next »

[James Coote]

Just finished reading this article on gamasutra, and it describes exactly what I've been considering for my own upcoming game: High price and targeting a niche audience on Android.

I'm curious if anyone else has had similar experience with this strategy on Android, or iOS (or anywhere else for that matter)?

[pelle]

Nice article.

I have no idea how well it will work. I think Battle Academy is a niche game, and I have spent many hours playing the desktop (OSX) version, and it sells for $19.99 on the iPad.  Not sure how good it sells.

Don't think I personally would be willing to spend many $ on a tablet game, unless it is filling an extremely narrow niche of games I was looking desperately for. Unlike desktop games there is too much lock-in on a tablet. It feels more like renting than buying games, even on a jailbroken Android tablet.

[void]

In my experience (selling a very niche sports sim) this is the way to go. It kind of depends how niche your game is and what the opposition is doing (if there are any). If your game is niche and unique enough then a relatively large enough portion of your small audience will probably be willing to stump up a significantly higher price than the average.

I sell a PC product for £19.99 and have done so for years. The iOS version sells for between £4 and £8. In some ways it is quite a rough product but I am happy with the sales at those prices over the last couple of years.

I experimented reducing prices significantly (on iOS) and did not see much of an increase in units (big decrease in profits obviously). I have not tried upping the price but suspect I could get away with anything up to a tenner.

I also ended up experimenting (entirely by mistake!) giving the game away free which was a disaster. I got a massive increase in downloads but as with any niche game when you get gamers outside that niche playing they will just play it for a few seconds and leave bad reviews.

Obviously none of this is Android though.

[PompiPompi]

It's all good if the press decide to cover you, if not, you are screwed.
Nobody reviewed Sumerian Blood, nobody. Don't know why.
Even gamezebo have been unresponsive.

[Moczan]

It's all good if the press decide to cover you, if not, you are screwed.
Nobody reviewed Sumerian Blood, nobody. Don't know why.
Even gamezebo have been unresponsive.

Niche communities are probably much more important to cover than mainstream media for that to work.