http://twitter.com/#!/MarkRein/status/15908910695190528 http://twitter.com/#!/MarkRein/status/15908311140401152 http://twitter.com/#!/MarkRein/status/15908701592363009 The dollar crowd won't be happy to hear this.
Tbh the App store needs someone like Epic to bring an amazing engine over and to change the mentality of the cheap arses. Frigging you pay £10 for a movie that lasts an hour and a half, yet you wont pay that price for a game that you might play for a couple of months. I know I played Angry Birds for what feels like a year now and I woulda paid £35 for it like I pay for any big PC game. Can't wait for the day when I see full priced games on there because it means major studios will take the platform seriously. That said Epic haven't made a good game in my eyes since UT99 lol.
I really liked the free updates to add value to what you paid very well said. The time for AppStore changes is already beginning. Lots of big releases most were above 5 dollars and people bought them. But there will always be a market for everyone whether it's dollar games or 7-10 dollar games. Glad to see EPIC sticking to it's price well worth it,but it all depends on the buyer.
Value = Quality / Price 2 ways to raise value: Bad; Decrease price Good; Increase quality Best; Do both
But that doesn't necessarily mean more revenue. If 1 of their games was $4.99 before and now is $0.99, they now have to sell 5 copies to make the same revenue from that product. btw, Infinity Blade now lists almost 400,000 players on game center. Thats a over $2m in a bit over a week.
price wars There is and always will be the dollar crowd. Our 1st game we fell for the trap and made a casual game. While our game is good , its not the type of games we grew up playing. We decided for our next game to be more console type action like 2D Super Nes or playstation game. This is taking us a while to make , but its much more complete. The longer in development , the higher the quality, the higher the price. Its really that simple.
...and... There are certainly many developers that hold fast the their pricing on the app store. The biggest issue developers face today is the glut of apps that flood the market. It's *extremely* easy to get lost in the crowd - hence the price cuts and one day promotions through sites like FAAD. It seems that if you don't get coverage on a site like TA, MacRumors, TUAW or make the Apple's app recommendations, you're going to get lost in the crowd. --DotComCTO
Infinity Blade is definitely worth $5.99 at most. Repeating bloodlines over and over plus the fact that you're repeating the same 30-60 minutes of content makes the $5.99 price sort of pushing the game's value. Until you throw in the game's amazing graphics, that is. If it was a more full-fledged, off-rails experience then the arguments for a higher price would be justified.
What's the big deal? People are getting spoiled by the likes of EA who saturate the market with IP games with little production value, and sell them at .99 cents. Are we really complaining about products that take months to develop costing $3-$6 USD? I say.. Stop being spoiled, and pay $6 for a game you freaking enjoy! If you can afford an iPhone, you can afford a $6 game!!
Epic / Chair probably spent a quarter of a million dollars just to make Infinity Blade. At $5.99, the game is already underpriced. It should never go on sale.
Never going to happen. Getting the cheap arses to to change their mentality is like asking a leopard to change their spots. I will say I'm getting tired of paying full price for games that have more bugs than a 5 dollar hooker though. If anything is going to keep me from buying at full price the moment something comes out, it's games that are rushed out half finished and half assed.
it was interesting to me what he said. Based on our games experience on the App store, updates never did anything for sales. If he doesn't care about sales, thats fine - he makes money elsewhere. If he is being genuinely interested in providing gamers a better game, thats totally great. the sheer amount of people that worked on that game astounds me!
Current U.S. Appstore top grossing list 1 Battlefield .99c 2 Angry Birds .99c 3 Need For Speed Hot Pursuit .99c 4 Angry Birds Seasons .99c 5 Tetris .99c 6 Madden 2011 .99c 7 Cut the rope .99c 8 Doodle Jump Christmas .99c 9 NBA Elite .99c 10 Scrabble .99c 11 The Sims 3 .99c 12 Fruit Ninja .99c 13 Talking Santa .99c 14 Fifa 2011 .99c 15 Monopoly .99c 16 The Game of Life .99c 17 The Sims 3 Ambitions .99c 18 Pictureka .99c 19 Doodle Jump .99c 20 Risk .99c 21 Tiger Woods .99c 22 Need for Speed Undercover .99c 23 Tron Legacy .99c 24 High Caliber Hunting .99c 25 360 Panorama .99c 26 INFINITY BLADE 5.99 27 Cause of death .99c 28 SimCity Deluxe .99c 29 Bejeweled 2 .99c 30 The Simpsons .99c 31 Ninjump Deluxe .99c 32 Jenga .99c 33 Plants vs Zombies 2.99 34 Alphine Crawler .99c 35 Barcode Scanner .99c 36 The Moron Test .99c 37 Bloons 4 2.99 38 Battleship .99c 39 Trivial Pursuit .99c 40 NCCA Football .99c 41 Monopoly .99c 42 I am T-Pain .99c 43 Need for Speed Shift .99c 44 NOVA 2 6.99 45 MMA .99c 46 iSpy Cameras .99c 47 Mirror's edge .99c 48 Yahzee .99c 49 Words with Friends .99c 50 FatBooth .99c Only 3 of the top 50 paid apps cost more than .99c. Out of all of the Premium apps released over the last two weeks, only NOVA 2 and Infinity Blade remain on the list. Less than a week and, as I predicted way before it ever happened, Real Racing 2 is long gone from this list. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever will. I once saw like 13 freemium titles on this top 50 list. Infinity Blade is 26th. Remember that 1 sell of IB equals 6 sells of a .99c app. There are 25 99c apps ahead of IB. Even if you want to give IB credit because it sold well in the beginning, even though it couldn't sustain it's dominance over the long haul, there are a lot of so-called premium apps that didn't fare nearly as well as IB and, in the end, they vanished from this list in a matter of days. Also, Aralon, not on this list either, and it should be. Rabid, diehard fans/dedicated gamers rush to buy these premium titles right off the get go. But once that pool of hardcore gamers dry up, well, this is the result. Probably 75-80 of the iDevice user base would have to be classified as casual gamers at best, and they are not interested in spending more than a few dollars on any one app, regardless of the quality. They don't care if it's a console-quality app. They are light gamers, if that. I also think that a lot of ipod touch owners are kids and kids don't have any disposable income.
^ This is the top selling list, not the top grossing. There are 5 $4.99+ titles in the top 25 in grossing: Infinity Blade, NOVA 2, Real Racing 2, Aralon, and COD Zombies. Ten days after release Infinity Blade is still holding strong at #4 on the top grossing charts. Top grossing is what matters, not top selling. And COD Zombies is #24 more than a year after release.
Many of us have been fooled into paying upwards of $10 on some of those feemium titles that you mention were on said list. Those games are a whooooolllleee lot more expensive than infinity blade and for a hell of a lot less content-wise to boot. Truth be told. Case in point - Capcom - Smurfs. . . it's free go ahead. Re: IB and Aralon sales being so phenomenal cause it's all brand new and stuff - well they have not exactly stoped production on iDevices last anybody checked. Which is to say there could be one going off the shelf as we speak. Sure there will be no opening day hype and no iTunes feature . . . but people will still be able to run into these games and apps through other routes. . . under an app you purchase for instance there is always an interesting link to other app's purchased by people who have recently picked up what your just buying. . .correct. so - there is the Looooong Term. Over which there should be more than enough potential to reccoup and recover costs. . . . On a final note/ your last point re: most ipod/touch owners being kids. Agreed. That may be so. However. Time isnt standing still now exactly is it. . . which is to say them kids will growd up. . . and perhaps get as bored with life in general as all the rest of us most certainly is. At which point - Infinity Blade @ $5.99 will be like a blessing in disguise. . . .
First off - Aralon is Amazing. . . .capital on the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G . . .I was looking for something like it way back in March of this year. I think. Came across Eternal Quest or something at the time. . .eh. . .nothing like Aralon truth be told. It's been a looooong cold wait - but ultimately worth it. See a lot more than 40+ hours in it for me. I'm into hoarding of stuff. . . which is why. Having said that - I think with regard to the first update being Free - as it were - we all know there was a race or rush to get IB submitted on-time to enable them to be the official first Unreal engine game on Ios. Trendyent of Dungeon defenders got their app approved but hadda wait with it. So there was a marketing play sort of thing going down behind the scene im sure. I gots a feeling tho that further to this Chair will be putting out in-app purchases (!?!) freemium style. Or at least that is a model that has been hinted at. . . .unless I read things completely wrong. You have a point re the number of people that worked on IB. . .didnt think about it untill i read your post and then the credits rolled before my eyes. . . Yup. . .thassa lotta people. . .. Could be co-developed for the Nintendo Wii !?! PS3 !?! Mac App Store. . . . . I'm sure they'll make their money back on it over the long term. That's gotta be a certainty. Either way as a business today - it's always good to have some in-flow - no matter how insignificant - to balance all the endless infinite outflows that cannot be stopped. . . .
Mmm I do agree with that, but I won't take the risk to pay more than I think it worth before I have play it. So well I'll stop delay my buy and will get it, just in case Mark Rein going illogical about that. If the game continue sell well he can't stop the flow by a sudden price increase and if it started not sell, it makes few sense to increase the price until the sells become very low and just for the satisfaction of those who bought it but with the curse to have a day or later bring back the game to sales.
