Slitherine

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The regularity with the 'price discussion' arises never fails to surprise me. This guy lays out the discussion on solid rational basis

http://www.joshuakennon.com/video-games ... your-head/

His point regarding Zelda (or say, Harpoon II back in the day) stands. I spent the savings of my 1997 summer job into three magnificient wargames: TOAW, Harpoon II and Steel Panthers. Memory is foggy, but none of them costed me less than 60$. It was a massive investment for a teenager, but I never really regretted that. They kept me entertained for years. What would be the price of those if we adjusted for inflation? Running this data through this site here

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

it says those 60$ a piece would be 86$. Now let's look at Command and compare it with Harpoon II, feature-wise and content-wise. Does anybody here seriously think that the research and development work done by the Command team is any cheaper than those of the original Harpoon programmers?

Some in this thread have drawn a comparison with indie titles or basically the pricing scheme one usually sees in the Apple store. Why are those prices rational? Here's my take:

If one looks into the sales number of Apple store applications, it's striking to see that only a 10% of those applications sell more than 10,000 units. That pricing strategy is a bet at selling enormous numbers of units. The reality is that there are very few successes such as Angry Birds - with millions of units sold - and many games like the very fine Battle of The Bulge game by Shenandoah Studios, which will - with luck - sell anything over 10,000 units. Both Angry Birds and Bulge sell for 10$. From those 10 bucks, remove Apple's cut (about a 30%). That means the devs get 7$ per unit sold. If you sell several million units, you're rich. If you sell as few as 10,000 units, you're broke. Why did then Shenandoah Studios risk it? They didn't, since they first went through a crowd funding scheme which allowed them to mitigate the risk of low sales: any sale on the store is a "bonus" sale.

Given the realities of the above, there are three rational alternatives for somebody wanting to sell a game/app, ordered by the risk they entail (from less risky to more risky):

1) Drastically slash down development costs by hiring developers and artists in countries where the cost of living is much lower than that of the parts of the world you think the vast majority of people purchasing your thing will come. Just do some research and find out how many of these apps and games are actually developed in Bangladesh, Vietnam or Thailand.

2) Use crowd-funding to make sure you'll at least cover enough to not go broke and get a hold on the demographics of the people who might be interested in the stuff you're doing. This allows you also to create a 'community' around a 'brand' for free. Your customers/backers will become stakeholders in the success of your project, which usually can only help in increasing the reach of your product in the future and actual sales, since usually these backers will be receiving a 'free' copy of your product.

3) Sell each unit at a price that allows to get ahead of costs of living vs. expected number of sales curve.

The Command project has been accepting donations for a long time, but my impression is that they never relied on that to decide whether the project was viable or not (which is the reason why people put their projects on IndieGoGo or Kickstarter). They were doing it because they wanted to do it since they genuinely love the subject matter. No more, no less.

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ORIGINAL: doomtrader

1) answering the first one
Steam has got about 75-85% of the DD market.
You think it's easy to get a wargame there? Not, if you don't have a major publisher who is already cooperating with them.

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ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

Point us to the greenlight link and we'll go enmasse.

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ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

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ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

Point us to the greenlight link and we'll go enmasse.

Not a chance. Steam is the worst DRM out there, you can't even play your game unless steam is running and it tracks you and your online activity and who knows what else... The day a wargame company goes to Steam is the day I never buy their products again.

Jim

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

My opinion? Pricing should take into account value per unit time played. A really snappy game that you can plunge through in 1.5 hours is not comparable to one that is engrossing that you're playing a decade (yes, a decade) later. Cost / gameplay hour should be part of the equation, IMO.

By that context, WiTP:AE would be a grand bargain at three times the expense. And I'd pay it too.

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ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

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ORIGINAL: heyhellowhatsnew

Point us to the greenlight link and we'll go enmasse.

Not a chance. Steam is the worst DRM out there, you can't even play your game unless steam is running and it tracks you and your online activity and who knows what else... The day a wargame company goes to Steam is the day I never buy their products again.

Jim

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ORIGINAL: Perturabo

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

My opinion? Pricing should take into account value per unit time played. A really snappy game that you can plunge through in 1.5 hours is not comparable to one that is engrossing that you're playing a decade (yes, a decade) later. Cost / gameplay hour should be part of the equation, IMO.

By that context, WiTP:AE would be a grand bargain at three times the expense. And I'd pay it too.

I think that the problem with it would be that a lot of customers actually don't play these games to their full potential. Or at all while we're at it.
With prices based on length you may lose customers who buy these games but don't play them a lot.

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I don't know the background of how steam works with developers (I know you have the info), but with greenlight it really is possible. The grognard community is really tight and loyal. Point us to the greenlight link and we'll go enmasse. Using solid and bold communication to the grognard community (even on different sites) to tell them to greenlight grognard games will have a major impact. Steam Greenlight is your way in if you feel like there has to be a major publisher.

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But Paradox isn't a major publisher but they get their games there.

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ORIGINAL: doomtrader

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I don't know the background of how steam works with developers (I know you have the info), but with greenlight it really is possible. The grognard community is really tight and loyal. Point us to the greenlight link and we'll go enmasse. Using solid and bold communication to the grognard community (even on different sites) to tell them to greenlight grognard games will have a major impact. Steam Greenlight is your way in if you feel like there has to be a major publisher.

Strategic War in Europe is on Greenlight, and really after the initial pretty well startup it seems that there are no more wargamers around.

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ORIGINAL: Lecivius

I have a Steam account. I hate it. 'nuff said.

I also have Gamersgate. Not a lot there, but I do use them. Some nice things there.

I have an account here. Matrix has a lot of games of the genre I am interested in.

Point is, in this day & age, it's pointless to subscribe to one publisher. There are many venues out there, and it changes. If you like Steam, good for you! But in the end it makes little difference in sales. Niche games cost more to make, as the market is smaller. And that's just a fact we live with.

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Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer, for instance, tells us that while it's been almost three years since his studio launched Torchlight, Valve's Steam promotions have helped the game maintain healthy sales to this very day.

"We find that we get several thousand percent increases in units and revenue on the days of the Steam sales, and unit sales are usually about double the normal for a few weeks after the sales are over," he says.

This year's Summer Sale (which ended July 22) was particularly noteworthy for Runic, as it helped Torchlight hit its second biggest day ever in terms of overall unit sales -- not bad for a game that came out in October 2009.

And Runic's case doesn't seem to be an anomaly; Supergiant Games' Amir Rao tells us that these Steam sales have proven more lucrative than his game's initial debut.

"A lot of times we judge the success of a game -- and predict its sales -- by looking at its launch day numbers. Steam sales have made that delightfully impossible. Our launch day [for Bastion], which we viewed as very strong, is only our fifth best day of sales ever on Steam due to the power of the promotions we've had the opportunity to participate in," Rao says.

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also the average age of gamers is 30

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I'm sure they sold a lot of units for a larger profit based on full retail value.

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Paradox wasn't a major publisher until they got on steam

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There have been hundreds of times where indies were released at full price and were top 5 sales.

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ORIGINAL: Rtwfreak

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also the average age of gamers is 30

That's subjective at most since most people don't give their age when buying games most especially children 12-13 since it's usually their parents buying those games for them.

Not to forget a lot of people put bogus information when registering games online especially children.

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I'm sure they sold a lot of units for a larger profit based on full retail value.

Show me stats and I'll believe you otherwise it's just speculation.

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Paradox wasn't a major publisher until they got on steam

Wrong again, they were major when they had GAMERSGATE. You should get your facts from facts and not just make things up.

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There have been hundreds of times where indies were released at full price and were top 5 sales.

Please show me this list of 100 titles? Also top rated sales where? Steam? Gamersgate? Also, some of those top sales were because the games were under $10.

The one thing you seem to forget and are leaving out Matrixgames is not a Highly Advertised publisher. You don't see their banners or names spread over many other wargaming sites like you do a Paradox or a Creative Assemby or a Sega, etc. etc. Matrixgames gains most of their new members by "word of mouth" and I don't see a lot of that going around except at their old partner site the Wargamer. It's not defeatest it's just plain ole facts.

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Wrong again, they were major when they had GAMERSGATE. You should get your facts from facts and not just make things up.