Yeah, I know this thread... fought my 25-30 price discussion battles here, like a bunch of other reasonable people... INSM once said (or was it Eli?) that sarcasm and irony are totally allowed in this thread because this is the price discussion garbage thread or sth like that. Could mean no mercy for the price trolls. ...and really, I totally start to cry when I hear all those tragic stories!
Glad you like the game! The original Fieldrunners for iPad only went on sale maybe once or twice in the past four years - no time near its launch - so you should probably expect something similar with FR2 HD.
I haven't had time to read the thread as there are 215 pages of posts but wanted to add my thoughts. My name is Iain McNeil, owner of the Slitherine/Matrix group. As a developer & publisher of strategy & wargames on PC, console and iOS with 12 years and over 100 releases we have a pretty extensive knowledge of our market. I can only comment on our particular niche. If we released games at $0.99 we would be out of business within the year. The price elasticity of our market is very low. Dropping prices does in crease sales of course but not by enough to cover the loss in revenue. Generally our PC games release for $40 as a digital download though some are as much as $80. Boxes cost an additional ~$10+shipping. That means you can be spending over $100 for a game. We don't do heavy discounts and you will never see our games in steam type sales for 75% off. Once a year we do a holiday sale but that's usually around 1/3 off for selected titles. As a publisher we have a duty to our developers to maximise the revenues for their games. As a publisher we have a duty to our customers not to rip them off. We have to find a price point that generates the most revenue and we have to avoid massive sales soon after release. On iOS our prices are lower but our flagship title (Battle Academy - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battle-academy/id499901136) is $20. We received lot of stick for this at first release but you only have to look at the reviews to see how much players love the game - we're averaging 4.5-5 stars in every store and have been sitting high in the charts since release. There are also 3 in app purchases which add extra campaigns for $10 each. This released in March and we have not dropped the price and have no plans to. We have a dedicated fan base and we do not intend to rip of our hardcore fans by price cutting soon after release. We want to encourage people to be early adopters, not reward them for holding out. I personally hate playing freemium games. I know they are very popular but they are not for me personally. I want to buy a game and own it all and know what it cost. I don't want to have constant drip feeding of money. If you go down the premium route then you need to get your pricing right. Our developers are not driving around in Ferrari's. They are working hard to make a living and some do well others not so, but they deserve every penny they get. I have no problem with people looking at games and thinking they are too expensive . That's entirely your decision to buy or not. What I really get wound up about is people thinking they have some right to get games at a price they decide and thinking they understand the economics of an industry they really know nothing about.
Yeesh, wishing death on a group of human beings over a $3 video game. I honestly can't believe the world we live in Source for this claim?
The question is not "in which world?" but "in which asylum are we accidentally confined?". My thoughts when I read such things. What's next? Headlines with "Gamer shot down 12 developers in an amok run because they've priced an app at 5$"? Disgusting.
This thread is funny ! Again being in my 30's i remember the 80's and the birth of the 8 bit home computers. As a kid you wanted to get as many games as you could but most were priced £7.95 (About $12) each so you couldnt buy that many which was frustrating specially on small pocket money back in the 80's. Kids seem to get much more nowadays ! Roll on years later and i'm amazed at all these great games for a dollar or two. But even so you get SO many people waiting for price drops (and then moaning when devs go freemium as they have to try and get some money). I dont moan at the devs for going freemium, i moan at the people who are being super cheap and mostly wait for games to go free or price drops. The prices of games on iOS i still cant believe, i personally think there should be a minimum $5 on each game ! But every week theres great games at a dollar or two, just amazes an old man like me ! So yeah seeing juvenile threats about some $3 game, just embarassing really.
YEAH! Those were the times of youth when we actually stole games instead of pirating them! Kidding aside, I fully agree with you. I shelled out about 60,- or 70,- Deutsche Mark for Pools of Radiance back then! I saved parts of my pocket money for four months. I could have been faster... but I needed cash for cinema and popcorn! Damn you girls of my youth! *raises and shakes fist*
Well that was a complete waste of time... not impressed. Good luck with the game, guys, and bring on the apologists! DBC
This is just a way to grab money. Is every update that has awesome sounding content gonna cost $10? Eventually it will cost more then call of duty mw3! And which do you prefer? Lake effect should take a page out of the pixbit's book. Every update they make has a ton more content then the previous one and they don't do expansion pack. The updates are 100% free.
This would have been the greatest update if it had actually been free. Hopefully nobody buys the IAP and they just make it free in an update.
Game Impressions Is this a bad joke? Seriously screw this game! Its really frustrating because it had so much potential when it first came out. I bought it on release and felt immediately gouged when I noticed that you could buy ranks. But it was a pretty good game so I kept playing until they released an update that made the game crash on start-up. I deleted it and reinstalled it and it worked until the next update when even after reinstall it kept crashing. They eventually fixed that too but I had long moved on to games more worth of my time. Too little too late. And now this??? When I saw the latest update I thought maybe this will make up for all the crashing and lack of content but then I saw its A PAID UPDATE! Really? Who does that?
I was excited to play the update also... Big fan of game. Now paid for map expansion? $3 sale? Really? Really? Really? I support them when I bought this game full price. Through all the price changes I didn't care the crashes I didn't care. Then they made an empty promise to us that stayed with new maps soon. Oh but by the way it's expensive. I was willing to buy it maybe but this is such bs you have lost a future player for any games you make. Delete this game
What got into Lake Effect's minds?? Are they crazy?? This is the first app to go from my iPhone's home screen straight off the device. (And I used to love it so much that it's the only game in the last 2 years to make it to my home screen!) No temporary holding on to it in a folder off the home screen. I already paid 5 bucks for the game when it first came out and now they want another 5 bucks or else I'll have to put up with some stupid flashing "UPDATE ME!!!" button in the game? This really is a steamy load of bullfeces. Really, Lake Effect, what are you thinking???
Oh yeah I wrote what I wrote here on their FB page and all they could come back with is "2 new maps and tons of player/weapons customizations!" I never even played the update. The map price sickened me. I hate they ruined one my favorite games. Funny thing is if they never updated and came out with TF2 instead with that price I would've prob bought it.
The game is too high. Period. I really hope they consider drastically dropping the price for Christmas. You will actually get ALOT more sales if you don't take the greedy approach. There is a reason why the games in the Top 10 for iOS are under $10. Nobody wants to pay $20 for what is essentially a 'game'. There are real apps on the app store dedicated to business and productivity, and they are not asking $20 for their app. Sure I would buy the game and vote for you guys as the best, but not at your current price point. This is not the 90's.
Aaaaand this is why we can't have nice things. On any other platform you would think this cheap at £13.99. But for some reason on iOS it has to be 69p, this leads to too many simple generic games..... I could go on for ages about all the ways you're wrong but I have an inkling your opinion won't be changed. Any body who spends half a grand or more on an ipad then complains about a game less than 15 quid isn't reasonable.
