next »

[sudocolon]

Hello. I am a student of the Texas Business Alliance Youth Entrepreneurship Academy and I have five more questions for you all.

1. Do you set the price of your game based on cost, competition, value, or some combination of those elements?
2. What do you take into consideration when you set your price?
3. When do you change your price?
4. What mistakes have you made in pricing your games?
5. Do you believe it is a good idea to advertise your price?

Thank you

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

1. none of the above. i'd set it based on the platform --  e.g. the same game would be priced higher on pc than on iphone, or xblig

2. the average price of a new game for that platform, and nothing else

3. after time has passed; a year or two at the earliest

4. none. i've certainly made mistakes with my game and its marketing, but not its price

5. i don't see why. usually you do *not* want to attract customers who buy your game on a whim because it's a low price, because those people probably won't even bother playing the game and are not long-term fans

[sudocolon]

Thanks for the input.

The only thing I see wrong with my current model is not waiting long enough before changing my price. I guess I need to be more patient and work on something else while I wait.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

another thing i can recommend is that higher prices allow sales. if your game is normally 5$, you can't have a "sale" for much lower than that. if your game is normally 20$, a temporary 5$ sale that lasts a week or less will feel a lot more appealing

which would you rather buy: a 5$ game for 5$, or a 20$ game for 5$? there's some psychology involved here

[TylerYork]

Hello. I am a student of the Texas Business Alliance Youth Entrepreneurship Academy and I have five more questions for you all.

1. Do you set the price of your game based on cost, competition, value, or some combination of those elements?
2. What do you take into consideration when you set your price?
3. When do you change your price?
4. What mistakes have you made in pricing your games?
5. Do you believe it is a good idea to advertise your price?

Thank you

1. Typically based on perceived quality (a blend of design, polish and gameplay) and competition.
2. When a game is typically more expensive, my assumption is that it is of higher quality. However, it does make me do much more investigation before buying a game and if the screenshots look ugly or the Rating is low, then I won't buy. It's a gamble. On the other hand, I would be willing to try a free game without as much scrutiny
3. When you do sales. If you've set a price, then do a sale afterwards. Even if it's a three month long sale, it's better to do that then to change your price (unless you're changing it to Free)
4. I think you need to understand what type of game you're building and what the competition prices at. if you're making a social game with in-app purchases, it needs to be free. If you're making a premium game for a niche (like a Strategy game), then you can justify paying some cash
5. Don't advertise with price unless it's free or on sale

[Muz]

I sell apps, not games, but close enough.

1. Do you set the price of your game based on cost, competition, value, or some combination of those elements?
> Competition mostly. Value is based on competitor price.

Cost is... really hard to define for a software company. Nearly 95% of the cost is in salaries and time. But economies of scale really factors in.. the longer you improve an engine, the more software you can churn out of it. So, it'd take maybe $10000 to make the first game, but $3000 to make the second game based on the first game's engine, $2200 to make the third game, and so on.

And sometimes you come up against a competitor that sells a superior product at 1/100 your price. That's when you're screwed and ragequit the market by giving your product out as freeware and charging for consultation or something.


2. What do you take into consideration when you set your price?
> As above. You can name any price you want for software, but it's always anchored to a competitor's price.

3. When do you change your price?
> Almost never. There's really no reason to lower a price unless it becomes obsolete. As said before, cost doesn't go down. But I sell individually, not to a mass market.

4. What mistakes have you made in pricing your games?
> Trying to increase prices when demand increases.

What pros do is that they set the price to the 'maximum' possible and then claim that there's a discount/sale, when in actuality that's the price that you're willing to charge all along.


5. Do you believe it is a good idea to advertise your price?
> Where I come from, you're expected to negotiate down the price to around 2/3rds of the displayed price. In this case, you want to overprice things a little, and hope that the buyer agrees with the displayed price. Everyone does this, so nobody is really at a disadvantage.

A price is simply something where the negotiations are done for you. Sellers are the disadvantaged party in a negotiation. They should avoid negotiation if possible, because they'd end up losing if someone already has a set price. In Western countries, once you see a price, that's it.

So advertising a price, yeah, very good.

Would have to disagree with Paul Eres on this one - you want people to buy games on a whim. Entertainment is cheap. People buy games because they're bored. They don't want to work to not get bored, it defeats the purpose. They can watch videos/movies/tv for free. Or read Cracked. Or tweak their car. Or go on a date. Or look for a free/cheap game that's better than yours.

Most people will probably play a game for a week (at best) and then get bored. Game developers, reviewers, and their beta testers don't see them, because they're hardcore, willing to play the same game over and over for months. It's funny because people like to sell longevity, when what the 'mass market' want is a game that entertains them for a short time.

If they really want it, they'll just pirate it. You want to make it easier to just buy the game legally (and not torrent it), such that it's not worth spending a few hours trying to get the game for free.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think your disagreement is true of some genres but not others. some genres are more focused on name recognition and long-term fans than others (e.g. rpgs, strategy games). to be a successful rpg or strategy indie game developer you need a small set of hardcore fans who know your name and look forward to every new game you make. to be a successful casual game developer you need a large audience to buy your games on whim and maybe never play them or play them for a week and forget about them

also, another issue is the craftsmanship of it. if you're comfortable making games that people don't care deeply about, then you tend to use different tactics than if you prefer to build up a small dedicated fanbase. so i'd agree that going after those people who buy lots of games and then never play them is probably the best way to make money short-term, but building up name recognition may be a better long-term strategy, since it'd pay off 20 or 30 years from now if you have thousands of people who are constantly looking forward to your games and have played every game you ever made

[Muz]

I'm pretty sure the casual games are strong on brand recognition as well. For example the Diner/Hotel Dash games, Papa's Pizzeria/Taco Mia, The Sims, etc. The Sims can afford to charge a premium because the players know exactly what they're getting. Similar with games like Diablo 3, which I also consider casual; there's been tons of diablolikes out since Diablo 2.

What builds up your brand name is the game itself. No amount of demos or trailers or media coverage will build your name recognition as good as a full game. People want to buy the game, play it for a while, and turn it off feeling satisfied with their purchase but a little disappointed that the game's over.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem that people won't buy a game that they don't know the quality of but don't know the quality because they haven't bought the game.


E.g., what I would do is split an epic RPG up into a lot of small parts, and sell it for cheap. Sell the first few ones at next to nothing, maybe even free, and the ones who love it enough and like the depth will buy the later parts. You can even add a few graphical or engine upgrades on later versions of the game, so the paying players will feel that they're getting a good deal from the payments.