Steal a crayon
Kloonigames is inviting everyone to steal their game Crayon Physics Deluxe!
Well, ok they didn’t use those words but technically it’s not far from truth. Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a good idea. Others have done it and just the press coverage it offers is good enough to justify doing it.
In fact you’re likely to receive more press coverage by telling people they can pay what they want for a limited time than releasing a free game… But to be fair, Crayon Physics Deluxe is an award winning game and to have gone through the demo myself they well deserve any attention.
BUT (of course there’s a but) what’s the side-effect of this? And what is the side-effect of all those crazy sales we see on a regular basis from Steam and D2D?
As much as we respect the work they are doing and appreciate the product they are delivering there’s so many sales or “pay what you want” that I can’t help but wonder if in the long run more and more people will just wait until the price drops to buy games. Compulsive buyers please help us!
I bought Braid for not even $3 in the holidays on Steam. World of Goo for $5 (I missed their pay what you want). Isn’t there a danger to bring the prices way down?
When I was a teenager I bought Phantasmagoria for $80 and while it was expensive I seem to remember that it wasn’t exceptional. Now people are complaining that a game like Zombie Driver isn’t worth $10 and that they will wait until the price drops during a sale! And of course they know (and are right) that we’ll see Zombie Driver for $5 or maybe even less someday.
So while it’s a nice way to get attention I’m really wondering if it’s not a double-edge sword. Maybe sales were a bit slow since the game was released a year ago (I don’t know here, can be wrong) so it’s a nice way to make the game live longer. But when the next game is released will people just wait for the “pay what you want” or the ridiculous price when it goes on sale on Steam?
Look, I’m part of the cheap bastards that waited so long to buy the game. I would have probably never bought the game just because it’s not quite my favorite genre and don’t have an awful lot of time to play but at that price it’s worth to put it somewhere until I feel like going for it.
So it’s possible I would have never bought the game at its regular price ($20) so technically they made more money with me by doing the “pay what you want” (I paid $5 because like I said I’m not even sure to finish the game in the next year).
But if the next game fits my taste better, will I pay the full price knowing it will drop in some months? (and it will) Maybe yes because honestly I admire indie developers able to reach such success but then again, my wallet ain’t growing money either (remember that I’m also building games completely financed by that same wallet) …
I’m mostly concerned about indie developers here as I kinda know a bit what it’s like to be one (duh…). However I had no problem to wait Mass Effect to get to $5 and will probably also wait for Mass Effect 2 to drop price in some months (or less as I’ve seen Dragon Age in sales around Xmas, 1 month after release …).
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about 3 years ago
Games are like most things we buy, like a car. They decrease in value. I remember buying Battlefront for around 60 bucks. The question is… are we patient enough to actually wait for something? Many times, I try to wait, and I end up not wanting to buy it anyway.
Games are expensive in their “new stage” because it’s like a “new frontier” for the buyers. A main problem with games – the players play it out, too quickly. Fresh content gets stale quickly. Of course, having a team of developers really helps. Of course, you do not. It’s actually amazing how fast you’ve gone, in my opinion.
I have actually tried making a game, with a free engine called Eclipse… Didn’t go too well…
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about 3 years ago
I wait for games to go down too, like right now PlayStation 2 is above the ps3 as far as games sales ps2 games are way cheaper for what you get.
Same here as long as you aren’t trying to make a mmo and even if you are gamemaker is still best.
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about 3 years ago
It’s interesting to look at the iPhone market. Originally people would price games at reasonable prices (still cheaper than a retail store though). Eventually people started to compete on price, and there was a race to the bottom. Now nearly all games are 99 cents, the cheapest the iPhone app store allows, as everyone raced to the bottom.
Of course, it’s hard to make a lot of profit at that price point (given that Apple takes a chunk of that 99 cents for itself), so people have been adding in additional content, or making the 99 cent version the “lite” version, etc. But, there’s a siren’s call to try to compete on price when you’re new and any sales are good sales and do the minimum price.
As for games from big companies, I’m not so ashamed to be cheap. I got a few games when they were on deep discount (kind of wish I had gotten Mass Effect myself when it as cheap). This has been how the retail system has worked for a long time, anyway. Wait a month and the price drops after a while. Just be careful about some of the rarer games (like Atlus console titles), otherwise you might miss out.
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about 3 years ago
A car is one of the worst thing to buy new because it lost so much value. However the first seller won’t sell you a brand new car with no mileage at 85% of the original price. To get that you’ll have to deal with a car that you’ll probably need to put some $$$ in it.
Games going from $20 to technically $0.01 are a bit more extreme I think as you’re not buying something already used by someone else. You still get the same thing as 1 year ago. Comparing games between them is tricky as a good game remains good over time. When you can pay $0.01 you don’t have any reason to go for a more recent games with say better graphics.
At first iPhone apps were a gold mine for some apps. And then more and more apps appeared to the point it’s so damn hard to get noticed that you don’t have much choice to use aggressive pricing so it stopped being that gold mine it was.
I’m wondering if the same thing is not happening to indie games. Indie games are more and more among “pop consumers” so it seems either you have to come with a brilliant piece of work or use some kind of gimmick pricing just to get noticed (because we’re more and more each day and building games is probably way easier than it previously was).
So are indie games becoming the same as the iPhone market? We’ll hear about a dozen big players that are releasing amazing work and it’s becoming harder for the others to get noticed. So indie games are now competing against other indie games while they were previously competing against “big players”? Forcing such ridiculous pricing …
I don’t quite like the word “compete” here as it’s not really the point but considering there’s a maximum amount of cash you can pull out of consumers’ wallets you can’t expect them to buy everything either even if they’d like to.
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