Sometimes they don't even refund you for a software that doesn't perform its function (or perform its function very poorly).
Well, I'd resisted commenting on this primarily because I'm failing to comprehend the level of extreme negativity to a sale on an excellent product. Irrelevant of when or the gap between launch and now. If the product represents a value for money proposition at whatever price one bought it, well then, future sales are irrelevant at that particular time. Be it four days ago or four minutes ago. And one would assume that if one bought it, they did indeed consider it a value for money proposition at the time. Anyway, that's neither here nor there at this stage. While I fully agree and understand what you have said and respect that you took the time to interact on the point, I have to respectfully disagree on one point, I don't actually believe you guys screwed up at all. In fact I would say that considering the position, the choice you made was in fact very proactive in relation to your own position and a fully necessary step taking in to account some of the analytics of numbers I've seen and the potential benefit of the exposure. While it will cause some to have extreme negative reactions and it is of course unfortunate, you took what I would consider to be the necessary steps (unfortunately necessary) considering the numbers just were not coming in high enough and most certainly not reflective of the quality of the product. And you took the steps quickly which is even more important. The sale did after all manage to kick in before the peak download day of the week thus limiting the numbers that might feel "stung" as early adopters. So, no, you guys didn't screw up at all. You simply adapted to the situation very quickly and took the appropriate necessary steps. And by doing so quickly, limited possible problems. I personally think ye did very well and can see no reason to do anything but support the decisions ye made. Well done. I see it has helped the numbers some bit so far. I hope it helps a lot more and would like to see those numbers a lot higher. And, by the way, thanks for a great game. Edit. To those considering looking for a refund, by clicking the "I agree", you have agreed to the terms and conditions of the App Store. One of those terms and conditions is "Prices for products offered via the Services may change at any time, and the Services do not provide price protection or refunds in the event of a price reduction or promotional offering". Here's a link to the full terms, of which all who purchase on the App Store have accepted and agreed to by clicking that "I agree" that comes on first registering with App Store or on an update to those terms, for those interested. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/terms.html#GIFTS And lets not forget that at the time of purchase, you had made a choice and conscious decision to purchase it at the displayed price and it does fulfil its functionality as described in its description. You were not under any duress or external pressures to purchase it at that price and you were not deceived as to its functionality in any way. While I fully understand the principle of post purchase dissonance, the kind of reaction I'm seeing here in relation to a price drop that equals a minute amount of money in relation to the excellent product one is getting, is really more of a reflection of something else that I won't detail, but is beyond ridiculous and beyond any form of normal comprehension or understanding of what is a capitalist system in which we all operate in and have to adapt with. Sorry, but it just is more than a bit silly.
Although the TOA does say no refunds, that's not even remotely legally binding in the vast majority of the world (and outright illegal in a good deal of it) so the truth is that Apple has you agree to binding sales but then gives out refunds anyhow if you can provide a reason, go figure. It's a largely automated process nowadays, you go here: https://reportaproblem.apple.com/ Sign in, select the purchase, run through the drop downs, fill in a reason, hit submit. I'm guessing here you select "Problem is not listed..." and then explain the developer has stated that they screwed up by reducing the price so sharply mere days after launch and has authorized anyone unhappy by the drop to seek a refund.
Nope. Not even slightly annoying. Sell that game, guys. If it means a price drop, do it. Make some more games in the future. All good. Edit: maybe annoying to the developer. To have to half the price of a game mere days old. Way worse for them than for anyone else. Hopefully it evens out and they sell at least twice as many copies.
Very good point indeed. I bet it is annoying for them to drop the price after a few days, since they cannot generate enough sales to reach their target. Sometimes you need to look from their perspective. It is either poor sales with $5.99 price tag or way better sales at $2.99, in which they probably think why don't I go back and work 2K with guarantee paycheck and marketing team to do this kind of job for them.
I really hope this game at least makes it to the top 25. I just don't understand. Everyone loves sci-fi. And these 1 star reviews on iTunes because of the price drop are auper annoying and tarnishing the game, making it less likely to make max sales during the price cut
Those people are very miserable and should get a life. Seriously??? for paying $3 more for a great game in which they probably going to rate five stars for their experience. Now, if less people buy it, because of these reviews, we are probably going to see $0.99 sale soon. Say bye bye to Epoch 3 or at least premium Epoch 3. In addition, some idiots decide to rate these reviews as helpful, so these reviews end up on the very top of the review list. How the heck is that helpful for people who wanted an impression of the game?
If Oceanhorn drops this week, then Saansilt might as well get out his flamethrower gifs out, cause TA will go down in flames (both kinds).
It is #25 overall paid apps right now in the USA AppStore. It was also seeming to do ok on the charts I thought before the "sale". Given this is the third app by the same dev and the third time there was a "sale" quickly after launch, I don't understand how the dev can say "oops we did it again" and people just accept it as if its the devs first experience on the AppStore. I'm not saying devs shouldn't strategize sales and stuff to promote their games, just maybe be honest about it? Or not. Either way its their game to promote however they want. It's our job to evaluate our individual interest in the app, the dev, and its price and determine if its something that must be played. It's cool when there are devs that take the other path of just making a great game and not having any sales or IAP get in the way. Games like SurvivalCraft & 9th Dawn. It'll be so easy for me to just buy whatever those devs make since they never messed around with all this stuff. Heck it was easy to buy JunkJackX and Terraria at launch on ios. If they have sales later I won't care, though the track record so far seems to have them leaning more on the no-nonsense side of marketing.
It's a "shitty" move until you yourself do it, and later try to justify what you once condemned when you're forced into such a situation. You'll attempt to sugar-coat it by saying you need the money or you won't be able to continue development. This is common practice done by nearly all companies for exposure. So technically, it's not a shitty move. It's in the companies best interest to get the maximum amount of potential revenue they can get. It's in the consumer's best interested to decide whether the price point is worth the value they will be getting. You never ever get ripped off because the price you pay at the moment you procure the product is the price you deemed at the time to be the right value. If you bought the game at $6, you can't really complain because for you, at that moment, the game was worth the full $6. Someone might not think that and wait until a sale reduces the price point to what they deem is acceptable, maybe $2. In that context, what does it matter if that sale comes 1 week later, or 6 months later? If the consumer is willing to wait that long, then how long until that sales happen is irrelevant because sales would halt significantly until that time, after all the early buyers have picked the title up. E.G. I really want D.I. Riptide, but I have no intention of paying the full $30 for it because I have D.I. and it feels similar enough to me. It's a rip-off in value to me to pay 50% more for what I deem to be duplicate content. So I'll wait and wait until the price drops down to $5 or $10 instead. Let's assume all the early buyers have already picked up the game and only 1 sale is being made 1 month after release. It would actually hurt the developers to -not- put the game up for sale at 1/6 the original price. Since I have no intention of paying anymore than 1/6 of the original price, their revenue starts rising again. The basic gist is that, everybody has different values that they attach to content, and no one has any authority to dictate those values. Of course, when you factor in exclusive deals, promotions, etc, it gets really complex.
No, Ed, you didn't screw up. You're just having (unfortunately) a few persons in your customers base who devalute your product without hesitation and grudge you 2-3 more bucks for a high quality product. All this rage and uproar because of 2-3 dollars. I wish I had those problems to care about. A while ago on these forums, there was much more love and care for developers with quality products and a very supportive nature. Now people get totally upset when developers need to take action because of the highly competitive structure of the Appstore. I guess the Appstore changed and so did the people. And then those people start to moan when more and more developers rely on freemium products. I assume that most of the people complaining don't have any clues about development and advertising costs.
