I recently read an interesting analysis of an indie developer having a look at his sales figures and how different parameters like pricing or media coverage affected the sales. If this would have been just some dev that has brought one little game to the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace, it might not be something worth mentioning. But in fact it was the developer of the two hit titles “JoyJoy” and “Crossfire”.
When i write “hit titles”, this feels weird … what makes a game a hit title? When it sells like hotcakes? Or when a game gets reviews telling you that it is quite exceptional and great? I tend to say the second, because those games do feel like hit titles to me. If you don´t know them, then have a look here and here,
I have read about Crossfire a lot, and something i have read sometimes was that it´s too expensive. I never paid much attention to those opinions, because i didn´t think that 240 points are expensive for a title that is very polished, offers fresh gameplay and is a great game on top. But when i read the analysis and the comments to it, it hit me that while in fact it is not expensive, it is perceived as too expensive.
Once you enter the XBLIG marketplace, you see a ton of games for just 80 points. And some of them offer an unbelievable treasure of content, polish and/or gameplay. Games likes Along Came A Spider, Breath of Death VII, Your Doodles Are Bugged! or Urban Space Squirrels come with a pricetag of 80 points. Suddenly a great game has to come at 80 points or it´s expensive. At the same time players buy arcade titles all the time that cost 10 to 15 times that much and it´s not very often that i hear them complain about prices.
The point perception shifts the moment a player changes to the indie marketplace – they are expecting them to be dirt cheap or expensive, there is no grey zone.
There is a need to make gamers aware that games with a pricetag of 80 points might produce an decent acceptable income IF they are hitsellers. And this happens very rarely. Gamers need to see, that while a game is priced at 240 or 400 points, the developers still usually make very little money of them. And that it´s a fair deal to pay less than 3$ for a game like Crossfire.
This is another problem – gamers start to think in points, instead of real money. Somehow 3$ sounds a lot less than 240 points. When “I MA3D A GAME W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT” sang to me that “it costs less than a dollar” it had a different effect. Developers should start to announce the price in $ and € on the “buy my game” screen. It would shift players price perception back to triple-A titles that cost 60$, making the price look a lot cheaper.
There is a “Point Perception Problem” and if you are a gamer, then start to think in real money again.
Good points – at the very least spend the extra couple bucks just support the gaming scene. That’s the way I see it – I’ll gladly shell out $3-5 for a solid XBLIG, especially when I know I am rewarding a developer who poured heart-and-soul into it and will do it again for usually what turns out to be modest-to-zero-profit.
Excellent article and a very good idea all around. I’ll be sure to list the game’s price in real money when it comes time to do so. I think point perception is a real problem for us…its a shame that somehow its ok for a AAA game to charge 60 bucks, but we can’t charge 5. I’m still interested to see the market response to Aphelion and soon CSTW, both priced at 3.00.
I think the major issue is Indie’s setup itself, mixed with gamer perception.
If a game is on the Top Downloads, Top Rated, Best Selling or New Releases list they effectively make 2-5x as much as if they’re on no lists at all.
Top Downloads – I’m not sure if price really changes the factor on Top Downloads. I would assume that 80 point games are downloaded more often since people download trials to try games they want to buy, but it’s just an assumption.
Top Rated – Rarely will you ever see a game that is 240 points that is 4 stars or above. Games that are 240 points are rated MUCH harder than 80 point games. Because of this it’s just about impossible for games to get on this list.
Best Selling – This goes by units sold, instead of dollars/euros/profits. Because of this it is literally 3x harder for a 240 point game to get on this list.
New Releases – Once a game is off this, it’s off forever. So it’s not as relevant to point I’m trying to make.
They really should do some sort of “Top 80 Microsoft Point games” and “Top 240 Microsoft Point games”
It is likely that the majority of XBox Live users look at these lists, and these lists alone. We all know that once a weak/mediocre game is off New Release it’s basically death. So how the list system works, combined with how XBox Live gamers work anything aside from an 80-point game really has a bit of trouble.
One problem with the pricing structure is that there are many XBLA games that go for $5. When an indie game asks for just as much or close to, it’s a tough sell, because the indie game lacks achievements, usually doesn’t (or does in a limited capacity) support leaderboards or online game modes, and requires you to be connected to the Internet to play. It’s not really fair to compare the two services, XBLIG and XBLA, but because they’re hosted on the same platform, it’s bound to happen. That’s why the 80-point price works. No XBLA game would ever hit that mark, so a good XBLIG game that only costs $1 really feels like a treasure of a find.