What's a fair way to price games?

[Funnyguts]

My friends and I were trying to work out the best way to get people to pay for games while still having an option to keep it free for those who can't. We considered a few options:

1) Having people either pay a dollar or something for a game, or pay for it by donating a tweet or facebook post.

2) Offering the above with extra features, and having a third feature-free option for people who can't pay and don't have FB/Twitter.

3)Doing option 1, but then releasing the game for free after a few months.

4) Having a pay what you want system.

There were a few other ideas tossed around, but we're not sure what to do with these ideas that would be fairest for everyone. Suggestions?

[Blane Doyle]

There really isn't one singular fair away to price games. Well, not one that I have found anyway. However, there are numerous factors you could take into consideration when you do so. The quality of the writing, the quality of the art, how long it took to make, how long they will play for, the gameplay if there is any, extra features you put in, music, voice acting (if any again), etc.

Taking all of these into account is what players do when they want to purchase a game. For example, I bought two games yesterday, Skyrim and the original Persona game. Skyrim was $60 and Persona was $20. I felt both were fairly priced as each was as follows:

Skyrim: New, X-Box 360, two addons I could download, hundreds of thousands of hours of content, high demand, looks amazing, I had played it before and enjoyed it.
Persona: Used, PSP, shorter game, no additional content, not in high demand (unfortunately), not as nice looking as newer games, I had not played it before and did not know if I would actually enjoy it.

People are more likely to pay a higher amount if they know what they are getting before hand or if they really like what they see. At the same time, many people are highly generous and willing to donate a good amount of money for a free game.

I went on far longer than I should, but in this circumstance... Hmn... if you want to make the game available for free I think a mix between 4 and 1 could be interesting. People who can pay for the game could chose their price, $1 and up for example, while people who can't pay could receive a free copy by posting somewhere they can link back to you. It's different but could be fair.

However, doing this I would worry about how many people would take advantage of the freebie game that could have actually bought it, but that's just me being worrisome.

[dramspringfeald]

Really you just need to weigh How much you think it's worth VS how much people are willing to pay?

A major AAA title sells for about $60usd while an offshoot AA 'adult' game sells for $100 USD. The games on here maybe are more of a $10 to $20 range. Enough for people to Enjoy and get use toy your name but not too much to make you look like a tool. Selling it at anything under $10 show's you have no respect for your project so why should we.

Try dumping a demo and see the results. As for How to pay. Paypal and a simple "Don't be a douche" file in the zip. If it's AO just sell it as a 'gift.' If this is your first game don't worry too much about piracy. No one knows who you are and you will STILL loose 16% of sales to "rats" anyway. think of it as Free advertisement.

Just remember The more you charge the more Flames you'll pick up.

[Greeny]

Selling it at anything under $10 show's you have no respect for your project so why should we.

What if your marketing plan involves profit by quantity rather than quality of sales?

Everyone has a "maximum price" they're willing to pay for indie stuff. Every time you raise your price, you cut off a portion of your market.

On the subject of fair pricing, you can always post a pirate of your own game if you insist on having everyone play it, even if they can't pay.

[Blane Doyle]

Selling it at anything under $10 show's you have no respect for your project so why should we.

I have to disagree.

While this could be true of big name commercial titles (for example, if Skyrim came out at $10 I would have guessed it was horrible unless the reviews said otherwise), indie titles are different. There is a much more niche and slim market depending on the genre of choice, so keeping to the $10-$20 range could potentially mingle you in the other titles to obscurity if people assume other games are better. (Running by "under $10 means you don't respect your project", one could (mistakenly) assume that you think those who release games for free don't care about their projects at all as well.)

If someone is selling their game for less than $10 I would wonder about the quality if I saw nothing to show me what it was. However, I would also assume that the person who priced the game realized that people are more willing to buy a cheaper game or that they're not as focused on making a profit as they are releasing their game at a price most people they can afford. That doesn't mean I am right, but it is a possibility.

It doesn't automatically mean they have no respect for the game, it means they priced it low, whatever their reasons may be.

[ThisIsNoName]

Well, this thread kind of asks two questions, so I'll provide two answers!

What's a fair way to price games?

I think the "fairest" way to price a game is simply by pricing it at how much you would pay for it, without any outside influence. However, the world isn't perfect, so the second fairest way would be to price it by content. Either "How long is this game compared to other games in my market?" or "How many man-hours did I put in compared to other games in my market?"

And the second question:

My friends and I were trying to work out the best way to get people to pay for games while still having an option to keep it free for those who can't.

One piece of advice is to not think of it as giving people games for free, think of it as a full price discount. I know that it just seems like semantics, but it's actually a pretty big difference. Giving someone something for free means that they don't have to do anything, they just have to receive it. Then you aren't solving anything. People who can pay will just take the free version, and the only ones who will pay are the ones who want to support you. In other words, it's just a free game, and the donations are a side effect. That's fine if you want to make a free game, but it sounds more like you want to make a commercial game that people who normally wouldn't be able to afford to play it can.
If you offer a "full price discount", however, it'll concrete it into your mind that it's a commercial game that you are offering for a discounted price. Then, all you have to do is go through the process of deciding when you want to discount your product, to whom, and by how much. There should be tons of marketing resources to help you decide that. Just remember that you want to offer discounts to people who would buy it if they could, but don't have the money right now.

...Aaand I just realized I just gave you a marketing lecture that you probably didn't want or need. Oops

[Sexo Grammaticus]

I think the fairest price is whatever the highest price the market is willing to pay. Value's a hard thing to create, because people have different criteria for it - some people find long playtimes a high-value thing, others good art, others still that your game is about a particular thing. Of course it could be a combination of all of them. You'd need to do a fair bit of research on comparable products to determine what 'value' your game offers to your target market. Just don't forget, we live in the age of the Steam sale, so I'd say a good benchmark would be around the 9.99USD to 14.99USD mark, remembering that once you hit 2.49 on a sale, droves of people will just impulse buy because of the price.

[CtrlAltLee]

I think a fair price is any price that moves the game. Release the demo and ask what a fair price seems to be, and look at games similar to yours and price a little bit higher than theirs. If it doesn't sell, you can always lower the price tag.


And yeah, if I see a game under ten dollars anywhere besides mobile and it's less then ten years old I tend to assume it's not very good. It actually makes me LESS interested in the game. (Unless it's like a one weekend sale, or right at 10, like 9.99 )


As for people that can't afford it, that has to be worked out on a case-by-case basis, I think. Of course, everyone will tell you they can't afford it. I need to eat out this weekend cos I am craving seafood, so I can't afford your game. And I need gas for my car so I can take a roadtrip to see my BFFs for the premiere of that new Pixar movie. And... see, even if not in severe financial straights, if something has a free option we will justify why we cannot pay for it. Tradings for social media is an interesting idea, though. I think it could have some merit.

[dramspringfeald]

(Running by "under $10 means you don't respect your project", one could (mistakenly) assume that you think those who release games for free don't care about their projects at all as well.)

All Free anything are classified as either Independently Sponsored, Actively Beta or Super Demos.

~Independently Sponsored - A larger Company is sponsoring the product as an advertisement for the sequel or another project (Steam)

~Super Demos - Released by people either wanting to practice their craft, Show off their skill or Test an Idea. Once done Let it loose to get feedback so they can work on larger projects. (Steam Orange box)

~Actively Beta - Released as part of training. Usually by students and hobbyists wanting to make a real game but don't have the skill or the nerve to do so.

As an example Both my games fall into 2 out of 3 of these. Echo is Active Beta and Super Demo. C-Blue is I.S. and Active Beta... Also I don't own the writes to the names or most of the characters for C-Blue.

====

Now then if I'm doing something that's going to to go on sale I'm Not putting it less than $10. It shows that I care enough about my project that I will charge that much.
Again this is for a full game. Not a 15 minuet demo. If you are going to sell a game it had best be as long as a short novel. (50,000 words)
Anything less is a Flash game and then yeah $3 to $5

If it's an AO game It's no less then $40 Go to a convention and they sell easily at twice that much. I bought my one game at $35 Simply because I had a Workers discount and I helped him set up his shop. *Brave Soul is STILL $35 and it's been out since 95

[TrickWithAKnife]

People also release free games because they just want as many people as possible to enjoy their work, or to build up their reputation before releasing a commercial game.

[cuttlefish]

1) Having people either pay a dollar or something for a game, or pay for it by donating a tweet or facebook post.

This seems pretty fair if the game is actually sold for $1. If the game is sold for $5 or more, you might want to increase the advertising payment to say 5 or more posts on either Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, reddit, Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, DeviantArt, etc.

I would suggest that you write the Twitter/Facebook/etc. post, though. That way, whoever takes the "free" option would be advertising what you want advertised at the minimum. They could then add their own message at the end, if they want to.

2) Offering the above with extra features, and having a third feature-free option for people who can't pay and don't have FB/Twitter.

4) Having a pay what you want system.

I think most people would claim the third feature (2), or opt to pay nothing (4).

3)Doing option 1, but then releasing the game for free after a few months.

Except for avid supporters, I'm not sure who would buy the game earlier.


I agree with Sexo Grammaticus's research advice and ThisIsNoName's "full price discount" idea.

[Spiky Caterpillar]

IMO, the big barrier to most customers isn't the exact price you charge, it's the difference between paying and not paying. Paying for something online requires a certain degree of work, a certain degree of trust on the customer's part, and a certain amount of complicated financial infrastructure whether it's one dollar or a hundred dollars. Even for purely commercial projects, there is little point in asking for less than $10 (well, $9.95) to buy a game retail unless it's truly ancient, truly trivial, or aimed at a market with poor exchange rates. If you're doing simultaneous free and pay releases, you need to make the pay release charge an amount worth collecting.

Also, the amount you charge will, to some degree, affect people's perceptions of the game. If you're asking for $1, it will look like shovelware or phishing. If you're asking for $100, it better be an awesome collector's edition or something with production values to match a top-of-the-line Japanese studio. I'd consider $10-$25 a reasonable asking price range for a reasonable indie VN.

I expect FB/twitter promotion discounts will actually wind up giving you a huge pile of unpaid work to do just so you can give away free games. You don't want that - giving a game away free should require as little work on your part per-download as possible. If you are doing promotion discounts, limit it to a single post/discount - five tweets in a row from the same person advertising the same game will make it look spammy and dodgy rather than awesome.

As for How to pay. Paypal and a simple "Don't be a douche" file in the zip. If it's AO just sell it as a 'gift.'

Don't do this. PayPal is actively opposed to adults-only content, and can lock your account (and confiscate your money) if they catch you. It's stupid to have your primary revenue stream rely on (and help subsidize!) a company that actively opposes your art and will close you down if they notice.

[dramspringfeald]

As for How to pay. Paypal and a simple "Don't be a douche" file in the zip. If it's AO just sell it as a 'gift.'

Don't do this. PayPal is actively opposed to adults-only content, and can lock your account (and confiscate your money) if they catch you. It's stupid to have your primary revenue stream rely on (and help subsidize!) a company that actively opposes your art and will close you down if they notice.

Indeed. The way to do that is to get a Vendors/Small Business account from your bank which requires a vendors permit ($300 to $800 a year). Sign a lot of "they aren't responsible" papers and finally set up your account where they tax the hell out of you.

[cuttlefish]

...five tweets in a row from the same person advertising the same game will make it look spammy and dodgy rather than awesome.

I meant 1 post on 5 different sites, though you bring up a good point :/ Hmm. Maybe the advertising wouldn't seem so bad if all that's posted is a badge or image with a few words?

[Sexo Grammaticus]

It'll still come across as spam because that's essentially what it is - you're financially motivating someone to promote your product to an audience that you're not seemingly willing to engage with personally. All it'll do is make you look cheap and make the person look like a shill - if they like the game, odds are they'll advertise it themselves without payment through their normal social circles. Pay-for-tweet services are usually pointless because most of them get ignored and rely on sheer numbers to get their messages across, and have very little engagement with their audiences.

And yeah, if I see a game under ten dollars anywhere besides mobile and it's less then ten years old I tend to assume it's not very good. It actually makes me LESS interested in the game. (Unless it's like a one weekend sale, or right at 10, like 9.99 )

This is a pretty shallow way to look at game pricing. The price of the product doesn't necessarily reflect the value of it, because value is subjective, and the only ones who know exactly how many units at what price they need to ship to make a reasonable turnaround is the publishers themselves. Again my reference point is Steam - plenty of absolutely fantastic games go up there on sale for well under $10, if they debut above that price point at all. And people buy them in droves because a low price point increases the perception of 'value for money' on the part of the consumer. Valve never releases their sales figures, but they've released plenty of anecdotal evidence that cheaper games make more money than expensive games through sheer volume. Cheap games are easier to justify an impulse buy, they have a lower price barrier for people new to the genre / market, they have less of a backlash if they're no good because it's not seen as a waste of money - all that and more are why looking at any game as ignorable just because it's under $10 is a pretty silly thing.

A good game can be cheap, and a bad game can be expensive.