The insanity of mobile gaming price model acceptance

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by Wizard_Mike, Mar 22, 2014.

  1. Wizard_Mike

    Wizard_Mike Well-Known Member

    Mar 17, 2011
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    The more I read comments around here about new games, either coming soon or just released, the more perplexed I get. It seems no matter what, there is no such thing as a generally accepted price model.

    $5 or more — "This is perposterous!"
    $2 - $5 — "Might be worth it if it was $0.99. I'll wait for a sale."
    $0.99 — "Not sure if this looks worth a buck. I'll wait for it to go free."
    Free — "Anyone try this yet? Is it worth downloading? Waiting for impressions."

    It's almost as if the price isn't actually the issue, but the effort. At this point I'm seriously wondering if devs started giving out $1 Appstore credits to people for downloading a free game, would people still debate whether it's worth it? I can just see it now: "I had to play this game for 10 minutes in one sitting in order to earn the $1 credit. That's not including the download time. Not really worth it unless you are into these kind of games." Or worse yet, "Anyone try this yet? Is it worth it?"

    Welcome to the TA community, where $0.99 is too expensive and free is even worse! You show us a price model and we'll rip it to shreads in a heartbeat, provided that doing so is worth our time. Actually, we'll probably just ask someone else to look at the price model to find out if it's worth looking at.
     
  2. Anonomation

    Anonomation 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    It's not the pricing if the game , it's the quality of the game itself. Do you wanna buy a 5 dollar ios game that's a match 3 ? There's definitely some free games out there that are really not worth and a waste if time. That's why so many people get mad when a game thy bought goes free. It's a total waste of money. There's also others things such as gameplay, graphics, usage space, and the device compatibility.
     
  3. Bronxsta

    Bronxsta Well-Known Member

    Oh, this irks me as well. I'm happy FTL is going to be $10. IOS games are sadly so underpriced and devalued. Really? A $1, $2, $3 for hours of gameplay, good visuals, etc. That's a disgraceful to developers. The perception of price on IOS is totally misconstrued compared to every other game store.

    On PC, Breach & Clear is currently $10, full price is $15. That's reasonable; other PC tactical games like Door Kickers are around that price. On IOS? $4

    Tiny Thief: $15 on PC for five to six hours of gameplay, cute graphics and nice animations. Maybe a tad expensive (I think $10 is better), but still a fair price for the game. $3 on the App Store

    Now in regards to free games, the reason I know I might be hesitant to even download the game is because I don't even want to waste the space downloading and installing if it's a freemium, ad-ridden, paywall/timer-heavy mess.
     
  4. As said, it's not about the prize but the value of the game itself.
     
  5. zdn1042

    zdn1042 Well-Known Member

    May 10, 2013
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    ^ this
     
  6. Based Xatu

    Based Xatu Well-Known Member

    Aug 27, 2013
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    I love this.
     
  7. undeadcow

    undeadcow Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2010
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    #7 undeadcow, Mar 23, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2014
    I think the big reason iOS gamers focus so much on price or hesitate even with freebies is because App Store is a sea of shovelware filth where taking a chance on a game is actually a gamble (there's a lot of good stuff but buyer beware). Other avenues like Steam have approval processes ensuring some quality.

    Indie games and digital downloads on PC are usually cheap too; the only area of gaming clinging to higher prices are consoles and premium AAA studio titles at launch (and those quickly discount). Many times PC equivilants of iOS games go for around the same prices (i.e. Darkstone iOS IAP is $4.99 and PC edition is $5.99; similar with Super Hexagon, Braveland, etc) or get bundled for even cheaper (i.e. Hero Siege has been repeatedly bundled, at least 4 times to be had for under $1). For example, GOG has a $1.79 digital download sale right now and Steam keys often get tossed around dirt cheap (humblebundle, indiegala, etc, etc) if not on direct discount at Steam (often 75%+ off). Bronxsta points out some exceptions and that's a fair point for bug studio titles like Rovio but many iOS games have been typically cheaper indie games.
     
  8. tea

    tea Well-Known Member

    Jul 23, 2010
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    My 2 cents

    Well, there was a Gamasutra post where a dev stated 'I'm glad our game went free, at least it can't get any lower than that'.
    Other devs commented like this: "Can't go lower? we pay players to play our game, and it works".

    Other devs pointed out that, the only reason $1 is the cheapest games go is that apple didn't set a 2 cents price point.

    I think part of the problem (should we call it that?) is that we're talking about digital entertainment, without much of a mechanism for regulating price.

    There's a lot in "digital" ...
    #1 a lot of people still don't get why they need to pay money for bytes.
    #2 it's a lot harder for devs to decide what we should charge for a game. If I rented a booth in an amusement park I might charge you $1 per play but I have to pay for the rent, so although you play only 1 to 5 minutes I can't charge less than $1, and that is that.

    Digital downloads are an uneasy concept. I do think boxed games made more sense price-wise although, it's a lot harder for indies to get into this.

    Competition over price is probably hurting game quality already. Reminds me of a time people wanted to fly dirt cheap, finally they had to make a blacklist of plane companies that weren't safe to fly with.
    And there's too much investment going into free games atm. Sooner or later this can be expected to backfire and it won't be pretty.
     
  9. Bronxsta

    Bronxsta Well-Known Member

    #9 Bronxsta, Mar 23, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2014
    I've been in Steam forums, debating price and IOS and whatnot in regards to the Breach & Clear port (but I'm fed up now, it's a hopeless fight), and I think this quote from the FTL devs best sums up the perception of mobile pricing. At least in regards to prices on IOS/Android and other game stores
     
  10. HansKaosu

    HansKaosu Well-Known Member

    Nov 19, 2013
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    #10 HansKaosu, Mar 23, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2014
    I will pay almost any price if the quality of the game can justify the price.

    iOS is just another gaming platform. Just cause you can play it on a tiny phone or a tablet does not bean charging a lot of money for a quality game is a crime. Developers making good games should be rewarded.

    Of course there is a price limit to everything.

    Have you visited steam recently?

    Steam does not do any quality control.. they are turning Steam into a open release platform.

    Greenlight is going away.. Publishers can dump all their old buggy back catalog on steam.. they don´t even have to work, does not really matter you can release it.

     
  11. Stormourner

    Stormourner Well-Known Member

    Jan 31, 2014
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    sigh!!! this type of comment makes me want to punch a person in a face
     
  12. Vovin

    Vovin 👮 Spam Police 🚓

    Nov 28, 2009
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    #12 Vovin, Mar 23, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2014

    Have you ever read my signature? I have it for... hmmm... 3 years now.
    And there's a reason I've never changed it.
    And if you search for my started threads, there's one from 3 years ago, which has nearly the same content as this one.
    Have you ever read the Price Discussion Garbage Thread? It has several thousand posts... every price discussion sh!t was dumped into it a while ago.

    http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=52534

    What I am trying to say...: don't waste your time.
    You can't educate people over the internet. Some things - sadly - never change. And even if you change the opinion of 1 troll per day, there's a new troll born every hour.
     
  13. Bool Zero

    Bool Zero Well-Known Member

    Dec 14, 2010
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    I've been saying the same thing about the Steam Store as the videos commentator... Then again, I've been saying the same thing about the AppStore for ages as well.
     
  14. awp69

    awp69 Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2009
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    The sad part is that I don't think it will ever change. Devs, seeing low sales, will drop prices or even make them free for a period. This I'm turn upsets early adoptors (even those willing to pay higher prices for games, after all we still have budgets), but even more, it encourages the cheap people to wait.

    And that leads to more freemium titles just because it has the highest probability of giving devs a return on investment. This upsets hardcore gamers because we would rather pay $10 than be burdened with constant IAPs, mainly because of the unknown of how much it truly will cost us.

    There are really no winners in this game (well, the EAs, Rovios and others are winning by adapting to that freemium model, sometimes sickeningly so). If the App Store could only go back in time and devs sticking with higher prices, then maybe we'd see a different situation.

    But there's no going back and the cycle will continue.
     
  15. Nobunaga

    Nobunaga Well-Known Member

    Jun 2, 2012
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    I'm inclined to agree with Vovin.
    You're not going to change a single person's mind. I buy whatever games I want on iOS without much regard to the price. Sometimes I buy a game I know I'll probably never end up playing (OceanHorn), just to support a developer for making a game that has some depth and a lack of micro transactions.
    I don't expect a lot of people to do this. I live in North America and have a good job.
    I also buy titles at launch. I know some people on the forums do this as well. It's probably the best way of supporting a developer. If they don't get early exposure their game will probably never do well.
    I also understand why people don't buy at launch. This one is 100% on developers and publishers. How many games have I bought that have had price drops 2 - 5 days after launch... A lot. I'm not too offended by that. The couple $ doesn't really sting me that bad. It's still a process likely to offend many customers. How many games have I bought to have them convert to freemium or ad adverts... Too many. And this one does bother me. If Apple and the developers/publishers of games feel like, and act like, you have zero ownership over these products or rights to have them not altered in egregious ways, what value do they have to people?
    Yes, most AppStore users see phone games as worthless and that's bad for everyone. Unfortunately Apple and the companies releasing games on the AppStore, largely, seem to agree.
    Everyone likes to harp on SquareSoft for their "high prices". I feel fine supporting them. I own all the "premium" SE titles and they have never added adverts to one.
    I don't really see the point in trying to change people's opinions. If $.99 is too much for them, that's ok. If a company wants to ruin a game I bought and put in adverts, etc, that's ok. I just won't continue to support them. Most recently Namco.
    There'll be a niche for good developers making good products. TA has some really good users that help me to find these.
     
  16. smegly

    smegly Well-Known Member

    Mar 27, 2012
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    It's usually different people complaining about different price issues. There are some hypocrites that might complain about all the issues at the same time, but that's more about people enjoying bitching online than anything else.

    Also, some iOS developers, big and small, are making money or doing well in some other sense, so the price is working out for some.

    Another thing is that the companies that have the luxury of putting out games at a high price AND getting decent sales numbers are basically using their reputation to ignore the market trends. So whether or not you think games of quality on iOS should be priced accordingly, the market isn't actually encouraging that.

    There's also extremely poor community feedback for iOS games, even allegedly really popular games. If you want a walkthrough for any crappy console RPG that seemingly nobody played or want to see what people thought about it, you can find whole tomes on it online. It's much harder to find info on an iOS RPG that has over a million downloads. Consequently, I, and likely a lot of other iOS gamers, download or buy way more games than we actually have a particularly good experience with. So while a 5 dollar iOS game might deserve a higher price, it's devalued by the notion that whoever bought it also probably bought ten other similar games that went straight into the garbage.
     
  17. Wizard_Mike

    Wizard_Mike Well-Known Member

    Mar 17, 2011
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    I use the TA app, which doesn't show signatures. When I opened up the site with my browser to see yours, I noticed that I don't see signaturs at all (but I remember seeing em in the past, when I used the site before the TA app was released). I checked my settings, and I have show signatures enabled. Odd.

    Anyways, I looked at your public profile and saw your signature. Too funny!

    And yeah, you're right, I don't think any amount of discussion will really change anything. I think I was more just ranting than anything.
     
  18. Bronxsta

    Bronxsta Well-Known Member

    How will the masses react to a $10 FTL? Will the acclaim be enough to overcome that price stigma?
     
  19. awp69

    awp69 Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2009
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    I think they will. XCOM and KOTOR, I think both did pretty well considering the high price tag. Yes, they've both been on sale since (XCOM never lower than $9.99 and KOTOR for $4.99). But I doubt either was a failure.

    I wish FTL wasn't iPad only.
     
  20. Bool Zero

    Bool Zero Well-Known Member

    Dec 14, 2010
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    Honestly, I don't know how FTL could be anything but iPad only... The developers have even said they tried and to paraphrase, it's not to their liking and therefore they don't seem intent on perusing. But in any case, I agree. I think that games like these have their hard set fans who will support them and draw others in. Most games don't have that word of mouth power or pedigree, but for those that do, they can survive quite well on the AppStore bucking the trend and charging more than the .99¢ survival price of the AppStore...
     

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