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Indie RPG pricing

Indie "niche" RPGs should be priced


  • Total voters
    142

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
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Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
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.
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
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Jun 1, 2011
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My 2 cents:
You can't compare a game like KotC, that even half of the Codex thinks is too ugly and thus unplayable, to some action indie game you can buy on Steam for 5 bucks. Games like KotC aren't for everyone and lowering the price won't change that.
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is. With all the craze over old school RPGs, he's making a mistake not getting KotC on Steam and GOG. The game is 3 years old there is nothing to be gained atm with the way things are. You talk Steam and GOG putting your game on the site for $10. Put a sale up for $5 on the front page or whatever. Advertise the game as being an old school DnD RPG and you're going to get thousands of sales.

The guy is looking at Kickstarting KotC 2, so the more people who have played and know about KotC the better imo. The only people I don't see liking KotC are people who can't stand turn based combat. The ones that like it aren't going to fret over the graphics.
 

DarKPenguiN

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My 2 cents:
You can't compare a game like KotC, that even half of the Codex thinks is too ugly and thus unplayable, to some action indie game you can buy on Steam for 5 bucks. Games like KotC aren't for everyone and lowering the price won't change that.
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is. With all the craze over old school RPGs, he's making a mistake not getting KotC on Steam and GOG. The game is 3 years old there is nothing to be gained atm with the way things are. You talk Steam and GOG putting your game on the site for $10. Put a sale up for $5 on the front page or whatever. Advertise the game as being an old school DnD RPG and you're going to get thousands of sales.

The guy is looking at Kickstarting KotC 2, so the more people who have played and know about KotC the better imo. The only people I don't see liking KotC are people who can't stand turn based combat. The ones that like it aren't going to fret over the graphics.
Shit, concerning KOTC- Steam would be optimal.

Even the console players who enjoy FF Tactics, Ogre tactics, Disgea and the like are an untapped market for a game like this . Throw "Tactics" in the ad and a teaser trailer on combat and you now have an entire new type of player (non "old school" D and D players) who would love this game.

EDIT: Has it really been 3 years since this came out?
 

Charles-cgr

OlderBytes
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That's how Super Meat Boy & Binding of Isaac came to be, the guy was making free flash games for more than 6 years before he released SMB, and already had a nice cult following at that time. Same thing with the guys behind Castle Crashers & Alien Hominid.

I did exactly the same thing! I had a cult following of 5 players after Peregrine's song :)

Try at your own risk... http://download.cnet.com/Swords-and-Sorcery-Peregrine-s-Song/3000-2097_4-10674458.html?tag=mncol;1

Elwro mentionned it in his review of Underworld. He mentionned a few redeeming qualities for it. A very :obviously: man, he is.

I'm not sure what the path from Underworld 1.0 to today would have been like had I kept on working on PS as freeware instead. Maybe it would have been better. Too late to tell.



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.

So I'm not the only one who believes perceived value is a big enough part of the equation. :smug:
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
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Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
I do agree that if you price something absurdly low (like $5 -- and I'm talking base not sale/promotion price) people will raise an eyebrow. However, $15-$20 is pretty standard to a lot of indie games today. I'd say less than 10% or so actually go above $20.
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
10,248
My 2 cents:
You can't compare a game like KotC, that even half of the Codex thinks is too ugly and thus unplayable, to some action indie game you can buy on Steam for 5 bucks. Games like KotC aren't for everyone and lowering the price won't change that.
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is. With all the craze over old school RPGs, he's making a mistake not getting KotC on Steam and GOG. The game is 3 years old there is nothing to be gained atm with the way things are. You talk Steam and GOG putting your game on the site for $10. Put a sale up for $5 on the front page or whatever. Advertise the game as being an old school DnD RPG and you're going to get thousands of sales.

The guy is looking at Kickstarting KotC 2, so the more people who have played and know about KotC the better imo. The only people I don't see liking KotC are people who can't stand turn based combat. The ones that like it aren't going to fret over the graphics.
Shit, concerning KOTC- Steam would be optimal.

Even the console players who enjoy FF Tactics, Ogre tactics, Disgea and the like are an untapped market for a game like this . Throw "Tactics" in the ad and a teaser trailer on combat and you now have an entire new type of player (non "old school" D and D players) who would love this game.

EDIT: Has it really been 3 years since this came out?
It was released in 2009 right or was it 10?

Sawyer's mentioned KotC so it's obvious he's played it. MCA and Fargo may have too. Get 1 or 2 of them to make a blurb about your game on Steam or GOG and interest will skyrocket. They stand to gain too by that game being successful. Fargo for turn based combat RPG, and Obsidian for the DnD/Fantasy type of game which was similar to the IE games. It's not like they aren't willing to help out fellow RPG developers with blurbs like they did with Shaker.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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My 2 cents:
You can't compare a game like KotC, that even half of the Codex thinks is too ugly and thus unplayable, to some action indie game you can buy on Steam for 5 bucks. Games like KotC aren't for everyone and lowering the price won't change that.
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is.
With what? That half the Codex can't into KotC's graphics?
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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KotC looks like Ultima VII, perhaps just a bit worse due the complexity of the countless info/menus it has. Most gamers nowadays woudn't touch U7 with a ten-foot pole, no matter how classic it is. Some games likes Cthulhu Saves the World or those countless "RPG Maker" clones manage to sell at insanely low prices to storyfags or to hipsters buying it ironically (lol, I'm playing a game that looks old, I'm such a *cool* retro gamer), but I think it's borderline impossible to sell a game that looks old (but not *cool* old/retro) but has gret gameplay/combat. Gameplay fags are not a significant enough audience.
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
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My 2 cents:
You can't compare a game like KotC, that even half of the Codex thinks is too ugly and thus unplayable, to some action indie game you can buy on Steam for 5 bucks. Games like KotC aren't for everyone and lowering the price won't change that.
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is.
With what? That half the Codex can't into KotC's graphics?
Where do you get that half the codex can't get into KotC's graphics? I know the Codex has its share of graphic whores, but it can't be half. The game looks fine and the combat and DnD stuff is great.
 

DarKPenguiN

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My 2 cents:
You can't compare a game like KotC, that even half of the Codex thinks is too ugly and thus unplayable, to some action indie game you can buy on Steam for 5 bucks. Games like KotC aren't for everyone and lowering the price won't change that.
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is.
With what? That half the Codex can't into KotC's graphics?
Where do you get that half the codex can't get into KotC's graphics? I know the Codex has its share of graphic whores, but it can't be half. The game looks fine and the combat and DnD stuff is great.
Hmmmmm- I dont get the "terrible" graphics and I am kinda a graphics whore. Maybe I was just very forgiving since I finally had a good tactics game to play on my PC? Maybe its because its been 3 years and I am missing time? I dont know... But I dont remember hating the graphics...

EDIT: Okay, just watched a Youtube to refresh my memory. Yes Graphics were bad...BUT I am used to playing tactics games on a handheld so they were "on par" with that kind of- Enough to make the graphics less of a problem for me. The menu graphics though...Very bad.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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Most of the Codex menbers are openly graphic-whores, they are willing to ignore almost half of he RPGs released nowadays for stuff like swords being too big or the hair designs too stupid. :lol:
 

mugarod

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Apr 21, 2007
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Project: Eternity
I rarely spend full price for AAA title, hell I rarely buy it even for half off. My problem right now is mostly a huge backlog that I have from all the games I allready bought. I simply dont have time to finish what I have right now so I cant justify spending more money on more games unless I am really interested in it. Hell I kind of want to get Witcher 2 and its even on small sale right now, but I aint going to buy it unless its dirt cheap or I cleaned up my backlog. As far as indie goes I am willing to support indie devs at 15-20$ price point, maybe even more if I am really interested in your game, but I will still use some sort of moderation but if cheap enough I will probably just get it even if I wont be able to play it for few years.
Btw there was some origin promotion recently where it would take 20$ off the total price from their store which made Dragon Age or some Mass Effects basically free. Since I allready had my taste of ME franchise with first one and Bioware in general I couldnt be even bothered to get anything else from them even when its free.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium

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"The codex is a hivemind"

Most of the Codex menbers are openly graphic-whores, they are willing to ignore almost half of he RPGs released nowadays for stuff like swords being too big or the hair designs too stupid. :lol:
More likely that they aren't into JRPGs to begin with and lolis fighting pink slimes aren't really helping
 

20 Eyes

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 23, 2010
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Go to the Steam indie games section to get some perspective. FTL is 10 bucks. Torchlight 2 is 20.
 

DarKPenguiN

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"The codex is a hivemind"

Most of the Codex menbers are openly graphic-whores, they are willing to ignore almost half of he RPGs released nowadays for stuff like swords being too big or the hair designs too stupid. :lol:
More likely that they aren't into JRPGs to begin with and lolis fighting pink slimes aren't really helping
Lolis fighting pink slime? Hmmmmwhere to get game plox? :neveraskedforthis:
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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From another thread posted by another gentleman:

"This whole circle-jerk comes down to the fact that not everyone has the same age, so what may be old-school for some is the new popamole shit for others. This will never change, so get over it. Me, for example, I started gaming with Warcraft 2 and Quake, followed closely by Fallout and then BG1. That's my old-school. Anything older than that is almost unplayable because of, first and foremost, AWFUL interfaces. Many older guys will start screaming "graphics whore", and sometimes they would be right because I find graphics older that those of the games I started with scratch-your-eyes-out-ugly, but that's secondary. What I find most difficult to get over in older games are the shit interfaces."
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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Most of the Codex menbers are openly graphic-whores, they are willing to ignore almost half of he RPGs released nowadays for stuff like swords being too big or the hair designs too stupid. :lol:
More likely that they aren't into JRPGs to begin with and lolis fighting pink slimes aren't really helping
Yeah, being seriously is more due how the best releases are on the Nintendo DS... stuff like Etrian Odissey, Dark Spire, Devil Survivor and the likes would definetly please many codexers if they ever had a PC release... or if those PC dungeon-crawlers were ever translated...
 

felipepepe

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From another thread posted by another gentleman
Not only interface, but the whole gaming experience was planned to be approached from another angle. As I recently discovered, one does not boot up and play old Wizardries; pen & paper to map your way and write down hints and passwords are vital to playing the game, and that's something that I remeber doing only as a kid, on stuff like Betrayal at Krondor or Might & Magic III, 90's games ended that concept.

For younger gamers, that will be a totally alien concept, he won't even know what to do. I've seen a cousin of mine giving up on playing old Megamen games because he hated writing all those insanely long passwords...
 

7hm

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Oct 29, 2010
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Your loss man.

Doesn't matter one way or another to me whether or not someone plays kotc. Great game though.
 

Saxon1974

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Interesting poll. I have to imagine its hard for indie dev's to know how to price their games. Personaly I voted high for a couple of reasons;

1) I have partially developed my own game so I know how much work it is.
2) I have more time then money at this stage of my life so a game that is 40 or 50$ for even 20 plus hours of fun is easliy worth it. Based on this I usually care more whether the game is worth my time since I have a long list of games to play already and its a dilemna in itself just deciding which to play.

All this being said, I think the problem with indie RPG's on pricing is they get compared with non-indie pricing which doesn't seem very fair since non-indies have WAY bigger marketing and more people involved. Plus games havent really gone up in price in what 30 years? Name me something else you can say that about. I remember paying like 45$ for Ultima 3 back in like 1984. That was a heck of a lot of money for me when I was just a kid.
 
In My Safe Space
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Dec 11, 2009
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Codex 2012
I have to disagree. KotC looks great as is. With all the craze over old school RPGs, he's making a mistake not getting KotC on Steam and GOG. The game is 3 years old there is nothing to be gained atm with the way things are. You talk Steam and GOG putting your game on the site for $10. Put a sale up for $5 on the front page or whatever. Advertise the game as being an old school DnD RPG and you're going to get thousands of sales.

The guy is looking at Kickstarting KotC 2, so the more people who have played and know about KotC the better imo. The only people I don't see liking KotC are people who can't stand turn based combat. The ones that like it aren't going to fret over the graphics.
How about people who aren't into cRPGs that are just series of pre-arranged combat encounters without exit?

Though I would consider buying it if it wouldn't cost 75PLN. I'm not interested in spending 10 hours of work on a game that is considered by the author to have much lesser value than mainstream games.
 

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