Comments on: What Would a 2.99 Price Point Do To Casual Games?

By: Brian Meidell

Brian Meidell — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:25:32 +0000

6.99 is already much, much too low. Going to 2.99 would mean something like 50 cents per game royalty to the developer (because of the disproportionately high payment processing costs and bad royalty share).

The portals simply can’t move the numbers needed to make it a viable business for devs if they go that low.

There may have been business sense in 6.99 for the portals (but certainly not for the devs), but I think even though would suffer with 2.99.

The daily deal program is a decent deal for devs, though – it brings a good lump of money in on an old game which had long since slid off the charts (Deep Blue Sea 1 ran as a Daily Deal, and it made a decent lump sum).

By: Jake Birkett

Jake Birkett — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:55:24 +0000

As more devs flee the casual download market for “greener pastures” like Facebook it’ll leave more room for the better devs to succeed (providing that the customers don’t flee too).

By: Juuso

Juuso — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:31:14 +0000

Ah, okay. Thanks for this.

Well… we’ll see how it goes. First it was $20 then $10 then $7 and slowly coming to $6… soon it’ll be $3, then $1-2 ;)

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:54:00 +0000

There are plenty of good free games out, I don’t believe that lowering the price necessarily “shoots developers in the foot” or whatever. And I have seen free flash games with microtransactions in them, which give me mixed feelings.

By: Jake Birkett

Jake Birkett — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:45:00 +0000

@Juuso: To answer you indirectly, the $2.99 thing only seems to happen for games one or more years old e.g. http://www.casualcharts.com/games/detail/spiritofwanderinglegend.html

By: Fabiomoreiradasilva

Fabiomoreiradasilva — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:32:03 +0000

I´m afraid about the “zero-running-prices”, as happening in AppStore .

Indiealliance appears to be a good move to get audience to indies (I did not send any games to them yet).

Anyway, keep swiming.

By: incognito

incognito — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:28:27 +0000

Sorry, wanted to stay anonymous.
I have been a casual download game dev for few years now. Let’s face it: IT’S DEAD NOW.
too much competition (almost 2 games released per day on BFG), too little exposure, too little revenue. There isn’t any long tail anymore and the dev cost have skyrocketed. No need to be a math expert to see that the figure don’t add up.

Yes, some very lucky dev with an EXCELENT game can make big money but for the most of us it doesn’t make any senses anymore.

By: Jerrac

Jerrac — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:57:07 +0000

As a gamer with a limited budget, I hardly ever touch games until their prices are at least cut in half. I’ve only ever bought one console game at it’s $60 dollar price, the rest I’ve bought used, or on sale.

Personally, most games regular prices are horribly high. Even Indie games like World of Goo. It’s regular price was $19.99. I’d never buy it at that price. I’d consider it at $10, and when they released it as part of that ‘pay what you want’ deal, I snapped it up.

Casual games are designed for people who just want a quick break. If someone is just looking for a quick break, they aren’t going to pay much for it. So, $5 would be the price I’d look for.

$2.99 does seem a bit low. But it definitely lowers the risk factor. People regularly pay more than that for a cup of coffee. So if they buy the game and only spend 15 minutes on it, it wasn’t a waste of money for them. Where if it was more than that, they’d feel bad about wasting money, and be less likely to buy new games.

As an entry level developer, I don’t have any experience with the game market. So, if I ever release a game, I’ll have to do a lot of reading and experimenting to figure things out. From what I have read, and how I personally buy games, I’ll look for a midrange price that is less than the normal high prices. I’ll also create add in content. That’s where I think most money will be made in the future.

By: Juuso

Juuso — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:56:38 +0000

@Jake: I suppose. I don’t know when “The Spirit of Wandering: The Legend” was published on BFG. How long it takes for games to become “old” and stop “generating revenue at $6.99″?

By: Juuso

Juuso — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:01:25 +0000

Good discussion folks.

I sort of lean to go with laurent here:
“I think it is a signal to dev’s that a new means of revenue is needed”