10 game at 50% off.
  
• I think we should be doing everything we can to fight the race to the bottom, and the perception that games should be super cheap or free.
  
  Our next game will likely be at least $10 - maybe as high as $20 depending on the depth and production values.
  
  And when Race the Sun launches this week on iOS, it'll be $4.99. So there

This 20 times + certain people in this thread should quit with the illusion that "cheaper = more sales or more profit". Its hard to have sales at all. That's the harsh reality. Devaluating the medium to rock bottom is a big disservice to gamers and thats why mobile environnement is becoming shittier by the day + lots of free-to-play or in-app purchases.

Also, besides all arguments, "real value" doesn't exist. Value is always just a suggestion that the person who buys agree with or not. If they good sales with generally being 15-20$ (not convinced its the case), this means its the value people agree with.

 

[Substandard]

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. People will buy your $20 game if they really want it and that's about it. Whereas at $15 or especially at $10, you're much more likely to get people who have some interest, see positive reviews, and decided to buy it on impulse.

I agree with this. I mean, I just bought a copy of Far Cry 4 a few weeks ago for $16 for PS4 from Best Buy. I think you run into problems at the top end of the indie cost spectrum because major publisher games are dropping price so fast these days.

It's a hard sell for something that looks like a SNES game from a dev I've never heard of over a well reviewed AAA game from a few months ago.

I do think indie games are starting to be looked at more as "real" games, and I think that as some of the indie teams get some established hits it makes sense to raise prices. Bastion was a great game, so when Transistor came out I didn't blink at the price. I loved Binding of Isaac and I bought the remix version day one for full price (which was $15 I think). For that matter, I really liked the previous Zeboyd games and backed the Kickstarter for Cosmic Star Heroine the first day.

I'm just not paying $20 as an impulse purchase for something without the dev having an established track record or good game reviews or something. I've bought a ton of crap for $10 just based on it looking interesting and 1 positive GAF post.

I thought $10 was the sweet spot though for impulse purchasing. It made it so that I could get a game for about the same price as lunch, and by that comparison why not just pick up the new thing that looks vaguely interesting. I'll be interested to see how $20 works out.

 

[Overside]

So... Basically gaf has turned this into a false dichotomy and ran as far and fast as they could without looking back.

 

[Teppic]

15-20€ is okay to me if I really want the game. For most games I'm not willing to pay that much and I will wait for a sale. There's a lot of games I want, but I don't have infinite money.

In some rare cases I think a game can be set too low, like Castle In The Darkness. I got a lot of fun content for those meekly 6€ I payed for it at launch.

 

[ElDuderino]

I think cost should be relative to content.

AAA games that take 10 hours or less to beat shouldnt be $59.99.