Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

54 thoughts on Interview and prices

  2. I was very curious what your price point was going to be. As much as I am looking forward to your game, I can’t help but feel that it panders to a very specific audience. I don’t think that you are going to be able to sell it for much more than $20 if you want to go for a wide release. However, personally, I would buy it for:

    $20 and love you.
    $25 and be satisfied.
    $30 and grumble.
    $35 and resent you.

    $20 certainly puts it in to impulse buy range, and it makes it much more likely that people will buy it based on word of mouth. So in my incredibly uninformed opinion, I think $20 is perfect. Better to sell a lot of copies at $20 than half as many at $30. Also, these values are based solely on my estimates of how it is going to be based on following the blog. You might be able to do better after the demo comes out (you are doing a demo, right?) but $20 is probably the perfect price point.

  3. Count me in at that price. Broke as all hell, but that seems very reasonable and I’ve really enjoyed watching your progress for the past few months.

  4. I pretty much agree with Cottc Cid on how most people will view the price points. I’d probably be pretty happy to pay $30 (I did for Trine and felt it was perfectly appropriate), but I’m a little more open than most people when it comes to game price point relative to quality, I guess.

    $20 seems ideal; it crosses the psychological barrier into “minor purchase” territory and keeps people from whining at the same time.

  5. i have to admit i’m cheap (sorry ;/).. but $20 would be a high (though just acceptable) price for me – it’s up against things like Demigod and Dawn of War II both at about £15. i know those’re vaguely old, but they’re what i just bought recently. and of course, plants vs zombies – which lots of my friends bought at £14. (and things like osmos which i watched someone buy on a pure whim and because i said i’d heard good things about it due to its £7 price point.)

    of course, a sterling option would be ideal – otherwise the credit card broker fee adds on top.

    would you make it $20 though? [or an equally even amount] – the reason being i get annoyed at shops which price things like that .. admittedly far more annoyance when it’s a car for £39,999.95 – because it feels like they’re just trying to play the psychological trick and fool you into thinking its cheaper than it is. i had read that this was becoming more common (not pricing at $X.99) – but i can’t find the reference now.

  7. £15? 0_0 *sigh* I’ll never get used to how exorbitant New Zealand’s electronic prices are (NZ$120 for a new release game….)

    Even after the markup for currency change, that’s a decent price – I was actually expecting $25, so $20 came as a nice surprise. Time to start putting aside money…

  8. 19.95? Isn’t that the Billy Mays price? (RIP)

    It’s a good price, because it is, to quote Douglas Adams, “more or less exactly” what I consider the maximum price I would pay in full and up-front with no trials.

  9. $20? Yep, good price there, I’d get that in a heartbeat (Soon as pre-orders go up I’ll prove it! :) ). Given the tantalizing videos you’ve released so far, that’s about the right price point. Anything higher, and that starts creeping into “I want to play the demo first” territory. However, $20 is right in the middle of “Trailers look awesome, willing to risk it” area. Anything less and you can start giving the impression that the game is cheap or low-quality.

  10. @ Michael: I think $40 (and possibly $30) would severely decrease overall revenue, especially for a digital download indie game. I don’t at all mean to impugn the “genre” or class of game, but many gamers (in the US, at least, where I am) will garnish their expectations of a game based solely on its delivery method and “indie” status.

    Witness the ridiculous debate over Trine, which was well worth its $30 price tag. Many people, even games journalists, just refused to buy it at all or at least until it dropped in price, regardless of the actual quality (though this was complicated by its lower price point on the PSN). I can’t back this up with numbers, but for what it’s worth I would guess that the developers would have made more overall profit if they’d released at $20. That price point really seems to be the sweet spot for larger indie games.

    If Cliffski is comfortable releasing at $20, I’d say that it’s a solid price.

  11. I’ll pay $20 for the game and an additional $30 to a hooker that’ll I’ll name cliffski for the night.

    …and yes, I understand for that price I’m most likely getting a penis and a raging case of herpes…

  12. only too bad i can’t pay over the web without all the hassle :(

    so do a demo and let your game be cracked after you earend enough or such!

  13. Where will you be releasing the title?

    Steam? Impulse? Direct2Drive? …GamersGate?

    I’m, personally, shooting for Impulse. But I’d consider Steam as well.

  14. I will pay whatever price you name on the day you make it available for pre-order. I don’t know what it is about this game, but I’m more excited about it than almost any game coming out for the rest of the year.

    My personal feelings aside, it might be worth checking out this recent post from Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001293.html). It talks about how Valve prices things on Steam and how lowering the price of games results in higher overall earnings. Whether or not you buy into all that rigmarole, it’s a good read.

  15. Count me in at $20 for a preorder… then you might want to raise the price to $25 for non-preorders, as $25 seems like it’s almost in the “impulse buy” point, and $40 seems too high.

  16. (if this appears more than once, sorry, for some reason it doesnt seem to be accepting my comment?)

    i want this game, bad… but i can say that anything over $20 is a non-starter. why? because i know i can wait and get it for $20 or less. someone somewhere will have a special or sale, and ill get it then. but if its $20 right out of the gate, its a day one purchase (or preorder).

    when i look at my quicken for the last 6 months, i see ive bought 28 games, and only one of them over $20. yay for weekend sales and sites like GOG.com :)

  17. I’d go for $20 via Impulse or Gamersgate myself with a slight edge to Impulse.

    I’ve got to agree that $20 is squarely in the “Sure I’ll give it a go” territory while more would push it towards “I’ll wait for the demo” instead.

  18. Just my two cents. From the perspective of a game player, I’d like $15. At that price I wouldn’t hesitate to get it. From the perspective of a game creator, $20 is probably a better price point. At $20 I’ll think about it before I actually get it, but I’ll still probably get it. Why does $5 make a difference? Will I enjoy the game less if I pay $5 more for it? Who knows? Must be some psychological thing. Or maybe I’m just weird.

    As much as I want to say $15 and save myself $5, I’d rather pay $20 and have you (and others like you) continue making good games.

  20. $20 sounds pretty good… especially since I don’t know how extensive the game will be or what its replayability will be like for me. That keeps it in the safe territory where I’m not likely to be upset but there’s a good chance I’ll be really happy and will tell others about it.

  21. $20 sounds like a pretty fair price to me. Personally, I’d be happy to pay a little more but I’m not sure that’s true for the overall market.

  22. I was actually hoping to treat a couple of friends to pre-ordered GSB to ensure I’ve got compatriots in space-battling – $20 is a little high for this plan.

  23. Personally, I *want* to pay more. Your games are truly unique and I want your business to thrive. <3 Don’t go lower than 20$.

  24. $20 seems very reasonable to me. I’d be willing to pay more, say $30, since this game is right up my street, but $20 is probably going to get more of the people who stumble across it to actually buy it.

    Speaking of which, are you considering going with the steam/impulse/etc route? I dont know what kind of a cut they take or how much of a legal minefield it is, but i can say that steam has to be the best way of getting your game ‘out there’ in peoples faces these days, kind of the PC gaming equivalent of getting your game stocked in tescos or wal-mart.

  26. Is it me, or does $18 sound a lot less than $20 – im sure there is some psychology there.

  27. I’d preorder it at $20 without a second thought. Above that I’d probably wait to see reviews/demo and proceed from there.

  28. Where can I pre-purchase? :) $19.95 sounds good to me. That’s 14 euro, so practically free. Up to $30/20 euro I’d buy it based on your blog posts alone. Above that, I’d need to play the demo to convince me and justify the price.

  29. $20 is my “no worries” indie game price. If I play a demo and get a feel I’d like the game, head to the store and see that price, I’d get it without a second thought (assuming no hassles with your store front).

    If I saw the game was $30, I might still buy the game, but it would cause me think twice. Anything that causes me to pause increases the chance I’ll wait or possibly cancel the sale. There’s other things that cause me to do that too, like if there’s something unintuitive on the store front.

    Of course, I’ll probably hold out for the Mac verison regardless. Me and my darn non-compatible OS choice. ;)

  30. Forgot to add: I think for me, weirdly, I have the same “think twice” reaction if the price is too *low*. If you were charging $10 or less, I’d be wondering why you were selling too cheap and whether your game was worth the time and effort of buying.

  31. Great comments here from everyone. I’m thinking along the lines of the way mount n blade worked, in that they let people get in early and buy the game cheaper who were happy to buy the beta, and as they added more features and content they upped the price.
    I’m thinking the game is worth $20 now, maybe more for later buyers if I add a lot of stuff based on feedback from people who play the beta during pre-order.

  33. Ok everyone will hate me but I think 20$ (thats about 14€) is VERY (maybe too) cheap.

    I was sure I wanted to pre-order and thought about 30€ (~40$).

    Where can I subscribe? ;)

  37. $15 is my sweet spot for impulse buys. If I see something that looks good and it is $15 or below I’ll impulse buy it without many worries. Something like GSB which I have been watching, I’ll definitely buy at $20, Most likely will buy it at $30 but once you hit the $30+ range I start realizing that GSB will be just as good if I wait a year or so for the price to drop, plus any balance issues will be resolved with patches.

    My 2 cents of course.

  40. $19.95… I was expecting a bit less to tell you the truth. I mean, the games most of us are used to buying for $50 are made by teams of dozens and dozens of people, over sometimes years of work and development, with massive budgets to recoup and all.

    And having said that, it sounds more than fair and it’s probably a great price from your POV. Not so low that you can’t pay yourself for all the thousands of hours of hard work, but not so high that it scares most interested people away. I’d say a lower price would make it easier for people who don’t get love at first sight for GSB to buy it on an impulse and give it a show… but then again nobody can argue with the fact World of Goo was a massive hit at (I believe) the same price point.

    I, for one, will get it! :)

    PS – Have you thought about a name change? Or is it just a working title? The Gratuitous in the title doesn’t do it any favors, and will be impossible to spell correctly for non-English speakers (possibly hindering their ability to search for it and find it). It also makes one tend not to take the game very seriously (though I admit I had no calms about considering “Plants vs. Zombies” a seriously fun – and funny – strategy game… but of course, I learned about the game reading a glowing near-perfect review at wired.com so that helped). Great Space Battles would appeal to my wargame sensibilities a lot more… many tabletop wargames I own are part of some “Great Battles of something or other” series! :)

  41. $20 is the bog standard price for indie games. Anyone who complains then would have complained at any price.

    I’m more interested in the DRM. Are you going to follow the example of World of Goo/Crayon Physics and go DRM-free? Honestly, the pirates will have a cleaned up version by the end of the week if you use DRM, while the legitimate customers are the ones who have to suffer. I have definitely passed up games I would have otherwise bought because they were Reflexive or Steam exclusives.

    In my opinion, the best DRM is a password unlock that slaps the name of the registeree on the title screen to guilt-trip the pirates who say they’re just “sampling” the full game.

  42. I will pay 20 USD for pre-order when it will be available, and probably I would pay a bit more after launch, lets say 25 USD, after I could read a bit more of the gameplay, replayability, etc.

    I would also advice you to do something “special” for all those pre-order customers, maybe a *gun* available only for pre-orders (dunno what type, if any, of DRM are you going to use, but it may work with serial numbers, or things like that…), or texture, or something similar.

    Yes it would cost you some time to do it, but hey, such perks could end up with a boost of initial sales and bigger customer satisfaction:)

    To be absolutely clear – no advantages in game for pre-orders, just the looks:)

  43. Portals are selling stuff so cheap now that you’d probably be better off selling it independently for as long as you could hold out for. Build a Lot 4 is £6.99 on reflexive and that’s what I’d consider a game that will do very good business.

    I’m not sure how GSB is going to work for me. I’ll probably either love it or play it once and not bother any more like I did with Rock Legend for some reason. But i’m pretty sure i’ll pick it up anyway at $19.95 because it’s different and originality should be encouraged – especially in indie games.

  44. I would gladly pay $20 as the game looks sweet and i love space games and space combat. However to put things in a common gamer perspective you can buy the latest Battlefield from DICE for $14.99 on XBLA or PS Store.

    http://www.battlefield1943.com/

  45. @Mischief Maker:

    I’m guessing you haven’t really looked at the front page of the positech site? There’s a nice no DRM image on there if you haven’t noticed before ;) I think Cliffski was doing the whole DRM free thing before it became indie cool.

    As for the price $20 sounds perfect to me. Sure it’s going up against a lot of extremly cheaper priced ‘older’ games these days but a lot of them have already long passed there best days.

    One thing I’m wondering is if the pre-order price will be cheaper than the release price ? or will the (if it happens) beta/early release pre-orders get be the justification for paying the same price as a non pre-order? Because I know I’m going to pre-order this the first chance I get as I’ve loved your other games I’ve bought and no doubt will love this too. It’s just by pre-ordering we’re taking more of a risk in the sense we’ve no other sources for how the game actually is ;)

    Either way I’m going to pre-order first chance I get… Just hope it works on W7 this time.

  46. @Ricardo: ‘big’ games still sell one hell of a lot more copies than most indie games. At least, the successful ones do.

  47. Just thinking.. Could donation to kiva.org per unit sold increase sales? Might be quite a boost for both sides, if it spreads to many sites about donating… ‘Developer donates a dollar for every game sold’, ‘Want to help to third-world? Buy this indie game!’..
    You could even lower the price for the donating unit to make it more interesting, possibly more viral.
    (The only problem I can see is that kiva is not about donating, so you would get money back – oh, wait, that’s actually a big plus! I might actually do this one day..)

  49. $20 seems about right to me. As people have said, it’s the price at which I’ll buy something even if I’m not absolutely certain I want it, just because it’s worth the risk to check it out.

    But then, I’ve just read a pop-sci article on economics, so everything looks like a cost-benefit analysis right now *grin*

  50. $19.95 seems right for a unique space shooting-sim game that “won’t” be found on BFG and other portals that push for 6.99.

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