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[moi]

you should sell only exclusive games and sell them for $99 each.
Instant fame.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

phantasy star 4 was 99$ on release for the sega genesis, and it sold well. snes games frequently were $80 or $70 on release. i think the market for $100 games is just waiting to be opened up. everyone's afraid of trying it, but i suspect it'd work. it's how apple computers work (more expensive than everything else so the wealthy buy them as status symbols) so why not games?

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

[hanako]

That's going to come into the old "how do you define an indie game" question.

There are games in the adventure category by small groups that go for $30, some with limited editions that go for more (not to mention the one that requires a biofeedback system to play!). There are the English releases of hentai games which may not actually count as indie but certainly don't count as mainstream. There are some niche strategy games for pretty high prices...

[gambrinous]

phantasy star 4 was 99$ on release for the sega genesis, and it sold well. snes games frequently were $80 or $70 on release. i think the market for $100 games is just waiting to be opened up. everyone's afraid of trying it, but i suspect it'd work. it's how apple computers work (more expensive than everything else so the wealthy buy them as status symbols) so why not games?

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

Dominions 3 which has quite a following has persisted at it's $55-$60 price point with no sales below that AFAIK.
(falls under niche strategy game!)

[Oddball]

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

Tommy Refenes' iPhone game 'Zits and Giggles' was on the Appstore for $400 before Apple spat their dummy out and pulled it.

[Pishtaco]

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge and some version of War in the Pacific came out at about $80.

[tomka]

that's a slick looking site, also love the mac support.

would you support more platforms? i.e. web based or possibly android?

[qubodup]

nexuiz on the main page links to http://beta.indievania.com/games/nexuiz and that link seems broken.

[Vermeulen]

Just a small update - still working on the site and hope to get out of beta end of the month.

One significant change is that instead of the 9% commission there will be no commission. Bandwidth costs are low enough that I don't think thats needed - so 100% of the price of the game goes to the developer. This might change for specific specials/bundles but right now there is no commision

New features added are the review system, pay what you want and additional payment options (based on current sales customers have actually added additional payment around 30% of the time), and the key system for developers to sell Steam keys or any other service keys

No plans for Android/Web based stuff, though Android might be possible later on

The focus right now is on figuring out the promotions/specials system. I want to make sure developers have control of their price at all times and can control sales - but at the same time there needs to be the right timing so that we constantly have scheduled specials/promotions for customers. So thats still something I am figuring out

[ANtY]

Hmm, this will probably change some people's attitude.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

but you also get 0% by using your own site -- i'm still not sure of the advantage of putting a game on this site (unless the site gets a lot of traffic)

it's a bit like 'instead of selling your lemonade at your own lemonade stand, also sell it on my lemonade stand!' 'but they're both still lemonade stands... in antarctica...'

in other words, i don't think the thing keeping people away was the royalty %, it's the lack of traffic that most sites like this have. if you can get your site traffic, getting games on it will be easy, no matter what the conditions or terms for the developer. if you can't get a site traffic, nobody will want to use it, even if it has the best terms and conditions in the world

[Masakari]

Be that as it may, I don't see what the problem is in having a game on another site. All things being equal (full control + 0% royalty), why would you not put your game on every website possible? Just because it's on my site, doesn't mean I don't want it on 100 other sites. I do get what you're saying though, the site needs promotion, but that's up to all of us as well.

Vermeulen, an idea - maybe instead of reducing the royalty from 9% to 0%, you could maintain it at 9-10% and use that money mainly for promoting the site across the web? I'm pretty sure any developer would prefer the site to have high traffic in exchange for that low royalty, because it would surely generate higher sales.

The "problem" I can see here is that promoting the site itself requires an increasing time commitment that you might not want to make (since you have your own games to worry about).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

time concerns, mainly. the time it'd take to set up my game on every site possible would take away time from other, more effective, marketing techniques. you don't lose anything except time, but time is still important

and yeah i'd rather have it take a % and use that percent for marketing -- that's a pretty good idea. i'd rather have 50% of 1000 sales than 100% of 10 sales.