Why don't you sell your game? How can I change your mind?

[TheCastle]

I plan to hire professional artists and sound people eventually and have a team of about 3-4 people with industry experience. I doubt even then I would charge more than 10 for the game... On that note I never really gave much pause as this is still pie in the sky until can cobble something together I feel is ready to show people.

Judging by my other posts my lack of experience in actual coding is going to be a real challenge. But on that note, the bottom line is if you make something fun people will be willing to pay for it even if it isn't super ground breaking.

 

[crimcrim]

I plan to hire professional artists and sound people eventually and have a team of about 3-4 people with industry experience. I doubt even then I would charge more than 10 for the game... On that note I never really gave much pause as this is still pie in the sky until can cobble something together I feel is ready to show people.

I can defintely see where Pegasus was coming from when he talked about being a developer and have pre-released games in order to charge more. That actually slipped my mind initially. However, if you indeed make a huge game (25+ hours) with custom graphics, original music, defined systems and etc, $19.99 is honestly a fine price. I can see why people would be opposed but that's just fair.

 

[TheCastle]

I like to look to Steam for reference in terms of prices for independent games. With a team of 2-3 putting together something solid can be quite profitable even if its 3 bucks for the game. I might be coming from a different perspective on this topic.

 

[crimcrim]

I like to look to Steam for reference in terms of prices for independent games. With a team of 2-3 putting together something solid can be quite profitable even if its 3 bucks for the game. I might be coming from a different perspective on this topic.

Well why are you using another game to determine your price. Your game will (hopefully) be unique enough so you shouldn't have to follow norms. Although I can see how sensible this may sound. You want as many people to purchase your game and price is a huge factor.

There are many factors to consider honestly. Game play length, investments, people to pay, whether or not your game is **** etc. From a standpoint omitting all those factors though I would agree with you. $9.99 does make sense.

 

[TheCastle]

Its hard to say honestly. How much to charge for a project is not one of my expertise... I am honestly just going with my gut on this one hehe

9.99 for about 10-15 hours of game play sounds about fair. *shrugs*

 

[Indinera]

This is not the same market as Steam. You don't have to follow their prices until at least you've got a game there, imo. And even so, you still do not have to.

In any case, people can always experiment and see what works best for them. If you can make benefits with a low price tag, more power to you.

If it were to happen, make sure to post here about your experience. ^^

 

[crimcrim]

Its hard to say honestly. How much to charge for a project is not one of my expertise... I am honestly just going with my gut on this one hehe

9.99 for about 10-15 hours of game play sounds about fair. *shrugs*

Well I wish you told me that before we got into this disagreement .

I would agree there actually, for that amount of length, assuming you have decent graphics and story then that is a wonderful price tag. I was talking about a 25+ RPG with an entirely different graphical presentation and gameplay. You can probably see where I felt that a small price was wrong.

This is not the same market as Steam. You don't have to follow their prices until at least you've got a game there, imo.

In any case, people can always experiment and see what works best for them. If you can make benefits with a low price tag, more power to you.

If it were to happen, make sure to tell us your experience. ^^

Actually I've been talking to a few close friends about this with knowledge in the market so I'm not that uninformed. In your opinion though, how hard would it be to appeal to both of these crowds? Targeting the hardcore JRPG fan base with the other more casual fan base?

 

[Indinera]

In your opinion though, how hard would it be to appeal to both of these crowds? Targeting the hardcore JRPG fan base with the other more casual fan base?

Are you talking about the game making itself or just the pricing?

 

[crimcrim]

Are you talking about the game making itself or just the pricing?

I meant the gameplay itself, but the price helps too :>

 

[TheCastle]

I haven't worked on too many independent projects honestly but at one point I did help out with one called Kivi's Underworld Soldak entertainment. He writes his own engines and tools to create them and it was an interesting experience. Looking over the page it seems as though his games range between 10-20 each and from what I know he does well for himself.

http://www.soldak.com/

 

[Indinera]

I meant the gameplay itself, but the price helps too :>

I don't think you should try to appeal to any audience in particular. This is not a cheap get-out btw, but if you really want to try to do that, I would recommend trying to analyze how popular games in the genre are made. As for pricing, I suppose it has to be relevant to the market already in place.

 

[Espon]

Anything under $10 just feels like you're giving up and throwing your game immediately into the bargain bin. Your game should at least feel like you're getting something out of all the time you spent on it.

I really can't see going under $20 or even $25 with what I got planned...just need to get over my biggest issue, which is myself. Mind you I haven't done any research yet and am just basing it off what I might pay for it. I've spent $10-20 on junky games from actual developing companies even though I only got about 15-20 hours out of it.

 

[TheCastle]

Anything under $10 just feels like you're giving up and throwing your game immediately into the bargain bin. Your game should at least feel like you're getting something out of all the time you spent on it.

I really can't see going under $20 or even $25 with what I got planned...just need to get over my biggest issue, which is myself. Mind you I haven't done any research yet and am just basing it off what I might pay for it. I've spent $10-20 on junky games from actual developing companies even though I only got about 15-20 hours out of it.

well lets take steam for example with some napkin math. Say your game flops and only 5000 people buy it at 10$ each... Valve takes 30% of that right. Lets say on top of that your web pages sells another 1000 units and maybe you got the game on a couple other portals and they do about the same... You divide the profits between 3 people. Sure you cant quit your day job on that but its far from throwing away your game...

I would also like to say from experience that if you are working on an independent project just make something you want to play or you think is cool. Attempting to appeal to an audience is easily one of the biggest banes of game development and I really feel like anyone just doing this for fun should save themselves from that entire concept...

 

[Indinera]

Before making plans on Steam sales, you should consider the sheer possibility that Steam just won't take the game.

BFG has a track record for adding RM games - Steam hasn't. Big difference.

 

[Espon]

well lets take steam for example with some napkin math. Say your game flops and only 5000 people buy it at 10$ each... Valve takes 30% of that right. Lets say on top of that your web pages sells another 1000 units and maybe you got the game on a couple other portals and they do about the same... You divide the profits between 3 people. Sure you cant quit your day job on that but its far from throwing away your game...

I would also like to say from experience that if you are working on an independent project just make something you want to play or you think is cool. Attempting to appeal to an audience is easily one of the biggest banes of game development and I really feel like anyone just doing this for fun should save themselves from that entire concept...

I get that. But what if you decided to price your game at $15 and instead you sell 4000 copies? You've made more money than if you sold 5000 for $10. It's easy to sell yourself short.

I don't mean to start debating the "what ifs" of pricing vs number of sales, but sometimes it feels like people don't realize how good of a product they actually have and could of easily gotten more for their effort.

 

[TheCastle]

but sometimes it feels like people don't realize how good of a product they actually have and could of easily gotten more for their effort.

There are quite a few examples of where people make a ton of money off of something that makes me scratch my head....

 

[Shaz]

This is getting quite a bit off track now - how much to ask for your game is not an obstacle to making and marketing it. Let's take this to a new topic, as it is worthy of discussion, and get this one back to reasons people continue to offer their games for free rather than going commercial. Thanks

 

[Pegasus]

What to really understand with Steam is that they only take games that they see as interesting and have some buzz on the internet. They have a team who review the indie games before approving whicb will be released and which will be omitted. Out of 25 indie games, only 1 or 2 will make it there.

Steam's pricing does not reflect the actual value of a game. When you have your game there, 1 thing that you can be sure of is that sales will increase like a rocket if the game is appealing. In order to gain max sales, Steam strategy is to lower the price and though the game is devalued by a drastic price drop, the gain in the number of sales is much more benefic to the developper. When choosing pricing, do not look at the price on Steam as a reference. Only look at them, if your game is accepted and not the contrary.

 

[Necromus]

@ Shaz while the extra topic is definitely ok, since you can discuss a lot about that, i still think it's a pretty relevant obstacle for going comercial at all.

You want a certain quality, that comes with a certain price (for you as a developer), so how much you price for and especially where (which also includes a certain questioning of the price tag) is something you will have to think about.

If you would aim for steam, you would calculate with a low, price, but with high sales (arguably, but once you actually made it there, signs aren't too bad imo), on other platforms, you might calculate with a higher price and lower sales.

At the end the eventual price tag might decide if it's worth for you to invest in custom ressources, since you can't use everything a free developer could.

 

[Shaz]

Okay, if "I can't decide how much to charge" is an obstacle, let's just leave it at that. I don't want this topic to become a discussion solely on what's the right price to charge for a game, which is what it has become over the last few pages. I don't want this general topic to become a focused discussion on any one issue. If the issues are common, we'll branch them off into their own threads, which is what we've been doing.

I just want this topic to continue with more/other reasons stopping people going commercial.