Article: Pricing Games, A Discussion

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Pepsi Ranger
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Article: Pricing Games, A Discussion

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

In the early days of the OHR, nobody but the creator of Fat Frog considered putting a price tag on their games. In the modern era, however, with higher quality products and dedicated sales channels for independent game designers (Steam, Humble Bundle, etc.) becoming more common, as well as a new age of adapted licensed characters (Kaiju Big Battel, Axe Cop) getting approved by their original IP holders, prices for OHR games are not only becoming more commonplace; for some, setting the price is essential.

But, if we're going to start selling our games, how do we determine cost?

I'd like to hear from the people who have submitted to Steam or other digital shops on this matter, but before I do, I want to point you to an article by Dean Wesley Smith called "Pricing Silliness and Learning a Lesson," in which he discusses e-book pricing and what indie authors should do about it. Even though the article is about indie books, not games, the points he makes are still relevant to this discussion, and much of what I want to say here is based on the tenants of the above article.

So, let's start with the questions: How expensive is too expensive? How cheap is too cheap?

Here's my take:

Since the early days of the OHR, game designers have come in here with a deflated sense of ego, believing that anything they produce is garbage. Not everyone here has had this attitude, mind you, but in the dark days of the OHR, many have often advertised their games with slogans like:

"You probably don't want to play this, but..."

"This is the story of a hero who goes on a quest and stuff, and well, you've played it before, but tell me what you think anyway."

"I slapped this game together while I was bored this weekend. Give it a try if you want."

And so on.

Fortunately, those days seem to be behind us, as most of the people who come around here today are not only more serious about their games, but feel better about the results. Sure, disappointments still happen, but we are still getting better about liking the products we make and more genuinely excited about the responses we'll get.

So, for those of us who wish to release our games to a wider base, I think we need to release with the confidence that our games are worth something, even if we decide we want to release it for free.

So, what are our games worth?

This is subjective, but I can tell you that, as a buyer, I don't generally trust the quality of any game released under $2.99, and even then, I'd expect a $3 game to last me as many hours and no more. I feel more confident in the quality of a game that costs at least $4.99, especially if the reviews are in the positive, and I think those that retail for $6.99 are in the best position to reflect quality and worth. This is where I think most of the current batch of quality OHR games lives, in the $7 range.

However, I think price and quality should age together, and if a game is worth $6.99 today, then that same game might be worth $7.99 in late 2018, especially if that game is updated with the latest engine features that the OHR provides.

Regardless of how you feel about your game or how you think the game will do with audiences, the most important takeaway from this discussion is to understand the market, understand buyer psychology, and understand that most people don't want to spend time or money on a $.99 game, as that screams "worthless." When we release our games to Steam or other digital stores, we should do so with some market research behind us, including an understanding who our ideal players are, and what those players are willing to spend. For example, a game like Slimeomancy could be worth as much as $10 if it's aged well (I don't know if it has, but I'm sure it would kill in the mobile market), or worth that much if it adapts to higher resolutions or bigger maps, if it's comparable to other Lemmings-style puzzle games. Or, maybe it's worth only $5 if other Lemmings-style puzzle games are selling for $5. I don't know. That's why we should research prices, and genres, and quality, and player expectations before releasing them. We should also see how active the discussion boards for similar games are (on Steam) before we release, so that we have a better understanding of how to target our ideal players, or if we even have a potential player base.

I also see nothing wrong with opening up a discussion on pricing for each individual game before the game goes live to the general public. Early feedback is essential for not only deciding what needs to be addressed in a game, but also in deciding how much the game should cost at release. The average RPG Maker game retails for $6.99. Maybe that's overpriced for some titles, but there are others that have the quality needed to justify a price that high, and some even go for as much as $9.99 and are actually worth it (Ara Fell, for example). The OHR still has limitations, and we all know what they are, but it's catching up to the standard we might find in other engines, and games like Void Pyramid, Kaiju Big Battel, and most of RedMaverickZero's recent games are worth a reasonable asking price, and I think it's time we show the world that the OHR is worth the price of a Starbuck's coffee.

And, let's not forget that sales will drive prices down to those low-end ranges anyway, so you might as well price them in anticipation of earning something even during a 75% or 90%-off campaign.

I could steer this discussion into a topic about marketing, pre-selling, etc., but I want to tackle this subject first.

What are your thoughts?
Last edited by Pepsi Ranger on Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by FyreWulff »

It is interesting, though. There used to be a huge anti-selling sentiment in the community, but this was also at the height of ROM downloading, everyone being defiant and young, and also massive music downloading.

Today, people buy classic games on the console services, most everyone streams music legally now and don't even bother to download it, and everyone got older.

A lot of people also now realize their time is worth something if they're putting their skills into it.

Price is always hard to determine. Big companies spend a lot of money figuring out price - market research, etc. The only thing I've been able to figure out is price should be determined by how much you spent plus how much you think you need to support the customers post-launch. It won't matter if your game is 5$ or 15$ if it's barely known - in this case, a higher price means you have more money to support a potentially smaller base. Releasing a game at 1$ on mobile sounds like the thing to do - but now you have to move massive volume to even make the equivalent of minimum wage for the year.

Even not on mobile, selling 1000 copies at 20$ would let you have longer sustain and future projects than selling 2000 at 5$.


As an addendum, it used to even be pretty hard to get on the -free- download sites back then. I remember everyone congratulating Valkayree for getting Ends of the Earth on download.com - IIRC he was the only one to get an OHR game on a commercial download site back then.

It was also sort of neat.. we started seeing the OHR have consolidated download sites (O:OHR, Castle Paradox, Slimesalad) after a certain amount of time. I think the average age of the community did this - once everyone got old enough to have enough experience programming or learning how ot program, the likelihood of someone being willing to make those kind of sites jumped dramatically. There were certainly older members back then, and ones that knew how to program, but the amount of them shot up dramatically after 90% of the community got past high school. In a way we've all grown up together on the internet, all have figured out roughly at the same time games are worth giving value to, and switched from being about social aspect and more the game making tradecraft aspect.


The thing that most dramatically hurts OHRRPGCE games commercially at the moment is it's animation limits. The desire for 16-bit looking games comes and goes, so the engine hasn't been hurt by that, but people expect them to also have SNES quality animation. The features and extra goodies in the engine added over the years competes with other game tools, but the animation is the huge one right now.

edit: if i had to throw price points out there:

5$ for a small 'toy' game.
10$ as the floor for an average length game. up to 15ish.
20-25$ for one of length/content.

add 10$ to all those price points if there's more than two frames of animation.

those are all from the hip. ultimately, if a game justifies the price asked for it, i'll pay it.
Last edited by FyreWulff on Sun Nov 12, 2017 6:25 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by sheamkennedy »

When willyelektrix and I were in the process of creating Void Pyramid we had discussed whether or not to price the game. The discussion wasn't really about the game's worth but was more about whether or not putting a price on the game was a good idea since neither of us really had an audience. We decided that we would make the game free because it would allow us to grow an audience by making the game easily accessible to everyone rather than people having to decide whether to dish out money and take a chance on it. Our priority was to get the game to as big an audience as possible so we could get more feedback and we figured that putting a price on the game would not allow this to happen.

Overall the game was very successful but it makes me wonder if we would have got the same sort of valuable feedback had it been priced. Also now that there is an audience in place maybe it would be smart to do an overhaul of the game at some point with better graphics, additional content, extra rooms/puzzles, etc... If we did something like that I think it would justify a high price tag. At this point we have the feedback we were seeking and a loyal audience built up. If we released an overhaul that took all player feedback into consideration I think the game could be successful as a paid-game and our audience would know what they're getting having played the free game. Maybe this could be used as a tactic for first time releasers to build an audience and eventually turn a profit.

I would like to hear other's opinions on this... Is it wise to release a game for the first time with a price tag if you have little to no audience following you? Does anyone have any experience doing this and what kind of feedback did you get? Did you still get a fair amount of feedback?

I guess if I were to release a game for the first time with a price tag I would take a different approach to releasing it. I would focus my effort on making a really mind blowing teaser video. I would also send out free copies to people like youtube gamers in order to promote the game to their audiences. There would definitely be a large focus on how to market it.
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Post by FyreWulff »

Don't think there's a problem with doing a couple of free games first, or even free games later after making a paid game - just be realistic about the time planning and so on for the later free ones.

With my stuff it was, start with Jade, which was fairly big but free with some decent cash put it into it, then I worked on other people's games for free or for royalty, then worked on paid games. Then I made a free one.. but the catch was we were able to make it free because we had the backing of a fairly large company and were making relatively decent amounts of money because they used it as marketing for themselves.

I guess what I'm trying to say is just be realistic. Don't murder yourself with a giganto-project for free - even if it results in a smaller audience, at least you can eat ramen instead of air for dinner :v: Free games get people to look at you, but if you plan on doing it for a living or career, you have to make the jump to paid at some point.


Some will do it just to mess around with making a game and never do it again, and that's fine too. It's what you want out of all of it.


A point I will make though... don't panic sale your game soon after launch. People will expect any future releases from you to quickly be put on sale, resulting in a feedback loop of perpetual slow launches.
Last edited by FyreWulff on Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:41 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Most of my games I have given away for free. The few I have sold have been $0.99 but nobody really buys them.

I don't know when I will next try to sell a game, but now I think I like the idea of pricing higher, like maybe $5 to $7. That wouldn't stop me from giving friends free copies when I want to, and it might change people's first perceptions of the game's value.
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Post by sheamkennedy »

@Fyrewulff: Good points.

@Bob: Yeah I agree. I think $5+ does seem more appealing. It automatically makes me think the game has some sort of play value and it's not unreasonable to spend $5 on a game either. I think most of the content you've released could easily be priced in the $5-10 range.
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Post by The Wobbler »

I launched C. Kane at $2 and immediately had hundreds of people add it to their Steam wishlist, waiting for a sale. No matter what you charge, a large number of people on Steam won't budge until there's a sale, so price accordingly, and don't be one of those games that's on sale for 90% off every single week.

I've had better results with Google Play than Steam. More copies sold, way more reviews written (45ish vs. around 10 on Steam) and people seem more willing to take a chance on goofier stuff.

$10-$15 is the price pretty much every indie game I've bought in the last few years has launched at. I'm going with $10 for the Kaiju game but $2 (now $1) felt more fair for Kane given how short that game is.

Also, Trading Cards and Achievements are a deciding factor for many Steam users.
Last edited by The Wobbler on Mon Nov 13, 2017 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Valkayree »

I've been working on something for a few months now, I will probably get back with you good folks in a few more months to find out about this Google Play thing. I think it is amazing that the community is still here after all this time :D
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

And it is delightful to see you back after so long. Welcome back! :)
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Post by Valkayree »

Thanks James! Glad to see a few familiar faces still post. I really like the new (to me) features in the editor, it is light years ahead from where it was in the beginning, great work!

- Oh and to stay on topic: There is a game called Stardew Valley on consoles that looks like it could have been made easily with OHR. It retails $15 on PSN and XBL. I bought it and so did a few others I know. Played it a while and liked it a lot. And it is just a farming sim that looks like Harvest Moon. So yeah, $10-$15 for a good 20+ hour phone game people can play at work, at the airport, or while they are pooping seems pretty reasonable.
Last edited by Valkayree on Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Mogri »

Valkayree, whattt. It's been like fifteen years!
The Wobbler wrote:I launched C. Kane at $2 and immediately had hundreds of people add it to their Steam wishlist, waiting for a sale. No matter what you charge, a large number of people on Steam won't budge until there's a sale, so price accordingly, and don't be one of those games that's on sale for 90% off every single week.
This is super important. If you want your game to sell for $2, price it at $4 at the lowest. You can always put it on sale! Gone are the days when your opening week is 90% of your income. Steam has made the long tail way more important than the release.

Fyre is spot on about a game's price being an indicator of quality. Especially for adults whose time is at much more of a premium than their pocket change, it's hard to justify playing a $1 game. Price optimistically, and prepare for most of your sales to come during discounts.
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Post by The Wobbler »

I've done decently OK with $1 games on Google Play (Original version of C. Kane, Walthros (which I later turned free a year later)) but $1 games on Steam don't move the same way at all. It makes it tough, because you don't want to have the exact same game at radically different prices on different platforms. I expect Kaiju, at $10, to do better on Steam than on Google Play, while Kane performed much better on Google.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

How did C.Kane do on Amazon, and what settings did you choose for FireTV support?

I have been playing Walthros on the Firestick (the kids enjoy watching it)

I expecting I would be able to find ways to improve the support for the control-scheme on the remote, but it actually seems pretty fantastic already, at least for games that need no more than 2 or 3 buttons.
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Post by The Wobbler »

Bob the Hamster wrote:How did C.Kane do on Amazon, and what settings did you choose for FireTV support?

I have been playing Walthros on the Firestick (the kids enjoy watching it)

I expecting I would be able to find ways to improve the support for the control-scheme on the remote, but it actually seems pretty fantastic already, at least for games that need no more than 2 or 3 buttons.
That's awesome! Glad you can share it with the kids.

C. Kane did abysmally on Amazon, selling about two copies a year. Oddly, Walthros has had way, way more downloads on Amazon's storefront than Google Play. It's free on both.

I don't remember having to select anything specific for them to run on Firestick.
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