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

Question about buying games, friends etc.

cliffski

I’ve been thinking about that classic situation where you buy a game and think it’s cool, but your friends don’t have it. I’ve experienced this lately with Just Cause 2, Men of War and even Mount N Blade. It’s cooler to know loads of people playing the same game as you.

Some companies do clever discounty stuff where they give people the ability to give away discounts or extra copies. (‘gifting’ is a word that really offends my feeble sense of grammar somehow).

I wonder what people think about this?

If you own Gratuitous Space Battles (for example), do you know someone who hasn’t bought it, who you’d like to pester to buy it? If so, and you were given a money off token for your friend to get the game at a discount would you:

A) Think thats cool, because you get to give away a discount code to a friend, plus they might now get the game too

B) Think you were ripped off by paying full price for the game.

I think A) personally, but I’m biased because I run a business and read a lot about this sort of thing. I don’t like the idea of making anyone who bought a game from me annoyed about their pruchase, so I fear there are many people who think B) but am I wrong?

28 thoughts on Question about buying games, friends etc.

  1. I think a good way to encourage the pestering and to rule out the B) possibility is offering something for the gifting. Maybe a DLC pack to both parties, or even a smaller dlc pack adding a few more generic ships like the overgrowth rabbit one.

    this will also be a good incentive to do the pestering, and maybe the nudge that the reluctant buyer needed.

    I wouldn’t worry about the original buyer feeling as though he’s lost out, although theat depends on how nuts you were planning on going with the discount

  3. One of the most annoying things when shopping online is getting to the checkout step and getting the “coupon code” entry field. Wait, there is a coupon? For what? How much?

    I have abandoned carts over that util I found a code. Stupid? In most cases, yes it is… the discounts are often minor compared to the annoyance of having to find it. Yet there is a negative emotional reaction to knowing that other people are getting a discount and somehow you missed it.

    There has been a lot of discussion online recently about “framing”. An empty coupon code is framed negatively because there is a discount available, but you are being denied it.

    Moving on to your issue: gifting systems can be framed either way: giving a discount to the friends is one way to handle it, but you are right that some will see that discount as a negative as “someone else” got it, but they didn’t.

    A potentially better way to frame it is to have friend codes that benefit both actors: the recipient *and* the one giving the code. Those that give out codes that convert get a discount on later expansions and those who receive them get a discount on the item.

    In this way you turn your biggest fans into a source of leads. As you would only give discounts for completed transactions, the cost of this marketing route can be computed exactly (say if the $19 price is discounted $4 and the expansion bonus was $1, you know that your effective revenue for each conversion is $14 [and probably a bit more as not everyone will convert the $1 discounts on expansions]).

  4. A always.

    B if it is too soon since I bought mine.

    The best recent trend IMO is the 4-pack deals on Steam. Everyone gets a discounted price and I know, when I buy mine, that at least 3 others will have it. My son (and soon enough my daughter) are growing old enough to play these games with me as well, so the “bulk” discount” is greatly appreciated. Occasionally add my wife to the mix and I just can’t keep up.

    Mostly I have stopped buying AAA games at release otherwise, with few exceptions. I just wait for the game to come down in price later.

    I am torn, because I do believe in supporting developers/artists that I enjoy, but the full $50 price tag ($60 for MW2!?) is just not sustainable, especially with the glut of games on the market. Even with the 4-packs I can not keep up or play every game that catches my interest.

  5. Thats very interesting, on the topic of rewarding actual converting customers. In theory, you could give a free expansion pack (for example) to anyone who gave away a discount to a friend who then bought the full game… This is getting complex :D

  6. Personally, I think more along the lines of “a”, and, of the few people I asked, most felt the same way.

    The reasoning being that I had already decided the game was worth the cost when I bought it. Finding out once I’d bought it that I could give others a small discount is just an added bonus to go along with offering the recommendation to them in the first place.

    Once thing that many other businesses do is offer both a “referral incentive” (i.e. giving someone something if someone they referred purchases the product or service), as well as a “referral bonus” (i.e. a discount or bonus that the referrer can pass along when the referral is made).

    In your case, perhaps the incentive could be a small discount on a new purchase of a game, and the bonus could be some small DLC. You *could* make the bonus a small on some DLC, but that feels less like a “bonus” and more like a “sales incentive”.

    Good luck with the promotion. It’d be very cool if you could share some stats on the outcome, either here, on the indiegamer forum, or somewhere more private.

  7. I find that if I get a discount to give away at the point I buy something then I get annoyed that I couldn’t use it to save money. However if I get that same discount a few days/weeks/months later then I’m more likely to pass it on to a friend.

    Love Film do this quite alot and gave me some cards that give new members 2 months free. I was happy to pass these on but if they had given them to me as a reward for joining then I would have been less likely to do so.

  8. A.
    extra sweeteners are if the giver gets a kickback (like vanity ships).

    however, B can apply – take for example lovefilm .. who bombard me with “sign up a friend and they get 2 FREE months worth fiftybajilionpounds!!!” this is annoying both because i have a stack of these coupons already, and also because they don’t appear to be offering me fiftybajilionpounds of subscription time as well – or even anything at all.

    this is actually come to think of it, an often sore point – the loyal get nothing, the currently unconverted get all sorts of incentives (banks with free money to join, new sky customers get free installation. people who’ve paid for 15 years have to pay to move their installation).

    i think there’re several things to do:
    don’t make people think “i paid 20 quid yesterday, but anyone can get it for 15 today”
    DO make people think “i can save my friend 5 quid” (note this is ‘my friend’ – not everyone. so tie codes to people/one shot)
    do make the less altruistic think “i can save my friend 5 quid, and get a cool looking ship”
    don’t put an “enter code here” box in the orderpage. make it a totally seperate line item/order page.

    (all my opinion of course :)

  9. It’s probably less important with this game because it doesn’t have simultaneous multiplayer?

    Though; I did the reverse: I bought GSB for a friend’s birthday but haven’t played (and bought) it myself yet :-)

  10. “B” would never even occur to me… but then, i dont make a purchase of any kind from anyone unless i have already decided that i am paying what i consider to be a fair price for the product. therefore, if i ALREADY felt i was getting a fair price, how could i suddenly and retroactively decide that i WASNT getting a fair price? i mean, of course i COULD do this (lots of people do i suppose) but i dont see how i could both do this AND continue to consider myself to be a reasonable and rational person.

    i suppose if it wasnt important to someone to be able to consider themselves to be reasonable or rational, then the “B” reaction would be more likely. i suppose it would also be likely in a situation where someone DIDNT feel like they paid a fair price when they purchased… but that leaves me scratching my head as to why on earth someone would pay what they considered to be an unreasonable price in the first place.

  11. it’s not that it’s unreasonable – it’s that someone else got something you didn’t. plain good old fashioned envy. (which, being an emotion .. isn’t rational)

  12. ahh, that explains it then. i make a policy of not being led around by the nose by my emotions. although i think its worth saying that ones emotional response to situations doesnt HAVE to be irrational by definition… typically, i find that reasonable people dont often have unreasonable emotional responses, purely by dint of the fact they ARE rational people to begin with, making their mind less likely to stay off down irrational tangents and spawning irrational emotional responses as a result. theyre also more likely to examine their internal state (emotional included) as a matter of course before making decisions, so even when they do experience an irrational emotional response to a situation theyre less likely to act on it in an irrational way.

    sigh i sound like spock now, dont i? that isnt the intent, im as emotional as they come… im just not (generally) prone to irrational emotional responses.

    sorry for straying so far from the topic at hand…

  13. I would think A., given the choice. I think it’s ok if the discount comes directly from the developer, but I’m always a little careful if the discount comes from the publisher because I can’t help feeling that the developer is the party that loses out in that scenario.

  14. I think responses in your blog comments are going to skew towards A, while a general sampling would probably skew towards B.

    I long ago suggested that AAA titles with multiplayer reward day 1 purchasers and preorders who install and activate on release day with a gift key that a player can pass on to their friends.

    But, unlike AAA titles, your prices are set rationally, so that won’t necessarily work for you as stated. What would work, I think, is if you offered purchasers of the next expansion set a code to give to their friends for the original GSB. This will extend the tail, and it also has the advantage of allowing you to decide when the appropriate time would be, namely when the original GSB earns itself out. But you know your own numbers far better than I do, so this may not work for you.

  15. It depends on the discount. If the discount is a lot then B, but if it’s not a lot then A. By ” a lot” I prolly mean going over say… 20%?

  16. Cliff, B is just nonsensical self-centered, illogical thinking. To think “I paid full price and now they’re offering my friends a discount is NOT fair!”… well, I can’t think of a single circumstance that that would be justified. Most of your blog readers are not that type, I think. Having said that, I really like the idea above of rewarding the players that have purchased the game in some manner for getting someone to put some money down. I’m a rabid World of Warcraft player, and they have a couple programs for this. The first is for getting a new player to sign up. They offer an in-game mount for both players, as well as experience bonuses when you group together. (Like, REALLY good xp bonuses). The other is called “Scroll of Resurrection” , and is awarded for getting a friend who has canceled their account to sign up again. I think you get a free month of play for this. Anyway, the programs are pretty popular, or so I’m led to believe. Blizzard does a lot right in my opinion, and in this case they reward both parties, and that’s awesome. I’d go that route.

    Lance…

  17. A. Always A.

    Really, the only reason to think “B” is if you don’t have any friends in the first place.

    If you’re like me and you jump at the chance to buy yourself certain games but you’re on the fence about buying them for someone else because they’re not as into it as you are, you don’t want to pay full price for it in case it’s wasted on them. But you might just want to get it at a discount in case they do like it. Also: because you’re buying it for them, they WILL know someone who plays it, so even if they wouldn’t buy it for themselves at full price, and you don’t want to buy it for them at full price, a discounted price

    Then, if it turns out my friend does like it, and he wants the expansion(s) you’ve got:

    Me paying for the basic game and expansion(s) at full price. Me paying for his copy of the main game at a discount, but then him paying for the expansion(s) at full price.

    That’s how it’d work for me anyway.

  20. I don’t feel cheated at all when I get discounts for friends for games I already bought. It’s a very good occasion to let a friend buy it, which he most likely couldn’t do at full price. Impulse recently gave some Demigod discounts to users already owning it, mine went to one of my friends. He bought it for 3€, I paid full price, no prob.
    It’s a very good idea and I see it as a nice move toward customers.

  21. Definitely “A”.

    Way back in the day when World of Warcraft was first released, I was stunned to find a voucher in there with a code for a free trial for friends. I had two (mine and my wife’s), and they started a LONG chain of referrals. Later they added the ability to email invites through the web interface (up to 5 at a time), and in addition to the free trial, each “convert” netted the original user a free month of gametime. Finally, the most recent “recruit a friend” offer gives you both increased XP while questing together, and the original player gets a free month of gameplay AND a cool mount.

    Obviously, some of these things are only available in an MMORPG type of game, but the premise is sound: People want to convert their friends and see the situation as an “A” and not a “B”.

    But it certainly helps if I could get a bonus out of it too. I love GSB but haven’t bought any expansions yet. If I could get myself and a friend an expansion for free by convincing my friend to buy the game, I’d be pimping the game like mad on my blog and facebook.

    The true values of your DLCs could be in allowing these sorts of incentives, in addition to getting people to buy the game directly.

    *Kudos 1 + 2, Democracy 2, and GSB owner*

  23. A. I am in this exact situation. I have a friend who I want to play GSB with, but he refuses to buy it for some reason.

    This would hopefully help! Friends getting other friends to play I’m sure would be a big driver of sales…

  24. There’s always the steam idea of 4 packs with left 4 dead.. turn it to 2 player packs, and take a percent cut out of the price. 20 bucks for 1 copy, 30-35 for a 2-pack.

  25. How about offering not just a discount to a friend for buying the game, but also a voucher for the original customer giving them a discount (ideally for the same amount) off one of your other products? This sweetens the deal for the original customer while making sure that the money they ‘save’ is dependent on their continued support of your business.

  26. Cliff, what about incentivised referral? So allow the buyer to “gift” a token to a friend for a discount off the game but also offer the original purchaser some form of reward if he does manage to gain you customers via the gifting. This could be in the form of unique unlocked weapons or components or new skins for ships or whatever. The trick here if it is a multiplayer game is to ensure balancing isn’t destroyed through such a reward.

    It’s similar to the conundrum all developers face when giving out unique rewards for pre-ordering their games. How to reward players without ruining the experience for everyone else.

  27. Choice B – Not unless the game didn’t live up to the demo/reviews. But I do feel a cringe in my wallet when I buy a game and see it on sale within a short amount of time [that only happens if I hold off on buying a game..and my patience runs out – or I’m bored and need something new to play]

    Choice A – Who would win in this situation? Your friends [they get the game at a discounted priced] and of the publisher/developer [they make a profit]

    You tell your “friends” this is an awesome game. They download the demo and agree that it is an awesome game. Your friends win because they’d get a discount on the game and you basically just get someone you know to play the multiplayer component of the game.

    I think for A to be a win-win for everyone:

    – Multi-packs. STEAM has done this with a few games recently. I see posts about people wanting to pool their funds to buy into the multipack so they can get the game at a discount.
    – Referral rewards – cool in game items to choose from [ie: Dragon Age Deluxe Digital Edition included a few extras that the vanilla version did not have] or maybe discount on another game in your library [discount is non-transferable and never expires]

  28. Definately A. I purchased GSB several times, at least once for a friend who didn’t even like it :( unfortunately. But, I enjoyed the game enough that I wanted my friends to give it a try and maybe come up with ideas for ships and or challenges I didn’t come up with.

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