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Mabuse -> RE: Pricing Suggestion (9/24/2013 10:06:41 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Nemo84
The complexity of this game is not significantly different from for example DCS-A10, a fully realistic hardcore flight sim also aimed at a very niche audience. The difference is that I can demo their product, it had a release price of $50, a current price (it's a few years old) of $40 and regular sales that now lower it $16. For $15 I'm willing to take a risk and buy a game I might not like. Paying 77.5 euro for a product I might not even enjoy is downright insane. This is a very common train of thought, and whenever I direct people with an interest in entering the wargaming hobby to this site, they recoil in shock at the prices and leave. This is costing the developers a lot of profits, both current and from future titles.
Yes, I played DCS Black Shark, the first one in the series, as it came out. It's also a product with lot of heart in it. I didn't say that I like Matrix not to have a
demo out for CMANO. On the other hand it wasn't needed to convince me to buy the game as I've been following the progress for 2-3 years now.
Back to DCS, they now have a free base game called DCS World and a lot of DLCs. I've had a look at it right now and it adds up to ~270€ (~$364) if it weren't
on sales right now. So it's not that keen, although one don't have to buy all the DLCs to have fun. I personally am not a friend of DLCs by the way.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Nemo84
No. It means sell the game at affordable prices, produce demos, allow for frequent sales to lure in new customers, try to get the most accessible titles on Steam, spread the word for new titles somewhere else than merely the same hidden handful of tiny grognard forums. It means attracting attention and allowing people an easy, convenient and comfortable entry into the genre, instead of locking yourself in a tiny cloister endlessly reciting the mantra of "it's a niche hobby, it's a niche hobby". Paradox has managed to do it, the flight sim developers have managed to do it, even the space sim (a genre so niche it was considered dead and buried) is back in force with the most successful Kickstarter project ever. The wargaming "niche" should follow before it's too late.
I like the traditional Paradox titles. Nowadays, they're more broadly positioned and sell a lot more mainstreamed stuff and many expansions and DLCs too.
For Starship Corporation, I guess you meant that, I truly doubt that this game is aimed at a niche market, nor is the genre a niche. Think of Freelancer and
the others, they were big successes. I also wouldn't think of wargames as a genre as a small niche, except games like Harpoon and CMANO and some other
hardcore titles. Wargames probably never will be sold like CoD or Battlefield, though.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Nemo84
And for the past 6 years Valve has proven this to be utterly and completely wrong. Volume of sales has proven to be so much more important than high unit price, and the entire PC gaming industry is undergoing a massive renaissance based on that simple principle. Except for certain parts of the wargaming community, who each year lag more and more behind.
Yes, mathematically there is an exact price for every game which brings the most profit. To determine this price exactly one have to know how many will buy
the game for what price. Thats probably the crucial point as you can estimate based on surveys and experience, but you can't be sure.
In the end it's also not my job to higher the sales. I just wanted to show an opposite view. Maybe I digressed a bit from what I wanted to say. Something like
that the game is probably worth it's price.
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