Pricing - why are most games sold for $0.99?

To try and make sales!

I agree, but it seems even 99 cents is a price barrier! "I often don't get why users complain about everything above $0.99", the fact users complain makes developers react.

I think if you have a quality game there is no reason to not go higher, but for someone small like me, I would rather go free and have people actually play the game!

 

I think Apple should have started a minimum price of 3 dollars when the app store first opened.

Problem is now so many people expect every app to be 99c or free. The second its 2 dollars or more they want lite versions or 30 opinions from buyers until they use their valuable 2 dollars on the game !

On the other hand if a games 99c (than 2 dollars) you would think more people would think 'i'll try this one, if i dont like it its only a dollar', its like its a mental block as they dont want to 'risk' 2 dollars on a game in case they dont like it.

Hearing from a fair few developers they dont seem to make that much money (hence they go to freemium which is a shame). I'm happy paying for a quality game which is a few dollars than see a game go freemium or 99c (and the dev eventually goes bankrupt).

I would rather always buy the game then it go free (as to me that often means freemium)

 

this is because and why most publishers are not profitable, and do games for nothing

 

Im just guessing here.


1-Top grossing are those free to play games where you buy smurfberries, diamponds,rubies and sacks of gold as IAP forup to 100$ in one swoop.

2-Then you have the megabig companies with massive exposure who can dump a game for 1$, get a millon DL and still earn a million dollars. (guess a lot of people learned this from angry birds

3-Then you have all the indies who thinks they need to put the dollar tag to get any sales. This might or might not be true, but Im pretty sure it wont make much impact to have low price if you dont get any decent amount of DL (and having your app 'off the grids', and even at 1$, people dont 'just buy it'

I see no reason whatsoever though, for a decent indiegame to NOT cost 3,4,5,6$ I myself are in the latest stages of a 'super indie' game with perhaps narrow audience, and I'm putting a 3$ tag on it as launch 'special' and will leave it at that, or increase. Even if it is a small budget, it has still cost me several thousand dollars (money I did not use to buy a new ipad air, and a applebook pro, and perhaps a new 3D TV), andI still need sales in the thousands just to break even, and not charging a cent for the hundres of hours I have put in myself.

I for one think the market should be clearly divided: Indies charging 'premium' (Im laughing a bit here when I referr to a couple of dollars as premium) money, and the big guys either have 'super top dollar' for that X-COM game, or go 'fremium' route that is the norm anyway.

Unless you have a very crappy game, even a few thousand sales wont cover even your expenses (sdk, computer, time,app dev account + outsourced assets) at 1$. Probably not at 2 or 3 either. Comming to think of it, the ratio of those making anything off the games compered to those who do not must be astronomical

Perhaps the single biggest issue is the shear number of apps, there are so much crap as well, just lying around there. I cringe when I thing of the probably thousands of cool rpg/puzzle/other gems created with love that will never turn up on my searches, and games I would buy in an instant if I where aware of them..

But that is totaly off topic, haha.

Bottom line: People drop to a dollar because they think they have to. For big companies this is probably viable, for small times indies it is giving away your time to the 'masses'

 

Totally agree here. $0.99 is a death sentence to an indie game unless you win the lottery and get a million downloads without the marketing power of a big studio.

The barrier between free and paid is infinitely times larger than the barrier between any reasonable price point for paid games. The difference between free and $0.99 is huge. The difference between $0.99 and pretty much anything less than $10 is very small by comparison. Most people who purchase at $0.99 will also purchase at a premium price point.

 

Probably some of the same people complaining who are dropping $9.99 on a Pack-o-Turds in the latest freemium game.

 

Sad but true.

 

For what it's worth; I am only a one-man army, after all :
I often feel that I am the last surviving specimen ("and now to your left, exhibit A, from the gaming era of the last century") who is willing to pay premium price for premium content; which does not mean "AAA" Egoshooter No. 5001. But good games. My yardstick of true everlasting greatness is still Planescape:Torment, which is 14 years old by now. Tells something, neh?

Might be because I have a very specific and narrow taste.
Or because I always worked in Enterprise IT, where prices have many more numbers before the comma (Nemetschek Allplan for like 15k €, anyone? Or CATIA?) .
Or because my formatting years (when I *really* dove into gaming. For perspective: I played the original Pong as a small kid, 6-7 years old) here when games were expensive, but you valued the quality you got (as in "Final Fantasy IX for what is today 150€") .

I honestly don't know - nor understand - why people start to whine when a game costs more than a buck.
And yes, you can find enough evidence of that behaviour here on TA.

Ah well, as a grumpy old man I can say everything was better in the old days and today's youth is the demise of civilisation

Serious point: I think kids these days just don't value effort and quality anymore. In part because they cannot grasp how much work went into a game.
Would be interesting to see demographics data correlated with spending habits.
I am pretty sure that many old folks like me are willing to spend way more per single game than, say, 10-14 year olds.

 

Going the premium way usually means you are capping your revenue stream. Let's say big boys can earn a few million dollars by selling a game for $0.99 - $9, whilst giving the game away for free with tuned monetization will bring them a million dollars per month, week or even a day.

 

An interesting thought:
Why is that only with computer/mobile-platform games? Specifically games.
Look at other stuff on iTunes. (Semi-)professional apps are either expensive, or are free but are useful only with expensive equipment/PC software. Apps for music people are the first example I can think of.

Forget that. That's basically my argument about Enterprise IT prices. Let me rephrase:
With a specialised audience - which often means professionals - you are much more likely to get a high price for your app.

What I was thinking about when I started writing this: why only games?
I have a kid now. If you don't, go into a toystore and look at the prices.
E.g. a small Lego train set for 60€. Then visit the "real games" section. That old-school stuff like puzzles and boardgames, you know... 50+ € is no problem at all.
If you feel mentally ready for some seriously weird stuff in terms of pricing, go visit a Games Workshop store, or their website. True insanity awaits.
Anything even remotely in that area would result in TA imploding from the outrage

What is it that makes it acceptable for those things to come at a much higher price point?
If we can tackle that, we are one big step further, I think.

 

Those toy games that charge £50 are physical objects. Software and media is percived as having little or no value. Indi developers of new toys and board games have it way harder than indi software developers. You carnt really compare it to physical objects even to a cup of coffee. You have to compare it to other forms of media. You could be the worlds best piano player but never make any money in the music industry but a medioca programmer can make some money still with games.

Is the games market finally coming into line with the music industry. Having to give away huge amounts of free content and charging a dollar for a song.

 

I think it depends on what you call majority, for example most if not all the games I buy for IOS cost over 0.99 and rather around 3 USD, so aside from assumption about "most" I would say part of certain reality does not align to it at least from a personal point of perspective.

Zach Gage has a fantastic a very clear point on why you should never ask for 0.99 i recommend to listen to the whole talk http://youtu.be/tICD7YqssX8 but if you want to listen about pricing first here is a fast forward http://youtu.be/tICD7YqssX8?t=35m49s

even though we did price our first ios game at 0.99 and it wasn't anywhere near successful but mostly for the reasons beyond pricing, I would say that I very much agree that 0.99 is the worst price and it is better to go completely free or change more.

 

Yeah, for "premium" games i tend to go for the $1 tier as well - anymore more and i feel its less desirable for users to purchase.. Even at $1, sales are tough. Its all freemium/f2p these days.

However, if you feel your game/app is top quality/packed with content then you should not be afraid to charge more.

Thanks,

 

You perfectly sum up what is wrong. 1$ considered "premium"? Ouch...
My personal "good stuff, worth the extra money" price point is 20+ €, and I am willing to pay that for good games. 1€/free really is just the garbage bin.

Of course, numbers disagree with me, as you correctly point out with "freemium/f2p".
I wonder if at some point people will realise that "free" to play is not free at all; but often costs you more in the long run; and also makes for terrible - for the player - game mechanics: with timers, secondary resources/currencies, ridiculous paywalls and whatnot.
I am oldschool, I prefer my games to not have stuff like that.
I really don't want to know what games like X-Com, Warhammer Quest, or the Spiderweb ones would look like if they implemented typical f2p mechanics. Unpleasant, for sure.

 

Personally I rarely pay more than 69p simply because I don't have to.

There are dozens of games I want - and I never have time to play all of the games I have - so unless there's a game I particularly want more than the others then I have no reason not to just wait.

 

I agree with these posts and this is why I love my ipad so much.

I am *cough* 40 *cough* and have spent top £ all my life for a game I like. I have had pretty much every console out there (some several times) but gave up consoles over a year ago (ps3) and thought I would stick to my ipad. Many reasons for this mainly time related which is where iOS really comes into its own - ie hotels with work or plane journeys etc.

Some of my favourite games of yesteryear are available to me e.g. Commodore 64 (my first machine), final fantasy, z, sim city, broken sword, xcom, baldurs gate, command and conquer and so on. I paid over £30 for Broken Sword on Ps1 and here I can get for £2.99!!!

My point is that I was not raised paying 69p/0.99$ for a game therefore I can appreciate that £3, £5, £10 can give you just as much value for money and support the team behind it. All games should be at least £2-£3. Sure devs will offer occasional sales but they will benefit from the extra income and in Some cases be able to afford to bring out more top quality games rather than go bust and waste their talent.

Example is galaxy on fire 2 - staff job losses due to lack of money. One of the best games on iOS and we may not see a sequel as a result.

Fremium also gives you them silly counters where you have to wait before you play more. Can't stand that!!

 

Me too!

For my next game, which i hope to release very shortly, i've actually bit the bullet and decided to go freemium with iap instead. Going to see how this compares with my previous apps in terms of downloads/sales..

I just feel as a newbie dev, selling for $1 for the full app is just not working for me..

Cheers,

 

By the way, for me - speaking as an iOS gamer and not as a dev - i feel that $0.99 is the standard price and am only willing to pay up to $5 ish if i feel the game is really top quality (think "iOS AAA game", if you will).