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[Zaphos]

The biggest example of the devaluation of indie games I can think of is Jeff Vogel. I don't think it's even a year ago that he wrote a blog post about how he would never lower the prices on his games and how the low-cost indie games are throwing the market into a downward spiral like the App Store. Now he's lowered the prices on all his games and are selling them at a price even lower than that on Steam.

I googled about and found a newish blog post on the lowered prices:
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-all-our-games-are-now-cheaper.html
and more on steam specifically:
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/08/avadon-is-out-on-steam.html

[Christian Knudsen]

Yeah, sorry, I should have linked them in my post.

[kasrak]

I read that in economic downturns, the sales of lipstick go up. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_effect

The underlying assumption is that consumers will buy luxury goods even if there is a crisis. When consumer trust in the economy is dwindling, consumers will buy goods that have less impact on their available funds.

So in the case of mobile games, maybe the economic downturn is helping them rather than hurting them. A consumer can pay $1-3 and get a game for the phone instead of a $50+ title for their consoles.

[larsiusprime]

If you read the article by Jeff, he's actually saying two things:

1) He's selling them for MORE on his site than on steam
2) He's making MORE money now at lower prices than before.

So yeah, he's lowering his price, but he's making MORE money.

[Christian Knudsen]

2)He's making MORE money now at lower prices than before.

Where does he say that?

[Evan Balster]

I heard someone remark at one point that economic downturn creates increased business for the entertainment industry because people turn to media for escape.  :\

[jotapeh]

I heard someone remark at one point that economic downturn creates increased business for the entertainment industry because people turn to media for escape.  :\

Same with the alcohol industry. Usually the increase is temporary. People look for an escape.. then run out of money.

[ubik]

You have to take into account just HOW MUCH entertainment value is available from games.

Look at Skyrim.  Apparently high priced.  But I got hundreds upon hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of Oblivion.  Already Skyrim works out to around a dollar an hour for me, if I never played it again-- and that's on a system from several years ago, it runs just fine.

If you can write a game with a high replay value, procedural content generation, a rewarding learning curve and plenty of variety, people will know that they're going to enjoy it for years to come.  And when you view things that way, the price of games doesn't seem that expensive at all.

I often think about old Apple II games nostalgically.  There were a number of them that were brutally difficult and had surprisingly deep gameplay.  That means that 25 years down the road I would still *almost* be playing them.  If, you know, they weren't Apple II games.

Fact is, people are always going to be looking for cheap entertainment for their kids.  The fact that people can't afford new systems actually helps indies because of the much lower system requirements.  

Life is what you make of it.  Sales are what YOU can accomplish, and the good stuff will rise to the top regardless of economic conditions.  This holds true for anything.  When I look at a lot of indie games I'm frankly astonished that they sell at all.  They're derivative and unoriginal, variations of a few small, safe genres with very little replay value.  When some guy is complaining, and then I look at his stuff and it's falling blocks or some variety of mahjongg, I just have to wonder how he expected to sell in the first place.

[increpare]

If you can write a game with a high replay value, procedural content generation, a rewarding learning curve and plenty of variety, people will know that they're going to enjoy it for years to come.  And when you view things that way, the price of games doesn't seem that expensive at all.

Not factoring in lost productivity there I see

[ubik]

Ha! That's a whole 'nother ball of wax... but since so many people are unemployed they have very little productivity to lose.

[tametick]

If you can write a game with a high replay value, procedural content generation, a rewarding learning curve and plenty of variety, people will know that they're going to enjoy it for years to come.  And when you view things that way, the price of games doesn't seem that expensive at all.

Not factoring in lost productivity there I see

I don't really view game value that way personally.

I actually don't have a ton of time to play games and I'm happy when I feel like I've gotten something out of a game even if it was short (e.g.: portal, knytt stories).

On the other hand a lot of *cough* bethesda *cough* RPGs last a ton of time but just feel like work to me. I'd get better value out of these games if they were shorter and more condensed.

[Paul Eres]

diffrent games for different needs. for myself i tend not to like games that are either too short or too long. i don't want a game to be just a couple of hours, but i don't want it to be hundreds of hours either; i prefer in the 20-30 hour range, like most snes rpgs used to be

that gives me time to get to know a game and understand it, and gives time to get to know the characters and world, while not being so long that it becomes filled with lore / trivia / filler that isn't that important to know about

indie games that were a length i liked are aquaria, super meat boy, bastion, exit fate, spacechem, barkley shut up and jam gaiden, etc.

this is also the length i try to go for with my own games; i feel that most indie games are too short, and a couple are too long (such as the spiderweb software games)

[increpare]

And when you view things that way, the price of games doesn't seem that expensive at all.

Not factoring in lost productivity there I see

I don't really view game value that way personally.

Was talking about price, not value.  Opportunity cost is important!

[MattG]

hey everybody, the big guys charge 60.00$ a game! They make hundreds of millions, we dont. LET RAISE OUR FUCKING PRICES LADIES. I wanna see more indies at 19.99 +

[hanako]

... ladies? Should I thank you for noticing that I already am, and therefore suggesting that more people should be like me, or what?