What do you think is a fair price for a new adventure game?
Does it make a difference if the game is "retro-styled" or not? Hand-painted graphics or 3D? A remake or an original game?
What are you thoughts?
I've been seeing a number of people complain that some of these new projects (Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, for example) are too expensive at $20. TWENTY BUCKS.
My God. I pay more than that for a new movie on bluray. I pay more than that to go out for a cheap meal with my wife and daughter. I pay MORE THAN TWICE THAT to fill my gas tank.
People are such entitled little whiners nowadays. I hate them all.
In general, not just adventure games, I don't like paying more than $20. Basically I enjoy all the Steam/GOG sales.
to quote Guybrush Threepwood "never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game" lol
sorry just had to say that somewhere. As for your question, honestly, if a game is retro-themed, like say a platformer that wants to be"8-bit" I have a hard time giving more than 15 dollars for it as presentation and more modern graphics do influence our decision even if only subconsciously
I'm going to go spend about $15 on lunch today. Then later on, I'll s*** it out into the toilet and flush it away. $15 well spent!
I'd never pay that for a video game though. Sleazy, money-grubbing developers, trying to get paid for their work. f*** those guys.
You want it cheaper than that?
You can charge whatever you want for your game, Lamb, I'm just giving you my take on it
plus, you're comparing food (a necessity) to a game (A luxury).
Expensive lunch.
Quote from: GrahamRocks! on May 10, 2013, 08:29:26 AM
You want it cheaper than that?
Yes. I firmly believe that game developers are not entitled to any meaningful compensation for their work. In fact, I'd prefer if they paid me to play their games.
Quote from: Lambonius on May 10, 2013, 08:20:29 AM
I'm going to go spend about $15 on lunch today. Then later on, I'll s*** it out into the toilet and flush it away. $15 well spent!
No, no, no. That's what happens to the excess waste that
holds nutrients. You can't use that, so of course you get rid of it. :) Your body doesn't hoard things it doesn't need. :) When you buy food, you're paying for the experience of eating nutrients that have been prepared in such a way to make them taste good and be a nicer experience. :)
Seriously, no one is forcing you to pay $15 on lunch. You could probably eat a very cheap meal for something like $2, particularly if you decided to eat in. The point is, you're willing to spend that much on both lunch and video games. Not everyone has your budget; this is a forum predominantly filled with 20-somethings, not statistically the wealthiest demographic ever. Try to keep a little perspective. ;)
Quote from: GrahamRocks! on May 10, 2013, 08:29:26 AM
You want it cheaper than that?
It's okay, Lamb doesn't trigger everyone's sarcasmometer. :P
True. Although I hear that getting paid to play video games IS a real job.
It is. :P Though sometimes they just get the games and do the labour for free, depending on the job. :P
Last game I dropped full price on was Skyrim, mostly because I knew I'd get a lot of mileage out of it. I usually pick up strategy games for $20. Indie games, adventure games etc., I wait until they are in $5-$10 range.
heck I waited until games were $2.50 on gog.com to buy them :P
Speaking of GOG.com, The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and a bunch other games are now 60% off!
already own those two :P
Just picked up Primordia and Miasmata thanks to the sale, don't know when I'll ever have time to play them but I picked them up.
Yeah, well, you know - you'll get what you pay for. If people don't want to pay developers a reasonable price for their games, they're going to end up with a wasteland of bland AAA titles from people who can sell massive amounts in bulk to make up the difference.
I don't think paying $20.00 for a game in un-reasonable at all. Hell, I paid $50 for Sierra games when I was a kid - 24 years ago. I mean, you can all pay what you think people deserve for their games, but I can tell you - it hurts the little guy when you don't feel like paying.
Bt
Well with kickstarter you have plenty of people voting for with their money, so frankly I think the little guy has more options than they used to.
And for a lot of folks it is not so much a willingness to pay as opposed to an ability to pay, there are plenty of games I have to skip over because I can't afford them.
I do think you two are being remarkably shortsighted. It's great you had the money to shell out $50 per game when you were a kid; not everyone did or could afford to. :P Similarly, not everyone can now. :P This shouldn't make you angry. It's just the way the world is now.
I believe in a world in which artisans are patronised and rewarded as much as anyone else. Of course it makes me sad that there are dwindling numbers of these artisans and, by extension, original works of art. That doesn't mean I can spend more money than I can afford to. That doesn't mean I don't see the correlation. It means some of us don't have the option of acting any differently. What a limited world you must live in not to recognise that.
I would like to pay every artist what I think their game is worth but I don't have enough money for that. So if there are any adventure games I think really deserve the money, I'll buy them for full or nearly-full price. Most other things I'll pick up for half-price or better when they inevitably go on sale. :S
It's not about whether I think the game is worth that much, it's about how I can justify spending money when I'm not earning and will probably not earn much when I do.
I'm not asking people to pay $50 per game - I just think that some people's attitude towards what they should pay is skewed. It's $29.99 to by the whole series of Cognition games from PoS right now, which I think is a damn good price for the amount of episodes you get.
And it wasn't easy spending $50 in 1989 for a game. I had to work my ass off to do so - and being able to buy that game was a treat that I earned. The entitlement that people feel towards their entertainment today, be it games, films, music, etc. is staggering.
Bt
You just explained that spending money on a good game required hard work for you. I don't doubt that, but there is no shortage of great games, especially these days. I'm sure Cognition is great, but for me there are cheaper options that also on my list.
You guys are doing a labor of love, I'm sorry the financial reward is not reflective of that but that was never the goal.
Actually, I'm not arguing for my game - I feel our retail price will be respectable, and no doubt there will be sales that people will pick it up on.
I'm just talking about support for the indie development community at large - and adventure games in the larger sense. Seems to me that people seem to think adventure game developers run on warm feelings. While the warm feelings are nice, they don't pay bills.
Bt
I'm selling warm feelings. Only $15 a pop.
Does that make Lamb a very cheap prostitute? :P
I'm not sure he's not just trying to recoup his losses for lunch... it's later now and he's selling something that feels warm :X ...
I'm not trying to be heartless guys, but truth is, I spent 15 euro on GOG games because that's all I could afford to this month.
Admittedly, when I speak in dollars I really mean euro (so feel free to increase the price I'm willing to pay by 20-30%), if I can, i will buy quest for infamy, of that, there is no doubt, I don't know what you'll price it for, but if you're going to charge it above 20 dollars/euro i'm going to have a hard time buying it.
It's not because I feel games aren't worth more or because your game "sucks", it's simply because I don't earn a salary and as such I have to be very careful with what I spend money on
Though I won't admit it in court, I have pirated games before when I wasn't sure if I would enjoy them or not. There are some instances where I would legally buy the game afterwards because I enjoyed it, and there are some instances where, even after getting the game for free, I STILL felt ripped off (Command & Conquer 4 comes to mind). Regardless, I suddenly grew a conscience and decided not to pirate games anymore unless the DRM that comes with the game is unforgivably harsh...EA Games, I'm looking at you.
At least EA recently went on record to say DRM is a lost cause. So maybe they finally learned?
I think publishers have different tiers of DRM in their heads, they probably just meant their latest super DRM might have been foolish. :P
technically STEAM is a form of DRM, but it's a form of DRM that most people don't seem to mind, don't know why they insist on this "always online" stuff, I'll never buy a game that requires that
They may have said that, but really all they mean is they're not going to CALL it DRM. "DRM" is a dirty word in video gaming, so they have to come up with other ways of dressing it up. Make no mistake--all they're talking about is putting lipstick on a pig.
at least it'll be one sexy pig
Quote from: stika on May 11, 2013, 01:29:29 PM
at least it'll be one sexy pig
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hhsd3bSzvyM/UEWg9N4KtvI/AAAAAAAAOpw/5fGSLn7JzA4/s1600/spock-eyebrow1.png)
Too illogical?
No, it's just that "at least it'll be one sexy pig" is such an absolutely bizarre statement that even Spock would be taken aback by it.
If Spock used the internet he'd have killed himself a looooooong time ago
DRM has become a dirty word, you're right. But also, there are ways to do DRM that aren't as bad as people make them out to be, and as proven time and time again, it's not like there's no cause to want to use them. The DRM we originally had on Cognition, for example, was a one-time activation--that's all. No always online crap, no one download only, just a quick activation and you were done. Obviously, the DRM was not popular and there were some technical issues as well, which is why we got rid of it. But the Game Dev Tycoon experiment in particular proves that indie devs get hurt by how much pirating there is, even when a game is inexpensive.
This has gone off the topic of how much you would pay, granted. I agree that $20 is not a lot and is a perfectly reasonable price, especially when console games cost upwards of $50 or $60. Can $20 be too high an amount for some people at the same time? Yes. But that's when you can hit up sales or bundle deals. For a start-up indie dev, getting copies out there is almost as important as getting people to buy the game for the full amount, because your first game is most likely NOT going to be seen or heard of by a lot of people. Even Telltale was a relative unknown for a while until The Walking Dead, one of the niche indie devs, and that's WITH having made games in known licenses going for it.
i wouldnt mind playing for a new kings Quest game but than..it should be longer to play than the Episodes are,seriously i would not play for a game and finish it in 2 hours??
I would feel kinda betrayed i know that this games costs money to produce but look at the other kq you paid for the collection or for the singles games and they gave you hours of joy and playtime to enjoy, see the point where i am getting to?
Besides i dont have a creditcard i am not from amercia, if i could buy that game here with bank transfer, fine to me? but if not the silverline games would now continue to be a only when you pay for it game the fun would end for me.
its not ok to play lets say 30 Dollars for a game witch only gave you 2 hours to play?all those episodes were to quick over..when people would spent money for it wouldnt they deserve to it get more to enjoy those games with more hours to play those games?and yes i really mean what i say, if someone doesnt like it sry but i dont like things are coming when i look at the other games from phoenix play for a episode that is quite that long as one episode from the silver lining?f but truth is you have to pay for them, feels wrong to me.
I didnt play the other games but if they are that short to play, i dont think it would be fair to want a big amount of money for it.
My two cents:
Cent one:
I don't know if i'm the only one that does this, but I never look at episodic games like TSL or anything Telltale Makes as..say 5 different games, Rather I see them as one game split into many mini parts. Which considering how the chapters of most episodic games are constructed with the storyline flowing seamlessly from one to the next, seems like a logical viewpoint to me. Given that sort of approach, I don't see TSL (as a whole) providing any fewer hours of entertainment than it's predecessors in the series.
Cent two: (and a bit of a story cause i feel old)
Back when I was a small lad, and first got hooked on adventure games with KQ5...
(the game most people hate and I LOVE as long as it's the no voice acting floppy disk version.)
I would perhaps once a year be able to convince my parents to shell out 40/50 1990's dollars to buy me an adventure game. Of course back then it was a lot easier to "borrow" games from friends as long as you had a floppy drive in your computer, some spare disks and access to a library,
(so you could photocopy the copy protections in the manual)
I sure as hell did a lot of "borrowing" right up until copy protection became completely onerous sometime in the mid 2000's but by then I had money of my own to spend, so it wasn't a big deal.
The point i'm trying to make here is, I've been used to adventure games costing $40/$50 since...forever, and just because they lost popularity, with the mainstream doesn't mean they take less time and energy to make than...a Skyrim or a Starcraft II. Do I take advantage of the fact that most adventure games have a lower price point due to it not being a widely popular genre, and are on sale very often?
You bet your butt.
Adventure games are my gaming bread and butter and I'm happy that I can get them for cheap, but If I really, really wanted an adventure game, I'd shell out just as much as I would for any other new game I really wanted. around the 40/50 range.
Now I have a job, I can spend some like $100 a month.