This morning I was going around in my favorite software store. After some time I recognized another guy standing around. He is a computer science student. Well anyway we talked a bit about computer games. He''s not a pro, more a casual player. But I showed him some games and told him which rocked and which sucked. Now comes the interesting part. Always when I pointed at a full price game he said: "Oh yeah. I know. But, hey, I don''t spend 39$ on a game." At the end he bought a budget game. Cool eh? I hope the next time we meet in store my game is on the shelves. Budget. Of course. Just a small hint to those people believing that budget games cannot sell large or larger numbers than full price games.

Dear Dark Angel,

I am talking about US-DOLLARS here. I do not know where you live that full price games cost 95 USD, but in USA and Europe they cost not more than 39$. Budget games range from 9.95$ - 19.99$.

I think there is some hope too. Take Delta Force2, there is a game i would pay £10 for without question, but i wouldn''t spend any more bcause i just dont think I would get my moneys worth.
There are also a number of other games I would buy if they were that bit cheaper.
Be aware that no matter what you charge, people will always slag off you games. I used to gte loads of people complaining that StarLines INC isn''t as good as game x or y and was therefore crap, even though StarLines cost them a lot less money.
The price will affect the purchase decision, but people tend to forget what they paid when they offer opinions on a title.

http://www.positech.co.uk

Well I don't know if it is my age that changes me, but if you ask me, some years ago the full price games were much better. Let's take Baldurs Gate II for example. I played it for some days, but then I got tired of running around in the game world. After that I recognized that I have not finished a full price game for months - if not years.
What I want to say is the games I like now are not those who are so large that you need a lifetime to learn and play them. I want to be entertained and be able to have my finish a game in a couple of hours (and still have my fun).
An example of what I mean are table-top games like monopoly. You play the game with some friends and are very well entertained for one or two hours. Anyway the next time you play (and start from the beginning) you still have the same amount of fun.

Ahhhh. I think I am "grinding the axe". So I shut up now. You got my point.

Edited by - Jester101 on February 15, 2001 11:09:58 AM

Well here is another 2 cents from me...
I had one of those ''Its the weekend and i just got to buy a game'' moments today and trundled off to the game stores to discover both good and bad news for indie develoeprs here in the UK.

THE GOOD NEWS
=============
Treadmarks is on sale in all the shops (made by LDA - indie developers) at quite a good price, and looking as professional a gae a any other. I can see this game getting good sales and that can only be god news for other indies wanting to go the LDA route.


THE BAD NEWS
============
Big publishers are clearing out their old stock REAL CHEAP. and i don''t mean that old either. I saw Evolva for £5! and also X-The frontier for £5. I was tempted to buy both of them, even though i wasnt bowled over by either games demo!
Eventually I bought Delta Force for just £10, but it worries me that this is cheaper than my own game StarLines INC sells for over the web. Its going to be tough for indie developers to compete when games just a year old are being released at budget prices.

Oh well..... good luck anyway guys!

http://www.positech.co.uk

quote: Original post by Jester101
An example of what I mean are table-top games like monopoly. You play the game with some friends and are very well entertained for one or two hours. Anyway the next time you play (and start from the beginning) you still have the same amount of fun.

Yes, you''re talking about replay value. Many games such as BG have a mentality that you can make the game really long, and really repetitious, and really linear and people will find it interesting. Instead, I don''t know if games should be shorter necessarily but they should be much more replayable and much less repetitious which would probably cause them to be shorter. The only reason why games such as BG are so long is because they are terribly repetitous.




Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
What a plight we who try to make a story-based game have...writers of conventional media have words, we have but binary numbers

Maybe if publishers agreed to package their big releases with a whole bunch of small games (not familiar with the term "indie") from developers like us. Although the small games take nothing to produce (in terms of money,) I bet the sales of those large games would go up significantly. They can say to themselves "hey, even if the game sucks, I still have 16001 games for windows."
OK, that isn''t so realistic, but people spend money on a game more willingly if they know there is slightly less risk involved. If publishers can be convinced of this, small-time developers get small-time royalties...everyone gets what they want.

Meanwhile the overall price of the big games remains nearly the same, but sales go up, and the publishers end up making the same amount, maybe a little more.

Publishers get more sales.
Consumers can entertain themselves while waiting for downloads, etc.
Small-time developers get paid.

---Reidonius

Dark Angel: He''s just a poor student. Hey, better than just copying the game without paying a cent. At least he tries to be honest. I don''t know how often I get asked if I know any warez or crackz sites. I always say: "And this you are asking a developer???".

Reidonius: Not a bad idea. When they begin to use DVDs instead of CDs there is much space left anyway. But...would you like your game to be sold together with 16001 other games? ... Well at least not as an exclusive contract.