Yeah, I've gotten at least as much joy from it! As more and more come out of the wood work the thread is just getting better and better EDIT: I've also noticed an abundance of people spelling ridiculous as REdiculous. That's ridiculous!!
Upon what do you base such a statement? This is simple economics. Game X takes Y amount of time to design and costs $Z to make and $P dollars to market, and thus needs to sell Q units at $C in order to break even. A game's price is (ideally) determined at the very minimum by how much was invested in it from start to finish, plus X% for profit (because without profit, you're a charity, not a business). Nowhere does what platform it was developed for enter into it because it's completely irrelevant. It cost $Z to make and Y amount of time to develop regardless of the platform it was designed for. Why should the platform even enter into the equation when it comes time to figure out how much it should sell for? Don't equate games for the iPhone/Touch to games for other dumbphones. These aren't crappy mobile JME games.
Look at the prices here for JME/Other http://www.clickgamer.com/ iPhone versions are still around 1/2 the price.
We could go the lazy route and just say it's ridic The app store is quite saturated with quick, quirky, and cheap games. Which is why when a premium priced game comes out it is fast pointed out and a yellow flag is out on the field. There needs to be a better balance which most probable will never happen. I'm sure it's much easier to make Fap Counter than Doom Resurrection much like how I'm sure The Moron Test was made faster than Real Racing. Big games take time and because of that money for labor and resources which is opposite of the majority of games we see. Developers also need to address that and find the happy medium and also the end user needs to see the pros and cons of the games we are getting and which ones are really the ones we want more of.
I agree with this. The Sims 3 and Real Racing, now those are truly 9.99 games. They are complex, filled with content and represent not hours but months of potential gameplay. Doom Resurrection, which is 3 hours worth of firing and dodging with regurgitated Doom 3 models and textures, well, this just does not seem like a 9.99 game, regardless of how polished it is production-wise. While the game does appear to be fun in it's own right, it just feels like price-gouging the public based on the Doom legacy which id seems content to ride hard and (maybe someday finally) put away wet. Same thing happened with Wolf when it came out for iPhone, everyone was taken aback by the initial asking price and a similiar discussion broke out on TA (though not nearly as passionate as this one). Not too long after that Wolf dropped to a much more reasonable 2.99 where it sits today. Also note the app store was filled with almost 100% 5-star ratings which is completely suspicious and reeks of basic fanboy over-enthusiasm; same thing is happening now with DR's app store ratings. I'm definitely a little bitter about id, having been an enormous fan of their games and watching them push the envelope for years only to fall absurdly far behind Epic, Valve, Blizzard etc. and now unlikely to ever reclaim their crown (witness their recent buyout). Instead I've seen nothing from them but mashups, ports and of course the endless licensing of their engines for largely subpar games. Will Rage awaken the fallen giant? I dunno, I sure hope so but I have my doubts.
Still don't understand this argument.. are you only going to play the game once and then delete it? Why is it ok to pay $10 to see a 3 hour movie but not to play a 3 hour game? Most $60 console games have less than 20 hours of gameplay in them. $3 per hour. Why should the iPhone be so different?
Thats what happens when you have maintained a small developer studio next to the ones you mentioned that have 100 people working there. I think id's buyout was due to some poor sells over the last few years and the fact that it is costing more and more money to make a game. The fact that most of the people that work at id were all pretty much the owners of the company.
Wow, a well reasoned argument...I don't even know how to begin now. Seriously, I understand what you're saying, and you are of course entitled to your opinion. It does however seem from what you wrote "While the game does appear to be fun in it's own right", etc. that you haven't played it. Sounds like at 10 bucks you won't. More power to you. I just feel that this game is well worth the 10 bucks, and I am seriously hoping that developers continue to look at the iDevices as capable of serious, viable gaming. I think supporting (not blindly, I love the game) developers who create ground-up iDevice games of this quality will only improve the app store. I also enjoy RR and Sims 3, but don't feel they are worth any more than this is.
I think part of the reason that iphone games are inherently cheaper is the fact that they don't require being put onto hardware in a factory, packaged and shipped to stores that mark the game up to make a profit. The $10 price to doom doesn't have to compete with the cost of production. Another thing that drives a lot of price reductions is the top 10 list. Its based on number of sales and a decent $.99 game is far more likely to be bought on impulse. I'm usually hesitant when buying a $10 app because in my experience I've been disapointed most of the $10 apps that I've bought. Sim City, Rolando, Xplane. While these games looked nice due to high production values they didn't really deliver on the gameplay side.
It's funny that the post deleted wasn't the one directly calling everyone an idiot in it I understand though, you gotz a job to do, and I'm making it harder sorry!
Why are you assuming he thinks it is alright to pay $10 for a 3 hour movie? Your assuming he feels the iPhone app pricing should be different. Now, having finished catching assumers... I think the reason we are in this 59p price war is because most iPhone owners aren't gamers, or don't use their iPhones for games mainly. This is the case with me, my dad, uncle, friends etc. I play most of my portable games on my DS and at home i play my 360 (sims 3+AoE3 on mac are exceptions). The only reason I ever buy games for my iPotch is because they are cheap. The previous people I mentioned seem to be in the same situation. My dad bought the odd puzzle game (1/4months) for his blackberry, but now that he sees he can get good games for 59p, he doesn't see why he should pay more, so he buys 1 a month, but cheap. put shortly, I think a lot of the consumers just want a cheap game, they are not being cheap. correct me if i'm wrong, i'll admit i'm no economic expert. On doom, it is incredibly wrong that they don't mention that it is on the rails in the app description. If we should be angru about anything, its that
Well, what perpetuates the $9.99 cap? There is nothing preventing developers from charging more. I have been reading the posts in this thread so I can understand why you would choose a kindergarden level equation to explain the basic principles of capitalism. All I am suggesting is that we do not completely disregard market forces. To use another K-level lesson; supply should be directly proportional to demand. Publishers have found three tiers that maximize their return. $9.99 is the sweet spot for most enthusiastic gamers. A $5.99 price reduction will loosen the wallets of those sitting on the fence. And 99 cent sales will rope in the demographic who sees their iPhone primarily as a phone. That doesn't vary much regardless of development cost. If anything, it is those market forces and perceptions of the platform that determine development costs and X profit margin even before the production gets the greenlight.
The only way to discuss this topic is with the boring stuff, NUMBERS! THE $0.99 GAME Firemint made a little game called Flight Control. Its a game of very simple scope (especially on initial release), that would have been made in a quite short space of time on a pretty low budget. For the sake of argument, lets say less than $100K. They launched the game for a price of $0.99 and it has turned in a massive success - selling over 1M copies worldwide. Even with that success though the profit margins are not that great: Budget = $100,000 Sales = 1,000,000 @ $0.99 = $990,000 Apple's 30% Cut = $297,000 PROFIT = $593,000 Now thats a good profit for a small game like this, but considering Flight Control is 1 of the first and only titles to make the 1M mark, not many games will ever see this kind of success at a $0.99 price point (or any other for that matter). THE "PREMIUM" GAME The only example with some solid numbers I have is Sega's Super Monkey Ball. In the 20 day period following the game's (and the App Store's) launch, Sega sold over 300,000 copies of the game @ $9.99 a go. The development cycle was pretty short (it was announced at the 1st SDK demo and launched day 1) and thus quite low. Budget = $100,000 Sales = 300,000 @ $9.99 = $2,997,000 Apple's 30% Cut = $899,100 PROFIT = $1,997,100 THE ANALYSIS SMB sold only 300K in 20 days and made almost $2M profit whereas FC took <4 months to sell 1M copies but only makes just shy of $600K profit. Big difference there. The interesting thing about looking at FC is that it is only 1 of 2 or 3 titles to reach the 1M sales mark. Nearly every app, whether .99 or not will never sell that many copies! For the sake of argument lets take a look at how id could have priced Doom Resurrection. I will assume a budget of $400K (based on Carmack's comments) and sales of either FC or SMB. @ $0.99 PROFIT = $293,000 @ $9.99 PROFIT = $1,697,100 See the difference? Now consider if the budget was more like 700K? They wouldn't even break even @ $0.99! If they sell the game at $.99, and they actually make the 1M units sold mark, they'll make a profit of $293,000. However, the game was in development for 9 months and a further 3-4 months of sales occur before this success happens. For arguments sake, lets say they break even at the mid-point in the cycle of sales, thus 10.5 months of costs to be paid before they MAKE ANY MONEY! Now look at the $9.99 model. In just 2 weeks they make almost $1.7M in profit (almost 6 times more than @ $0.99). So, using same assumptions on timeline (mid-point and dev time), they brake even after 9.5 months. 2 things that I see in these numbers are that 1) it would be much easier to sell 300K copies than 1M. And 2) i'd much rather make $1.7M profit than $300K. But maybe thats just me... The basics of economics are that any company has the intention of making a profit. AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! The best way to do this is to break even as quickly as possible, so that you are making profit as soon as possible. And the best way to do that, as evidenced by the numbers above? A $9.99 price point. NOTE: NUMBERS FOR FC AND SMB ARE BASED ON FIGURES FROM HERE AND HERE. OTHER NUMBERS ARE ASSUMPTIONS AS OUTLINED IN MY DESCRIPTION. ID COULD HAVE USED OTHER PRICE POINTS AND MY POST HAS NO REFLECTION ON QUALITY OR CONTENT OF THE GAME, OTHER THAN DEV CYCLES.
