i fell like pavlov's dog being trained to never ever buy a game when it is released ! even when told its a 40% off starting price etc these are all basically lies just off the top of my head from the last couple of weeks nfss seed pacman hotel mogul and yes there are a load more I know we should support the developers but i still get the feeling that the people who buy initially are the ones who get screwed ! well like a good dog, the training has worked and i will now hold off buying new games until the first price drop.
Yeah, it's kind of an unethical business strategy: Panic the consumer. Unfortunately, it's also very effective from what I've been seeing (and feeling), so it's probably here to stay :\ Best word of advice I have is to retrain yourself, and hold off on buying an app for a month or two. Get a good gauge of the price, and see if it's really worth it. Then if the price goes up, oh well: It will always come down in the future. Just depends on how long you're willing to wait
I just buy the games if I'm interested. And then it doesn't matter to me, if it's 2, 5 or 10 bucks. Early adopters are pushing the industry...imagine nobody would have bought the iPhone in the first year, just because they wanted to wait for updates and price drops... You wouldn't see that many quality games and the constant improvement...
oh dont get me wrong i quite realize that price drops are normal...what i am specifically complaining about is how its being done now. I know previously if i wanted a game i could buy it or wiat a couple of months for the ineviatable price drop - which i understood and was quite happy with. My problem is now that it seems to have degenerated into chaos (even more so) - the games i listed for example started off with special 40/50/60% off for the first two weeks - fair enough gets people interested......BUT after the two weeks they have then either become free or sunk the price even more. Which is what i meant - i have learnt - i will now no longer buy any game on initial release, i am not so desperate that i cannot wait 4 weeks, oh and i am not so hard up that i cannot afford to buy the games its just that i am fed up with being screwed !
Hmmm.. I think it is kind of what could be called a never ending story. Most developers aim high and think they will sell a lot of their games for a good price. In reality they sell less than expected, so they are forced to drop the price, if they want to sell anything at all! Timing is very important to developers. Let say you release a game for 3$ and sales are half than what you expected. If you played your cards right you already did everything you could to market the game, so you cant really do anything more in that departement. So the quickest fix to that is a price drop!
fair point and i also think that the christmas rush release of games is not helping them at all. There have been several games released recently which caught my interest but i've already got more than enough to play at the moment - so i just stick them on my want list - which means i can ignore them until the price drops
I think big Christmas sales by all major developers/publishers have created a pretty untenable situation for the small publishers. Frankly, I think the Appvent Calendar has made things worse. I'm almost certain that things will begin to stabilize in January, though, when all the kids who got iTunes cards for Christmas start burning through them. There's also been a shift in iDevice gaming recently, towards more console-like experiences, as well as a serious glut in the casual market. Games that bring nothing special to the platform are going to sink quickly to the .99 price bin, while more distinct (or at least flashier) fare will start to stabilize. A game like Thor just doesn't stand a chance after EA announced Mirror's Edge, and after the success of Canabalt and Run -- and, clearly, should have been released much earlier. I think personal robot's philosophy is the best one: buy the games that you really want immediately to support the developers, hold off on the others. The difference in price is usually very small (1.00 in Thor's case), so it's really sill to talk about anyone being "ripped off." Still, there's no need to overspend on a game that's really not on the top your list.
