Will the NS2 price change?
Price
Join Date: 2003-09-27 Member: 21247Members
Join Date: 2003-09-27 Member: 21247Members
Comments
Should be around 20-25$ if they want sales. They would easily make up the difference in quantity. 35$ is to much to "Take a chance on", for most gamers, however, alot of people will buy a 20$ game for the heck of it.
That's a top notch multiplayer game, fully moddable.
And from time to time they can set the price to 75% off to get some more players.
Should be around 20-25$ if they want sales. They would easily make up the difference in quantity. 35$ is to much to "Take a chance on", for most gamers, however, alot of people will buy a 20$ game for the heck of it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Who are you to tell them what their game should cost?
Just because it's an indie game doesn't mean it's some gimmicky steam sale fodder like super meat boy...like Zeno said this is a very 'huge' game that has had a lot of effort put into it.
Should be around 20-25$ if they want sales.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ehm...cod cost 59.99 $
Or counter-strike source, its over 7 years old and cost still 20$.
I think 29.95-35$ are good for a game like that.
If people don't want pay that, they don't deserve the game.
And if people want to know how it is, maybe UWE start a free weekend so everybody can test it.
The question is just, will it be in euros too or not.
We will see how much it will cost, but to be honest, i guess they shrink the price, because of non-beta and on.
At 17$, I feel very happy with my purchase, at 20$, I still would, at 25$, I'd be happy as well, not nearly.
35$.
I can name hundreds of people I've seen not interested once they saw the price.
Red Orchestra 2, just launched. 40$. Sales were horrible. A site went up with it on sale for 24$, they received a massive influx of players, far exceeding their original sales, easily...and that was without the marketing of the first.
As for "top notch", I'd say, as far as Indies go, yeah, pretty up there. I think the price should reflect that it's MP only, and 35$ isn't reflecting that. As for the amount of content, even planned, is way to much.
And why bring Call of Duty into this? That's a series designed for milking, so the 60$ totally makes sense. People will buy that crap at it's price cause they're idiots.
Natural Selection 2 does not have nearly the fanbase it used to have. They can't rely on loyalty of past fans. They need a large, new audience, and 35$ isn't something people will take a gamble with.
20-25$, they'll throw down the cash and see if they like it.
If they sold 100,000 copies @ 20$
VS 50,000 copies @ 35$, which would be superior?
Obviously the 20$ one. We're also talking name. 100,000 people people with the game would tell more people about it than 50,000.
You have to think about getting the name out there. No offense to Unknown Worlds, but as your name implies...you're unknown and to young as a company, to far behind schedule, and over-budget to even think of charging full price.
People lost faith. Many fansites have literally just shut down cause they thought it was vaporware, like Duke Nukem Forever was thought to be. This is akin to development hell.
Once again, I must state the game is fun, and not bad, I'm not saying that, but expecting to sell in volume @ 35$ is rediculous.
:P
If the game is good enough, people will pay.
I'd be willing to bet Flayra has already thought this stuff over many times, and come to the price they have with good reason.
To say price X is better than price Y is nonsense. The only way you could say what is better is if you would know the marginal utility of an average consumer for buying ns2. From here you could derive an aggregate demand function and determine your optimal price. Since, and I am guessing here, noone of you has this information :P noone can determine the optimal price.
Of course UWE would sell more copies at a lower price, but if the lower price would generate enough demand to exceed the lower earnings on every copy sold is uncertain.
I for one think $35 is more than satisfied and a good price to go with (again, just a personal opinion. Like yours). If sales wont go well they can still lower the price later or do some weekend deals. Increasing the price after release is something I doubt they could do without having heavy damage to theri reputation (see all those whiners that missed the holiday sale for example).
Agreed.
Not only that but you have to take into account game genre and how that genre competes with other games. Sometimes a game may sell regardless of its price due to the type of game it is (genre) or brand recognition or etc.
Once NS2 reaches a very playable state, some may end up buying the game eventually regardless of the price (well assuming it's not more expensive than AAA titles that is). Currently, there are very few games like NS2 on the market. That gives NS2 a huge advantage over other games. Some starved for FPS/RTS type gameplay will buy it regardless of price. Also NS generally has good word of mouth, so that's huge advertisement/marketing potential (something a lot of successful indie games share is not just the low price point but word of mouth advertisement).
You also have to take into account some may not buy NS2, even if it's cheap, because they're not into that type of game.
Finally, NS2 isn't just another indie game.
Depending on how far things go, it could rival current market FPS games.
Overall, there's a lot of factors to take into account before lowering the price.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Increasing the price after release is something I doubt they could do without having heavy damage to theri reputation (see all those whiners that missed the holiday sale for example).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed. As you can see on "Top Sellers" (on Steam), anything that is on sale is usually a top seller.
If they keep the price high, they can afford to higher % discounts. The bigger % discounts, the more people are likely to buy (anything with 75% off almost always reaches the top 3 in Top Sellers).
The good thing about Steam is that there are multiple chances to sell "and" advertise your game. If sales aren't good, you can just lower the price and advertise that new price on Steam (by having a sale).
(Any game on sale = advertisement because lots check what's on sale everyday on Steam.)
You really cant compare starcraft to this. Starcraft has a huge fan base and even the first starcraft is still being played a lot. And Blizzard as a publisher is very well known as well unlike unknown world.
So yeah I think it should be cheaper to get more players in and spread the word like was mentioned above.
I think there are a couple of things we don't know yet -
1. We haven't seen the finished game. $35 sounds like a lot when it is buggy and incomplete. But the finished game, polish and all, will be another thing entirely.
2. We don't know the total content (number of maps etc)
3. We don't know what sort of ongoing official support there will be.
All of these things are variables that add to it's viability.
And, as said previously, a price can be lowered but it can't be raised. If they start at $20 but knew that it should be $30, $35, $40 - they are stuck. But if they start at $35, get the keen and the devoted to buy, then they move to $30 to get the interested buyers that think $35 is too much, $20-25 to get the casual gamer and then $15 to get the cheap gamers that go on to be the kind of people that cheat and annoy the rest of us.
A price that's right for everyone :)
So you think someone who pays less / waits for the game to go on sale will be cheaters and annoying people?
Very nice.
Of course, the US market is the biggest so we must discuss in terms of that market :).
Yeah, there are people in TF2 who have thousands of hours. Some bought it at release for the incredibly steep $50 (in the Orange Box with like 5 other amazing games). Others bought it on promotion for $2.50. Others didn't pay anything since it went free to play.
What matters is the fact that TF2 is (was?) a quality a game, and word of mouth allowed it to sell tons of copies despite being a bit of a dark horse, for not being a CS/CoD clone.
Unless you have proof that the current price is too expensive then your argument will fall short.
With the current trend of game designers we might also see 'DLCs' down the track. Buy different type of marine armour for $5 etc.
Minimise Expediture, Maximise Utility. Happy consumer!
Minimise Expediture, Maximise Utility. Happy consumer!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
true, but to be honest I doubt UWE is maximizing consumer utility which is the result of what you said, but maximize their profits. At least I hope that is the case so they stay in business for a long time and make amazing games :D
However, understanding that is important as your price you charge affects both those optimaization problems (and the price of alternative products) I mentioned.
Now lets all have a nice CIV quote:
"There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wage possible."
Also, do note in a perfectly competitve market, Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost and Accounting Profit need only be greater than zero if one wants to grow the business.
(PS. Just to be clear, the Slutsky Equation doesn't max or min anything, it seperates out a change in consumer behaviour into the seperate income and substitution effects, which individually can be very hard to observe)
What matters is the fact that TF2 is (was?) a quality a game, and word of mouth allowed it to sell tons of copies despite being a bit of a dark horse, for not being a CS/CoD clone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You forget that valve did a lot of money with people buying these game items.
I stop playing tf2 since you have to buy these items.
And mostly everyone i know stop playing tf2.
Im not angry or something, i mean i had a good time with tf2, i buy it for 20 euros in the year 2007.