are game developers trying to anger me

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by jacksoncombs, May 29, 2010.

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  1. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    i bought tony hawks pro skater 2 for $10, next day drops down to $5
    i bought call of duty zombies for $10 next day $7
    i bought ninjatown for $2 next day $1
    now i bought crash kart 2 for $10 if it goes on sale i will be furious
     
  2. WunDaii

    WunDaii Well-Known Member

    I don't think they're concentrating on making your life misery. ;)
     
  3. ImNoSuperMan

    ImNoSuperMan Well-Known Member

    Jun 28, 2009
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    Hey there, can you please buy Splinter Cell today? I was thinking of buying it but I can wait a day or two if that guarantees a price drop :D
     
  4. The prez 12521

    The prez 12521 Well-Known Member

    Aug 17, 2009
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    SOLUTION: Don't buy games.

    SOLUTION: Quit complaining.
     
  5. Fletch11

    Fletch11 Well-Known Member

    Mar 26, 2010
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    #5 Fletch11, May 29, 2010
    Last edited: May 29, 2010
    I feel your pain and just ignore the people saying idiotic remarks because that's all they can do.
     
  6. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    idk maybe haha, activision is planning something, everytime i buy a game made by activision it goes on sale the next day or two but we'll see
     
  7. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    whyy im waiting impaitiently for gamevils soccer superstars
     
  8. steelfires

    steelfires Well-Known Member

    Feb 17, 2010
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    Candy Mountain, Charlie!
    Of course they are. It's a mass conspiracy by many game devs to make your life miserable.
     
  9. WunDaii

    WunDaii Well-Known Member

    Well my advice is to just wait a few weeks after a release, and if there isn't a price drop, go buy it. If it does drop in price after you bought it, then that's just bad luck. :p
     
  10. I bought a Juicepack Air for $100. The next week it was on sale for $60.
    I bought a bottle of ginger ale for $1.99. Two days later it was on sale for $1.29.
    I bought a shirt for $20, then it goes on sale for $16.

    I SWEAR THE ENTIRE RETAIL INDUSTRY IS CONSPIRING AGAINST ME!
     
  11. RPGGuy

    RPGGuy Well-Known Member

    Sep 3, 2008
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    If enough people were buying the games at the higher prices developers would leave them, so my advice is to buy games at full price.

    Yes, I'm a developer. hahaha
     
  12. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    oh my god, you too? maybee its God telling us to chill out with the purchases, ive spend probably $50 in the app store this month
     
  13. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    most ppl boycott the developer till a price drop... good idea huh. jk haha
     
  14. da shiz wiz 19

    da shiz wiz 19 Well-Known Member

    Sep 24, 2009
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    Lmfao, I love when people don't catch sarcastic comments that make fun of them.
     
  15. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    hahahahaha i think some ppl on this site are partialy brain dead, ive seen it soo many times
     
  16. loves2spoon

    loves2spoon Well-Known Member

    Sep 22, 2009
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    So when was COD Zombies ever $6.99? It's always been $10
     
  17. LBG

    LBG SeƱor Member

    Apr 19, 2009
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    nada ilegal
    31.560499, -111.904128
  18. jacksoncombs

    jacksoncombs Well-Known Member

    it was $7 near xmas
     
  19. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Hollywood, CA
    This is the rhythm of the appstore, get used to it :/

    The fact of the matter is, we are at a point where there are an abundance of decent quality apps on the store now. Bigger named ones (such as Tony Hawk) will appear and garner some attention, make some nice sales, but quickly drop off after that because there's going to be several things ready to pop up and steal it's mindshare in the next 15 minutes (literally). No one is expecting anything to have legs, really. One of the easiest ways to combat this is to launch at a premium price, and get a larger $ boost of initial sales, and then when that tapers off (pretty quickly) chop the price to appeal to the larger demographic. The mentality is "oh I am getting a big value since the other people had to pay X amount more for this, so any amount I am saving.. $1, $2, $4 - is 'technically' a tremendous deal." Also the press outlets will pick up and give a little nod to this (it will generate a blip in the headlines) and that is just the spark necessary to get a bunch of extra sales that otherwise would have kept dropping off.

    So it's good and bad. A very small "second shot at life," but giving a middle finger (even if it's more like a pinky finger) to the original buyers who feel a little remorse but not too much "ahhh, I only spent an extra couple bucks and I still enjoyed that."

    I guess the thing this exposes is that there's no secondhand, or extended market with these digital products. You go into a physical game store, and you will still see boxes for things that launched several weeks ago (never mind 6 months or a year ago, or even a bargain bin). In digital distro there's no such thing, unless you are a big dev who has lots of folks flocking to your online store where you can regularly pimp out your older software (and I am gonna expect that even then, the sell-thru is probably extremely minimal).

    In the end it's a bad trend that hurts everything in the long run, not just for iPhone software (and smaller developers) but the whole idea of digital distro as well. We really need to consider that this is the testing ground for when DD goes mainstream for real (replacing B&M physical stores) and the bigger companies are probably trying to establish a model right now of what will work (and what won't) in the future, exciting though scary (think about it!)

    As a consumer, try to keep a level head about things. When you look at a piece of software, especially one that's a certain level of quality, try to remember that it cost someone's time and money to produce that, it didn't just appear for free. Even a port requires some degree of work (more than you might expect!) If you feel burned that "all these price cuts are adding up and I could be saving money," then be picky about what you buy in the first place. How many games have you impulse-bought because they got some nice front-page coverage and had 3-4 page threads about them, maybe you paid $4-6 for them but honestly only played them for about 20 min? Just watch it on youtube for half that time and decide if it's something that you really want to part with a couple of bucks for (or wait 3 months and see if there's any electricity still surrounding it's name)

    For me all of this is extremely difficult to fight. I will only lower a price if I can get some huge promotional boost out of it (as a tiny no-name indie, I can't afford any kind of mainstream marketing otherwise) but I also don't wanna anger my initial supporters. That's why I will charge next-to-nothing ($2) for my best software, offer a substantial enough Free version at launch so the prospective buyer can at least gauge the gameplay and aesthetic, and then let it go from there. As mentioned above, we see our sales peak immediately and decline to nothing very quickly, so if I can get a shot in the arm interest-wise by doing some further promotion (temporarily free from some major website) it makes sense and I can just hope that the original buyers have got enough enjoyment out of my game that they'll be behind my efforts to get the word out there a little more, rather than shrivel up and die as so many indie devs are doing.
     
  20. Fletch11

    Fletch11 Well-Known Member

    Mar 26, 2010
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    And I lve it when people like you prove my point!!!

    ROFL
     

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