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[bombjack]

What is a good impulse buy price for a small arcade PC game like mine?

[eyeliner]

2.99€.

Or eleven assholes.

[bombjack]

2.99€.

Or eleven assholes.

both are tempting 

[zizulot]

Agree with 2.99 tag 

[eyeliner]

Rereading my previous reply, I don't really know where that came from, but I'd probably rewrite my reply better, and for that, I apologise.

Just do a bit of math:
How long did it take you to go from start to finish? <- Compare that to the minimum wage in your country, per hour/days
Did you buy any assets/tools? <- Add those as well.

So you can get a better picture of the total amount spent on it.

Then compute the minimum copies you need to sell to cover the expenses. Is that price feasible?

[bombjack]

Rereading my previous reply, I don't really know where that came from, but I'd probably rewrite my reply better, and for that, I apologise.

Just do a bit of math:
How long did it take you to go from start to finish? <- Compare that to the minimum wage in your country, per hour/days
Did you buy any assets/tools? <- Add those as well.

So you can get a better picture of the total amount spent on it.

Then compute the minimum copies you need to sell to cover the expenses. Is that price feasible?

Don't worry about the first post, it made me laugh

I already made my pricing homeworks. I checked similar games prices, the number of game sales etc...
The prices vary from $1 to $15 with the median price being around $4.99
The sales vary a lot too. Going from 2K to 300K if I limit my research to indie games. The mean value being around 130K.

Knowing the fact that this a small arcade game and being the first I'll commercially release, I think I'd have to go for an impulse buy. I know exactly how much it costed me and how much I have to get back if I want to live from it.
But the big unknown is how much sales i will get.

With a $2.99 price tag, I will break even with less than 4000 copies which sounds reasonable.
The only down side is that the low price could give a bad feel about the game.

[mpixel]

Its pretty easy to let go of $2

[bateleur]

With a $2.99 price tag, I will break even with less than 4000 copies which sounds reasonable.

Bear in mind that 4000 sales is enough that it will be very hard work to achieve without a marketing budget (and may prove impossible).

A very rough guideline is to look at how many people follow your dev work (adding up FaceBook, Twitter and everything else that amounts to some kind of reach) and multiply by the fraction who you think will buy a copy (somewhere around 1%-10% as a rough guess). So to get 4000 sales you'd need a reach of at least 40000.

Of course, you can also get sales from word of mouth recommendations and so on, but for most games that's so close to zero that it makes no difference.

tl;dr - I suspect you'll need some marketing.

[bombjack]

Marketing for a side project indie game is difficult with low budget.
It's not new. I'll do my best to increase online awareness.
Aside from classic websites and social media, if you have any idea for DIY PR I would be happy to hear it

Choosing the price is a really difficult subject. I feel like the game is worth at least $4.99 but it could be hard to convince buying a small arcade game at this price. 

[eyeliner]

Let's Plays and Youtube reviewers seem to be the best affordable bet.

Maybe throwing the game along Humble Bundle way to see if it makes a presence soon-ish?

[bombjack]

Let's Plays and Youtube reviewers seem to be the best affordable bet.

Maybe throwing the game along Humble Bundle way to see if it makes a presence soon-ish?

By Humble Bundle, you mean the store or really the bundle?

[zizulot]

Yeah one problem and its big one is marketing, but if you put some work at it you will be good

[eyeliner]

The bundle. Sorry for not making it clear.
I find that by getting a bundle of games, I am more keen on trying them at least once instead of purchasing them separately. Mostly one or two of the games that interest you make the bundle worth it, so some discoverability is also at play there.

My meagre cents on the subject, at least...

[bateleur]

The trouble with bundles is that you make no money. It's a very bad idea to bundle before regular sales, because then everyone who wants your game picks it up for nearly nothing.

Streamers and YouTubers are a popular free marketing option, but the catch is that the ones with real reach already have more game offers than they can play.

(I haven't got any good tips though, sorry. My own attempts at $0 marketing have not gone well!)

[ryansumo]

With a $2.99 price tag, I will break even with less than 4000 copies which sounds reasonable.
The only down side is that the low price could give a bad feel about the game.

I don't think you should be worried about pricing.  This dude sells his arcade style shooter games for about a dollar.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/10/18/secrets-of-the-developer-who-sold-half-a-million-videogames-youve-never-heard-of-on-steam/

[bombjack]

With a $2.99 price tag, I will break even with less than 4000 copies which sounds reasonable.
The only down side is that the low price could give a bad feel about the game.

I don't think you should be worried about pricing.  This dude sells his arcade style shooter games for about a dollar.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/10/18/secrets-of-the-developer-who-sold-half-a-million-videogames-youve-never-heard-of-on-steam/

Yeah, I saw this article but I'm still worried I think that luck is also a factor of sales. You could do a lot of stuff to make your game better, more visible, etc... If you don't have a little more luck or an amazing PR, it could fail.

Knowing that most indie games fails, I'm prepared to failure

It's just a month and a half that I started talking about the game and I've not received much feedback.
I post the devlog on 8 different places and post updates on twitter, reddit and imgur.
I wrote 5 posts + 1 article talking about how Doom inspired my game + many tweets, reddits and images posts

As for now, I received 14 feedbacks on a shmup dedicated forum, and 3 comments on other sites.
Adding the followers and commenters, I have around 35 potential buyers, plus around 1300 consultation on indiedb.

D.O.T is maybe not attractive enough. If you have tips too fix this, I'm ready too hear them Anyway, this time I've decided to finish it and I'll do.

I put a lot of effort in personal PR, I hope I'll get something out of it at the end

And by the way, I want to thank all of you for your instructive replies

[Whelly]

I wrote an article about DIY marketing and PR, and you might find it useful. It totally is possible if you have the right hook and draw. I didn't spend a penny on marketing and my game still sold pretty well. https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidWehle/20170918/305440/The_Mysterious_World_of_DIY_Indie_Marketing.php

[bombjack]

I wrote an article about DIY marketing and PR, and you might find it useful. It totally is possible if you have the right hook and draw. I didn't spend a penny on marketing and my game still sold pretty well. https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidWehle/20170918/305440/The_Mysterious_World_of_DIY_Indie_Marketing.php

I already bookmarked you great article. Thanks of the hint