Indie RPG pricing

[7hm]

You keep beating that same old broken drum

Fair comment.

S&S is nothing like Apple, Blizzard, or wargames. There is plenty of competition for the game,

What is the direct competition? Yes, there is generic competition in the sense of CRPGs. There is very little specific competition for that type of CRPG. You can argue that the target market is broader than just fans of blobbers. I would argue that if he were to look at who actually bought the game, he would find that it's almost entirely people who are primarily blobber fans.

Wargame makers have built up a following, which S&S cannot compete with yet. Also see the post by commie on why the wargamer market is different. Ignoring evidence contrary to your opinion is known as stacking the deck, by the way.

You have to start somewhere. Wargames didn't come onto the market with a following and they didn't come into the market at a low price and then increase the price over time. They came in at a high price and they never dropped it. I am arguing that some games should do the same.

Dropping buzzwords and repeating truisms (sounds, ui, graphics need to be good? Whodathunkit? Professional looking product? Well I never!)

Derp. Buzzwords like graphics and ui? Or do you mean actual words used in marketing like target market? It's not a truism that graphics or general presentation need to be professional to sell your product (see: Dwarf Fortress, which while not using a traditional sales model, is undeniably marketable despite the deficiencies). Your market will dictate that. It's better, but it's less important for some markets than it is for others.

There is a simple fact that completely disproves your opinion on indie rpgs pricing, and that is sales figures. Perhaps Sovereign should be priced at $40 so we can all observe how easy it is to dominate the market by pricing yourself at the very top of the top tier.

Uh, no, there isn't. The point is that indies aren't pricing this way, and that there are no sales figures to indicate how they should price. I'm willing to bet a lot of money on the fact that most indie game developers do little to no market analysis in regards to pricing. A simple survey when you purchase Underworld Gold asking how the customer found the product, why they are purchasing it, and some basic demographic information (age and country of origin would be the two absolute must asks) would at least be SOMETHING, but as it is Charles (and pretty much all indie devs) knows little to nothing about his customers. What was the price based on? Not facts, certainly. It was based on the competition, but in a creative field you can't price for competition, you have to price for your market and your product.

The simple fact is that indie devs know little about either marketing or their customer base, and price their games accordingly. There is a real lack of hard data for these guys to work with.
edit: I'm leaving the above comment as written, but I would alter it to say that indie devs may actually know a lot about marketing and may be fantastic at using that knowledge in other fields. What they don't appear to be doing is applying that knowledge to their game sales / marketing.

Sales figures showing that games that are 20$ sell more when they're on sale for 10$ don't demonstrate that the game should be priced at 10$ btw.

(I'm fully willing to admit that I'm making some HUGE assumptions about the market. I don't see the harm in indie devs doing more work to determine whether or not these are good assumptions, and I think it's a real mistake just to assume that they're wrong and that the correct way to price has already been established. The downside to coming in at a high price is bad sales early on and a bad impression, but that can mostly be addressed down the road through price corrections or promotions. The downside to coming in at a low price is that you leave money on the table on every sale. One of these two outcomes is worse than the other, if your goal is profit.)

...

There are some other things to add actually. A really important distinction with indie pricing needs to be made between the hobbyists and the professionals. Hobbyists sometimes have revenue as their primary goal but often it's something else: notoriety, credibility, a vision they want to share with the world... Hobbyists don't need to price their games with profit as the goal and that certainly exerts downward price pressure on pros. While I think professionals (or people who are attempting to make indie games their day job) need to keep that in mind, they can't allow themselves to price as though their own goals are anything other than profit.

Anyway I realise I'm beating a dead horse. I find this whole discussion really interesting though. There is very little hard data out there in the public domain and as is usually the case individual firms aren't sharing their own market research. Have the humble bundle guys started to provide marketing services for indies yet? I thought that was one of the things they were going to start doing.

 

[Metro]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

 

[7hm]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

What else on the market is remotely similar to Underworld? It's the definition of niche...

Charles is, to an extent, competing with hobbyists. That's why I brought then up. They exert downward pricing pressure on he market because they have motives other than profit. Its something to consider re pricing.

 

[Mortmal]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

Name them, theres absolutely nothing close to a wizardy or a might and magic game anymore. No frayed knights dont do it for me.

 

[Overboard]

I would argue that if he were to look at who actually bought the game, he would find that it's almost entirely people who are primarily blobber fans.

Got stats to back that up? Also 'primarily blobber fans' doesn't mean that people won't buy other games.

You have to start somewhere. Wargames didn't come onto the market with a following and they didn't come into the market at a low price and then increase the price over time. They came in at a high price and they never dropped it. I am arguing that some games should do the same.

Got evidence of them never dropping their prices? Also: 'They came in at a high price and they never dropped it' is yet another fallacy, commonly known as the straw man. Nobody said to raise prices. In fact the only proponent of high prices is you.

Derp. Buzzwords like graphics and ui? Or do you mean actual words used in marketing like target market?

Did you not bother to read my post even while you quoted it?

It's not a truism that graphics or general presentation need to be professional to sell your product (see: Dwarf Fortress, which while not using a traditional sales model, is undeniably marketable despite the deficiencies).

You're using DF as a model for marketing and maximising profits?

Your market will dictate that. It's better, but it's less important for some markets than it is for others.

Remember what I said about truisms?

(I'm fully willing to admit that I'm making some HUGE assumptions about the market.

In this you are entirely correct.

 

[Metro]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

Name them, theres absolutely nothing close to a wizardy or a might and magic game anymore. No frayed knights dont do it for me.

Just because it 'doesn't do it for you' doesn't mean they aren't similar games.

 

[Mortmal]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

Name them, theres absolutely nothing close to a wizardy or a might and magic game anymore. No frayed knights dont do it for me.

Just because it 'doesn't do it for you' doesn't mean they aren't similar games.

well i doesnt do it for many.. You ve put a S to game, so that means there some others i dont know of, name them, something equal or superior to S&S U .

 

[DarKPenguiN]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

Name them, theres absolutely nothing close to a wizardy or a might and magic game anymore. No frayed knights dont do it for me.

Just because it 'doesn't do it for you' doesn't mean they aren't similar games.

well i doesnt do it for many.. You ve put a S to game, so that means there some others i dont know of, name them, something equal or superior to S&S U .

...Okay, I know its an unpopular thing around here...But... There are a plethora of First Person Turn based Dungeon Crawlers on handhelds. Are they on par with S&S Underworld? I dont know- They LOOK like they are. Some are decent games.

Are they like might and magic? No. To me, might and magic was waaaay more than a dungeon crawler. But as far as these type of games, I could put together quite a list but they wouldn't be on PC without an emulater- But I even recently bougut a Wizardry game on PSN for $10 with one expansion- Its japenese-ish and I abhor the "art style" but its a hardcore game and the gameplay is quite good.

IF we are talking PC only- I dont know. Your right, since I cant think of a ton which have been recently made. But I game across pretty much every system AND PC. Although PC is my preferred method, sadly I am finding more and more the games I really like are made for handhelds.

 

[mediocrepoet]

DarKPenguiN you make a good point. It's easy to forget about handhelds when discussing dungeon crawlers. I've been curious about the Etrian Odyssey series, but tend to forget about it simply because I'd rather play these things on my pc instead of on a handheld system.

 

[7hm]

I would argue that if he were to look at who actually bought the game, he would find that it's almost entirely people who are primarily blobber fans.

Got stats to back that up? Also 'primarily blobber fans' doesn't mean that people won't buy other games.

No, I don't. As I said later in the post. I was stating an opinion. I think that our combined lack of knowledge would suggest that more research is needed. As I stated elsewhere, repeatedly.

Also: 'They came in at a high price and they never dropped it' is yet another fallacy, commonly known as the straw man. Nobody said to raise prices. In fact the only proponent of high prices is you.

If you could be charging 5$ for a product but only charge 1$, and you find that out after you've been on the market for a week, what do you do? The only logical thing is to raise prices, as every sale is costing you 4$ in potential revenue. This is what I was referring to. Not a straw man but rather the only logical step to be taken if you incorrectly price too low.

It is difficult to raise prices if you price poorly. It is easy to lower prices if you price poorly. Therefore if you have incomplete knowledge of the market you are better off to price high and move down, than to price low and move up. Understand?

You're using DF as a model for marketing and maximising profits?

Read what I wrote:

It's not a truism that graphics or general presentation need to be professional to sell your product (see: Dwarf Fortress, which while not using a traditional sales model, is undeniably marketable despite the deficiencies). Your market will dictate that. It's better, but it's less important for some markets than it is for others.

This means:
- different target markets have different requirements regarding graphics and presentation; earlier I referenced graphics and UI as likely (I don't have data, but I'm pretty sure about this) being particularly important to a target market of ~35 year olds with high disposable income but not a lot of free time, looking for a nostalgia fix / the gameplay of their youth - you seemed to think that this would be true of all markets and I disagreed
- not all markets require good graphics or strong UIs
- Dwarf Fortress is an example of a product which does not have good graphics or a good UI which nonetheless has value

Nowhere did I say DF was a good example of a company maximizing profits. I think it's pretty clear actually that this is not Toady's goal and that he is almost a hobbyist in his motives. In fact if you read what I wrote, I pointed out his bizarre sales model which would be very difficult to emulate. (I use DF because it is a clear example of a product with value; Toady unlike others posts his numbers. While they are not reflective of normal sales patterns, he raised 56,000$ between October 1st 2011 and September 30th 2012.)

Remember what I said about truisms?

I'm unsure of what you consider a truism. You appear to have little to no knowledge of marketing or business. Perhaps you could actually respond with arguments to dissuade me of this? So far I haven't seen anything to indicate that you want to do anything but disagree with me without bringing any actual arguments to the table.

(I'm fully willing to admit that I'm making some HUGE assumptions about the market.

In this you are entirely correct.

Good argument!

There is little data on the public record to indicate a preference to price low or high. I am thus attempting to use logic to argue for higher pricing. You are welcome to use logic to argue for lower pricing. So far the arguments used to price low seem to be: "Everyone else does", "Your game isn't worth as much as game X", "People don't want to pay money for games".

The first argument, while valid, is incomplete. The competition is poorly defined and the factors that go into their pricing are either unknown or clearly different from the factors that would go into pricing Underworld (or other indie games). So the fact competitors have certain pricing is not reason enough to just accept that pricing for your own game. Further, the quality of data being used to set pricing for the other games could be completely out to lunch. If the first guy to price at 20$ made a bad decision and the rest of the market followed him, everybody loses. It's never a good decision to allow others to dictate your price. ***

The second argument is based on subjective judgements. Quality is very tough to gauge and heavily dependent on the market. This sort of ties back to the first argument. If another competitor priced their product wrong and is giving a fantastic deal, does that mean you should also be giving a great deal? I would argue not.

The third argument is more general and is really outside the purview of pricing an indie game but is something to keep in mind when you get into development. There really does seem to be a trend towards not paying more than minimal amounts for games, and every developer needs to seriously consider their financial viability given that. If the trend continues the likely result is a market crash, or a shift in what developers attempt to create and sell. Jeff Vogel's explicit shift towards dumbed down design for Avadon is one sign of this. He decided that he would be more financially viable by dumbing down his product and going after a larger market share than selling to his niche market. It's been a while since that decision but it's not a great sign for the health of the CRPG market if the only way to remain viable is to change your game to attract a wider audience.

The third argument might be totally right btw. If it were the case that people just aren't willing to spend money on games, then there really isn't much to do about it. You price it as best you can and you accept your losses. I don't think we're totally there, but that's as much hope as anything else. I'm still of the belief that there are discerning customers out there with money to spend on good games.

*** This is a total aside, but again this stuff interests me. Downward price spirals / price wars are common across pretty much every industry. A great example is breakfast at a restaurant. Most places charge around 5-10$ for breakfast, but every once in a while (where I live it happened about 4 years ago) someone comes in and offers breakfast for much less: 1$ or 2$ with coffee included. Once one guy does it, the competition feels like they need to do it to stay in the game, so they follow suit. The thing is, the restaurant is actually selling these breakfasts for below cost and at some point they'll go out of business operating like that. When this happens the end result is a few restaurants actually going out of business, and then the winners of the price wars (or survivors, because nobody wins these things... except the consumer for a short period of time) jack the prices back up so that they are profitable again. Another example would be if you purchased appliances in Quebec (or most of Eastern Canada) about 3 years ago. Two of the major players were operating at a loss to drive market share. That wasn't sustainable and about two years ago they brought their prices back in line with the other retailers. They won market share, but they didn't make any money, and in the process they drove a number of smaller retailers out of business. There are countless examples of this. Video game development isn't appliance sales, but downward pricing cycles are generally not sustainable. I would be very concerned about these trends were I attempting professional game development. It seems like a bit of a mug's game to get into it right now.

edit to avoid double posting again:

...Okay, I know its an unpopular thing around here...But... There are a plethora of First Person Turn based Dungeon Crawlers on handhelds. Are they on par with S&S Underworld? I dont know- They LOOK like they are. Some are decent games.

Are they like might and magic? No. To me, might and magic was waaaay more than a dungeon crawler. But as far as these type of games, I could put together quite a list but they wouldn't be on PC without an emulater- But I even recently bougut a Wizardry game on PSN for $10 with one expansion- Its japenese-ish and I abhor the "art style" but its a hardcore game and the gameplay is quite good.

IF we are talking PC only- I dont know. Your right, since I cant think of a ton which have been recently made. But I game across pretty much every system AND PC. Although PC is my preferred method, sadly I am finding more and more the games I really like are made for handhelds.

You bring up a great point about handhelds. It's quite possible that the competition is actually the Etrian Odyssey series, Dark Spire, and japanese Wizardry games. If that were the case then at least there is (maybe, depends how much is publically available) more data about sales numbers to use in pricing. You would have to find out what kind of premium people would pay for western graphics / pc based, if any at all. Then you'd at least have a guide.

Or maybe they are totally separate markets and people who buy EO just do it because they want style of game on the go. Some interesting questions for Charles to look into. (Seriously, add a(n optional) survey to your website and ask that it be submitted before purchase. Get as much data as you can.)

 

[Destroid]

While not a CRPG, Natural Selection 2 is an interesting (and recent) case of changing pricing strategy. For something in the region of 2 years it was sold on pre-order (with alpha/beta access) for $35 and over this duration sold around 41,000 copies. Recently it was announced for pre-sale on steam for $25. Unknown Worlds strategy to manage consumer backlash around the price drop was to give every player who pre-ordered an additional copy of the game. Such a decision potentially has cost them a large slab of potential sales on the give-away (well over $1 million worth), not to mention the community seemed to be growing well enough at the $35 price point, and thus a further large portion out of any future sales. They will have to sell an immensely greater number at the new price (and to overcome the free copies), so I can only assume they had some very compelling evidence telling them this will happen, presumably from Valve, since Unknown worlds are only a 4-5 man team.

 

[Brayko]

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is the top seller on Steam right now and it's $25. It's an Indie game and it's beating Dishonored and X-Box: Enemy Unknown in sales. Even purchased a copy myself.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is the top seller on Steam right now and it's $25. It's an Indie game and it's beating Dishonored and X-Box: Enemy Unknown in sales. Even purchased a copy myself.

Not really relevant to this discussion, as none of the games mentioned are cRPG's. Also, what makes it worth $25 in your opinion ?

 

[Spectacle]

There's nothing 'niche' about a blobber now. There are no shortage of indie developers pumping out similar games. You can argue one is better than the others or has X, Y, or Z feature but you can't call it 'niche.' The 'hobbyist' debate is a similar non-starter. I highly doubt a guy like Charles who bothered to put the game on Gamer's Gate (I think) and possibly other DD platforms can be considered a 'hobbyist.' At that point you're obviously actively trying to sell your product and earn a living off of it.

That's not what "niche" means. Niche doesn't mean an underexploited market, it means it's a small market with limited mainstream overlap. The fact that thee is no shortage of developers targeting this niche at the moment just makes it a very competitive niche, if you want to sell in it you need to make your product stand out in some way.

 

[Brayko]

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is the top seller on Steam right now and it's $25. It's an Indie game and it's beating Dishonored and X-Box: Enemy Unknown in sales. Even purchased a copy myself.

Not really relevant to this discussion, as none of the games mentioned are cRPG's. Also, what makes it worth $25 in your opinion ?

Talking about Indie games. The genre variable may be a big one considering "RPG's" (Like any of these newfag games are RPG's!) don't sell as well unless they're ported from Xbox and promise alien buttsex. Even so, I still look at it as inspiring to the Indie scene as a whole when a game designed by a tiny talented studio with no outside funding can do so well. The $25 should be an indicator of a successful Indie pricing range. Though genre variables of course do have to be taken into consideration.

 

[7hm]

While not a CRPG, Natural Selection 2 is an interesting (and recent) case of changing pricing strategy. For something in the region of 2 years it was sold on pre-order (with alpha/beta access) for $35 and over this duration sold around 41,000 copies. Recently it was announced for pre-sale on steam for $25. Unknown Worlds strategy to manage consumer backlash around the price drop was to give every player who pre-ordered an additional copy of the game. Such a decision potentially has cost them a large slab of potential sales on the give-away (well over $1 million worth), not to mention the community seemed to be growing well enough at the $35 price point, and thus a further large portion out of any future sales. They will have to sell an immensely greater number at the new price (and to overcome the free copies), so I can only assume they had some very compelling evidence telling them this will happen, presumably from Valve, since Unknown worlds are only a 4-5 man team.

Valve isn't particularly transparent on their cut, but do I wonder how much of what they take is fixed. If it's more fixed than percentage based it would be to Valve's advantage to encourage developers to drop their price in order to sell more copies. Similar to how a real estate agent is almost never going to get that last 10k for you because it's not in their best interest to jeopardize their entire commission for commission on 10k. While Valve's advice is probably sound, and developers aren't working at cross purposes to them, they're also not totally aligned in their goals.

Interesting article on Valve's sale pricing. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php#.UIaPUsXA-6M

His 2D dungeon crawler The Binding of Isaac, for example, saw sales multiply by five when it was marked down by 50 percent, and once it hit the front page as a temporary "Flash Deal" (for 75 percent off), sales multiplied by sixty.

"Rather than looking at it as a 'lost sale' when people wait for these Steam discounts, I think it needs to be viewed as reaching out to a new customer that never would have purchased your game otherwise."

This article is more about how indies want to control their pricing with a view of discounting, but has two quotes that stand out to me: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/05/indie-game-developers-band-together-to-promote-price-control/

The most successful version of World of Goo, in pure revenue terms, has actually been the WiiWare version, which Nintendo sells for a relatively pricey $15 (compared to $5 on iOS and $10 on Steam). Nintendo actually wanted to sell the game at $10 intitially, but Carmel says he pushed for a $15 price for a simple reason: pride. "Our game is worth $15, dammit," he said jokingly.

Nintendo's price control means the $15 game is competing against games at a de facto $5 floor.

Despite that, Carmel doesn't seem to draw links between the higher price and the higher revenue.

And finally: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2695/the_basic_marketing_plan_for_indie_.php?print=1 and http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132629/finding_the_sweet_spot_pricing_.php?print=1

The first is an incredibly basic article so maybe I shouldn't be ripping on it. It only skims the surface of what actually goes into marketing a product. But still, there isn't a single fucking sentence directed towards HOW to price your game. It's indicative of a larger issue around pricing, ie the lack of attention paid to it. Pricing isn't something you just jam into your goal section, it's a section in and of itself. If you want to make money, it's probably one of the most important sections.

The second is actually about pricing though. Instead of talking about collecting customer data and establishing some sort of concrete numbers to use in price optimization it suggests that developers "Be Fair" and "Stay Flexible". These aren't particularly helpful pieces of advice. And being fair has nothing to do with pricing. Apple doesn't sell MacBooks at "fair" prices. They sell them at high prices to maintain their brand reputation and to make money.

This was an interesting quote though:

Wilford says. "And sometimes, even if you think a higher price point will be more profitable, it may be best to go lower anyway in order to get a bigger group of people playing your games, recognizing your brand, and remembering your name."

I disagree with this (obviously) but recognise that a lot of developers probably think this way. The problem is that loss leaders are generally used in other industries as an introduction to higher margin products. Laptops are sold at or below cost to get you into the store so that the salespeople can sell you high margin attachments, services, or warranties, or to up-sell you to other products. Loss leaders don't make a lot of sense when they're literally the only product you have for sale.

 

[MetalCraze]

Where's the "indies should stop making shit and find a better job" option?

 

[Destroid]

I disagree with this (obviously) but recognise that a lot of developers probably think this way. The problem is that loss leaders are generally used in other industries as an introduction to higher margin products. Laptops are sold at or below cost to get you into the store so that the salespeople can sell you high margin attachments, services, or warranties, or to up-sell you to other products. Loss leaders don't make a lot of sense when they're literally the only product you have for sale.

Two points I want to make regarding this, the first is that it's almost impossible to make a loss on a digital download (although you can of course price yourself so that you have to sell a completely unreasonable number of copies to make a profit compared to your time invested), and secondly at least a few indie devs DO use a similar strategy to loss leading by having a cheap primary product then releasing a series of expansions or DLC. AI Wars has 3 expansions with another on the way, Gratuitious Space Battles has 6 DLC. Although I think this model works best for strategy games as they have readily expandable gameplay and often the first release is cut down from the creators vision anyway.

Unfortunately, because Valve don't release sales figures to the public, there's very little actual information we can base our opinions on unless someone comes out with it. Even then, I'm sure the right price varies by game and by what demographic is most interested in it.

 

[Metro]

Although a publisher Paradox openly encourages its developers to do this as seen with Magicka, Warlock, Hearts of Iron games, etc. Reasonably priced base game with a shitload of DLC.

 

[7hm]

Good point re: dlc. Looking at what the publishers like Paradox are doing would certainly be another angle.

Re: loss on sales. While you don't incur large costs on individual sales there is overhead involved in simply selling the software. Website hosting and development, the cut that is taken off the top by the seller assuming a third party or by the company that processes the payment.

You also have to consider the actual cost. I have a friend who works for a small dev that makes iPhone games. She does graphics for two games and both of those games have two programmers. They all work full time and there's a project manager as well. That's a pretty massive investment in salary alone, to say nothing of the overhead involved in running an office, providing computer equipment etc. There is a reason companies are asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars for their kickstarter campaigns. You can shift the cost over several projects if you're reusing assets but you still need to include them in your costing. Even if you assume high sales numbers a lot of these games would be sold at a loss or at cost.

I think the market is really screwed up because of the hobbyists. A programmer's time might be 100$ an hour on spec but when he is pulling 40 weeks outside of his day job he often doesn't include that as a cost. Fine for hobbyists. Not great if you want to make a living.

 

[Destroid]

Those are sunk costs though. You pay them once and they are done, they have no effect on the cost to sell an individual copy of the game. Of course, if you don't sell many, you end up like the B-2 bomber at a project cost of a billion per unit.

EDIT: Heard in a pod cast that Steams take is 30%.

 

[Charles-cgr]

For those that follow this thread but missed the newsbit, SSUG is on sale for the weekend at $9.95.

For the sake of Science, of course.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/underworld-gold-weekend-sale.77360/

 

[Kimprime]

I think people get scared about committing to purchases greater than $20. That said, I feel that indie games should charge appropriately for how much game you get.

Presentation should be factored in too, of course. But I mainly think that the cost of a game should be proportional to how much content there is. I think all prices should work like that for vidya anyway.

I've paid $60 for 4 hours of content (Vanquished). Sure it was fun and all but for that much money I could've gone out for a 3D movie marathon with some friends on a loopy and languid weekend.

Or, god forbid, I could've saved up for a Bad Dragon product with which to decorate my room. That's endless entertainment.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Based on the stats and feedback I've read from indies, the basic rule is :

Price high ($20+ for anything but a casual title) unless you manage to get on a major distribution channel or stumble on a viral hit like Minecraft. Halving the price on your own site almost never gets you more than 2X the sales in the long run, making it a net loss. If you get accepted by Steam but they require you drop your price to get on, do it. The volume makes up for it.

Polls are nice, but consumers will generally always suggest you should drop your price. Unfortunately, that advice almost never maps well to how it works out in reality.

 

[Ovg]

I think that paying $20 for an indie game is quite fucking much, because as we all know, people tend to think big developer = good quality.
But if you drop the price and get some good PR going on, you could, I think, get at least some people interested in your product. People in general tend to think that $5 or some even that $10 is not much and they will drop it out of curiosity.