mediocrepoet
Philosoraptor in Residence
I'd be curious to see if Vogel actually sells anything through his website now that his games can be found on other distribution channels for far cheaper. It may well be that it's just to make it appear to be an even better deal there now.
Either way, I think that pricing too low is a risk simply because the game may lack broader appeal to actually get someone to pick it up for the cheaper price point. Even at $5 though many consider the price to be more or less free, you only pick up so many of those because it does add up and if you're only picking one or two they still have to catch your eye somehow to make you think about it. If the mechanics appeal to people they'll probably be willing to spend more than $5-10 on it since there's not all that many games that actually have similar mechanics these days.
There are a fair number of flashy indie games with good art (though a lot of them seem to be action-oriented) that may or may not play well - but that sort of thing is better oriented to impulse buying. Usually if I see an action game that I might be interested in, I find graphics to be a larger part of them so I'd pay less for a game with archaic graphics. In RPGs, I'm more concerned with how the systems play out and what systems they have in place and less concerned about the graphics (though they still matter).
Weirdly, if I see cheap RPGs I start wondering what's wrong with it unless I know it's a decent game on sale because it's old or whatever. For instance, I wouldn't pay a cent for Dragon Age 2 and would spit at EA before I even gave them $5 for that piece of shit. I did however pick up Breath of Death and Cthulu Saves the World on some Steam mega sale where I got them for like $3 or something. They were hyped as humorous old JRPG style games that I bought due to some mixture of hype and ridiculously low price point -- I feel like I got ripped off and doubt I'll buy anything else from them no matter what the price point is.
Either way, I think that pricing too low is a risk simply because the game may lack broader appeal to actually get someone to pick it up for the cheaper price point. Even at $5 though many consider the price to be more or less free, you only pick up so many of those because it does add up and if you're only picking one or two they still have to catch your eye somehow to make you think about it. If the mechanics appeal to people they'll probably be willing to spend more than $5-10 on it since there's not all that many games that actually have similar mechanics these days.
There are a fair number of flashy indie games with good art (though a lot of them seem to be action-oriented) that may or may not play well - but that sort of thing is better oriented to impulse buying. Usually if I see an action game that I might be interested in, I find graphics to be a larger part of them so I'd pay less for a game with archaic graphics. In RPGs, I'm more concerned with how the systems play out and what systems they have in place and less concerned about the graphics (though they still matter).
Weirdly, if I see cheap RPGs I start wondering what's wrong with it unless I know it's a decent game on sale because it's old or whatever. For instance, I wouldn't pay a cent for Dragon Age 2 and would spit at EA before I even gave them $5 for that piece of shit. I did however pick up Breath of Death and Cthulu Saves the World on some Steam mega sale where I got them for like $3 or something. They were hyped as humorous old JRPG style games that I bought due to some mixture of hype and ridiculously low price point -- I feel like I got ripped off and doubt I'll buy anything else from them no matter what the price point is.