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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Recently, Reflexive reduced the prices of most of its games to $7-$10, details here: http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=15697

That combined with the low prices of games on xbla, wiiware, iphone, etc. may mean that we are seeing the end of the days of $20-$30 downloadable games.

Anyone have any thoughts on this, and if it's a good thing for developers and consumers?

My opinion is that the market is enormously complex and it's impossible to predict whether this will work or fail, but that the market is also self-adjusting and that if it doesn't work out the prices will eventually go up again.

[GregWS]

I'm strongly in favor of it for a couple reasons.

The big one for me is that this lower price point will probably encourage shorter games, which is a trend I'd like to see grow.  I'm really unconvinced that games have to be over 10 hours long to be worthwhile, so if this encourages more developers to work on really good experiences that may not last as long, then I'll be really happy.  On that same note, I just don't have the time for long games anymore (with exceptions here and there), and I think this applies to most people who played a lot of games when they were young, but had life catch up with them.  It's not that they don't want to play games, it's just that there's a billion other things to do too.  And short games work well as "another thing" in a person's life (along with books, movies, etc.), instead of "the thing."

The other, less important thing about this is that it will probably increase sales; it's a lot easier to give a $10 game a chance than a $60 or even a $20 one.

[Cray]

I'd like to think of it as the end of $20 uninspired diner dash/hidden object clones & gold rush in making them. Everything else should try to promote themselves as having a higher value than those Going to be interesting to see how the other portals compete with this

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

It's be interesting if other people who have reduced the prices of their games have noticed sales going up or not. Konjak reduced Noitu Love 2 from 20$ to 10$ I believe? And Derek and Alec reduced Aquaria from $30 to $20.

I myself did reduce Immortal Defense from $23 to $15, but it's still to early to tell whether that helped or not, since it requires a large amount of data to be accurate. As an aside, it's $10 on Reflexive, but since I only get 40% of that I'd prefer people buying it from my site. It'll be interesting to see if the Reflexive $10 version of the game starts getting more sales because of the lower price in comparison to my site. If it does, I'll probably reduce it to $10 on my site as well in order to keep the extra 60%. I've a feeling it won't though, since Reflexive doesn't market its games individually and doesn't market to the kind of audience that that game sells well to, so it's unlikely anyone will even know about its lower price there unless they search the internet for it thoroughly.

[mewse]

That combined with the low prices of games on xbla, wiiware, iphone, etc. may mean that we are seeing the end of the days of $20-$30 downloadable games.

The $20 price point has been pretty much the standard since Shareware began. The $20 standard price was basically determined through trial and error, and was a side-effect of there being nothing like PayPal or online purchases at the time;  the asking price had to be high enough that people didn't feel silly writing a cheque for the asked amount and posting it off by postal mail, and then waiting a week or two for their registration code to arrive, also by postal mail.

These days, purchasing games is much easier and much faster than ever before, and so it's not really surprising to see the prices dropping into "impulse buy" territory.  Which is a great place to be, since we're in the business of entertainment.

[AndyWiltshireBPA]

@Paul Eres: It will be interesting to see how your numbers track over the next few months with the price change.

[Rudolf Kremers]

I think that the price point of $20 is a bit of a natural spot for a certain segment of the games market, somewhere between tradional publisher/developer "big games" and casual or short game experiences. (Note, I make no judgements on those game segments :-) ) For me personally this pricepoint is a sweetspot that I want to hit and I think it is good value for money if the quality of the game is high enough and/or offers an alternative to those other areas of game experiences. I don't see it changing any time soon and I certainly don't think there is a reason to. If your selling point is a high quality niche or alternative than you shouldn't try to literally cheapen (and therefore undermine) the game in order to sell more to an uncertain audience. In my opinion many indie games that fall in the traditional $20 segment are already discounted against some games with high production valus but lacking in soul and game design qualities. So quite often it is already a good deal.

[TeeGee]

The big one for me is that this lower price point will probably encourage shorter games, which is a trend I'd like to see grow.  I'm really unconvinced that games have to be over 10 hours long to be worthwhile

Casual games were already 4 hours long on average.

I'd like to think of it as the end of $20 uninspired diner dash/hidden object clones & gold rush in making them.

Unfortunately, it's exactly the opposite of that.

Lower price means that profit per game will be probably smaller and the game's perceived value will decrease a bit. It's better to just churn another Dinner/Doggie/Sexshop Dash than to risk on a more expensive game of higher quality and/or originality. You need to have something that can be made quickly, is cost effective, sells for sure and lets you move on to another game (probably sequel)ASAP. Basically, you need to give the customers what they are paying for - quick and cheap entertainment. 

On my day job, I'm currently developing a bigger game to be sold on the portals. We want it to be much better and prettier than your average casual title, and we would like it to push its genre at least a bit forward. As we're carefully designing and iterrating each of the game's features, and because quality content takes time, the game's production will take around 2-3 longer than that of average casual title.
It's also quite expensive. We want it to look really great and distinct, to have a great soundtrack and to be technically sound and bug free. All that costs money and time.

I can assume, with pretty good probability, that the game will sell well on portals, will score few top-10s and will earn some nice money... just like any of the usual crappy clones of popular franchises released at that time for the same price of $5 to $10.

It is kinda discouraging .

[GregWS]

The big one for me is that this lower price point will probably encourage shorter games, which is a trend I'd like to see grow.  I'm really unconvinced that games have to be over 10 hours long to be worthwhile

Casual games were already 4 hours long on average.

I think you're missing my point: not casual games, shorter games.  I wouldn't call Everyday Shooter casual, but I can play it for 10 minutes then go back to doing other things.  Portal isn't a casual game either, but because I can win it in a few hours, replaying it suddenly seems like a nice idea, as I can do it in one evening instead of a week.

[TeeGee]

The big one for me is that this lower price point will probably encourage shorter games, which is a trend I'd like to see grow.  I'm really unconvinced that games have to be over 10 hours long to be worthwhile

Casual games were already 4 hours long on average.

I think you're missing my point: not casual games, shorter games.  I wouldn't call Everyday Shooter casual, but I can play it for 10 minutes then go back to doing other things.  Portal isn't a casual game either, but because I can win it in a few hours, replaying it suddenly seems like a nice idea, as I can do it in one evening instead of a week.

Yup. I know what you meant. I personally agree with that take. I have no time to play longer games either, and their length is usually attained through worthless fillers anyway.

What I meant is that Reflexive/Amazon price drop affects casual games mainly and I was pointing out that shortening them is not really an option - they already are short. I think I used your quote kinda out of your original context. Apologizes for that.

[dc2005]

I think that the price point of $20 is a bit of a natural spot for a certain segment of the games market, somewhere between tradional publisher/developer "big games" and casual or short game experiences.

We are going for the $20 pricepoint. I think that it's up to each developer to decide what will be the price (or value) of their game, but most importantly, for those of us that want to make a living out of this, that the folowing equation is correct (money made by each copy)*(expected copies sold)>(cost of the game + benefits).

I think our game is cheap if we consider the cost of doing it (almost 2 years developing the game), but we think that it will sell enough copies to make a nice benefit, so we can make our next project. 

[Rudolf Kremers]

I think that the price point of $20 is a bit of a natural spot for a certain segment of the games market, somewhere between tradional publisher/developer "big games" and casual or short game experiences.

We are going for the $20 pricepoint. I think that it's up to each developer to decide what will be the price (or value) of their game, but most importantly, for those of us that want to make a living out of this, that the folowing equation is correct (money made by each copy)*(expected copies sold)>(cost of the game + benefits).

I think our game is cheap if we consider the cost of doing it (almost 2 years developing the game), but we think that it will sell enough copies to make a nice benefit, so we can make our next project. 

Same here, we are working very hard to make it a game wherre the $20 value is fair. We could easily just wrap it up and put some fan requests in and ship it for $6.99 but we have no interest in that. Firstly we want to make something we are proud of and stand by as developers and secondly I think that commercially it is a bad move to try to compete with budget titles as we would always lose that fight against people who don't really care what they put out. It is really hard to stand out in the ultra low price market and chances are if you try to compete there you will just get lost in a sea of games. By putting quality first we feel we follow our own standards on integrity but it also allows us to get exposure that we otherwise wouldn't get. So it makes sense on all levels for us.

[bateleur]

Anyone have any thoughts on this, and if it's a good thing for developers and consumers?

Price diversity is a good thing for developers, but not across-the-board price drops. If sales of $20 titles start dropping significantly because they are seen as overpriced, that would cause problems for some niche titles.

[MrLollige]

I realized that the games I pay for are more fun than the games I do not. Maybe not because the games are better, but because I have invested money in it. If I download some game, I play it until I get bored. (which often is after 4 to 10 hours of gameplay) If I buy a game, I realized that trough the whole game, there is always new stuff to discover and to do, and the game stays interesting.

In short: I can enjoy games I paid for longer than games I did not.

However, if games end up with costing 5 dollar, those games do not have that same worth any more. I believe 20$ is the perfect prize where it does cost you some bucks, so you do find it worthy, but its not to much and you are willing to try out stuff.

If I had not bought world of goo, I suppose I got to chapter 3. Right now I am trying to OCD everything and find new ways to build the highest towers!
While I noticed that people I know that had illegally downloaded it or tried the demo stuck in chapter one, finding that the game progress is a bit slow.

[KennEH!]

It seems more like prices are eventually going down, which works really well. Some people ill pay the $20 price tag and some won't. Dropping the price means you get the most yet still be appeasing many people. Some will just get it later than others. I'm not sure new Indie games released will be too cheap.

[Hajo]

I realized that the games I pay for are more fun than the games I do not. Maybe not because the games are better, but because I have invested money in it.

There are studies indication that placebos help better if the patients are told they are expensive. I don't know any online references that back this claim, though.

So the drop in prices surely will lower the average expectation towards indy games, but I'm pretty positive that people will start to place their games at 20$ or more again. because, if the average game is 20$ and yours in 20$, yours just is seen as average. If the average is 7$ and yours is 20$, people will suspect something special about it.

I think it's the usual up and down that the market goes through.

[dc2005]

Usually when I go to see a movie without expectations I can have a pleasant surprise, but when I go to see a highly hyped movie I'm more critic about it.
To lower people expectations can be good for some people 

[thecreatrix]

Sexshop Dash

OMG, that's a frickin' great game idea! Yes, I'm serious.

I think what we're seeing here isn't the death of indie or casual, but the demise or at least diminishing of the "try and buy" model. It's simply time to monetize in ways that don't force you to compete on price.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

There are studies indication that placebos help better if the patients are told they are expensive. I don't know any online references that back this claim, though.

I also saw a study that females who have richer husbands orgasm more -- seriously. I wonder if that's related to this.

[Derek]

That combined with the low prices of games on xbla, wiiware, iphone, etc. may mean that we are seeing the end of the days of $20-$30 downloadable games.

I don't think this is necessarily true.  It still depends on your game and the channel.  Indies selling on their own website should still charge what they feel their game is worth, in my opinion.  If you're selling on one of the popular platforms you mentioned, go with what the standard is.

By the way, we did see an increase in sales when we lowered the price of Aquaria.  But that's not too surprising, I think!

I also saw a study that females who have richer husbands orgasm more -- seriously. I wonder if that's related to this.

I saw that, too, and thought it was pretty funny.  It probably has more to do with confidence... and how much you can spend on penile enhancements.