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>Gamers have shown that they are willing to pay a whole entire dollar per game for some of the absolute best indie games released in recent years. That assumes
by batiudrami 14y ago
>Gamers have shown that they are willing to pay a whole entire dollar per game for some of the absolute best indie games released in recent years.
That assumes that people don't already own some of the games, and that they actually want all eight of the games. For instance, I already own Braid, Limbo and Psychonauts (and paid $10+ for each of them), so when the bundle came out I paid my $10 for Bastion and Sword and Sorcery (and I was only really interested in Bastion). Of the additions announced today, I already own Braid and SMB.
I think it's a lucrative week for the devs, but I think a bigger issue is that when you offer games so cheaply you significantly reduce your potential purchasing base for the future when you essentially give it away. That being said, I've seen plenty of stats which show game sales slow to a crawl very quickly unless you push it up with significant sales - it's not like 'work' software where a big sale can significantly decrease your perceived value (imagine if Adobe sold it's Creative Suite for 75% off once a year - no one would ever purchase at full price again!). Gamers are an impatient bunch and are prepared to pay full price for something they're really excited for.
You have to try and find out whether the increased volume generates more volume than it potentially removes in lost future sales, and I tend to think that it does - especially for games like Bastion which had a huge marketing effort when they were on Xbox Live Arcade which would have given them a lot of full-price exposure.
- rogerbinns 14y ago> ... you significantly reduce your potential purchasing base for the future ... It isn't quite that bad. You do get a whole bunch of money and customers at once. Is it better to have one dollar today from a customer than getting 5 dollars in several months time, from the same customer and have to spend all those intervening months doing marketing and other things to try and get the customer? Consider the price a discount for not having to spend the effort to get the customers. You also get more certainty over your future. eg if you get a cheque today for $500k then you know how much you can spend making your next game. Getting the usual daily dribbles instead makes it far harder to plan for the future. And of course you can add your game to multiple indie bundles over time so you do get multiple bites at the cherry so to speak.
- batiudrami 14y agoOh yes, of course. Like I said, these games are all several years old and have, I think mostly run their course in terms of full price sales, so I don't think these bundles significantly affect these game's future sales, and getting exposure to lots of people opens up opportunities for sales of sequels/future games. Still, it'd be worth doing the maths on - if your game is still selling well, putting it in a bundle would be foolish.