How to afford an indie game

MxLionheart

Well. That certainly entertained me for about 2 minutes 😉 Who in their right mind drinks that ridiculous coffee based drink anyway? Indeed, i would be fine with a regular coffee. And what can i say about Army of Two, but… Lol.

xot

On the nosey!

Jim

Do you really think the people who are reluctant to spend $15 on an overpriced indie game are the same people who jump at the chance to buy an overpriced coffee or an overpriced (at more than $0) avatar add-on?

Or, to put it another way: you make a good point, except that it applies to very few people, and the people who it applies to aren’t going to be reading your blog, and the people you *wish* it applied to are just going to be offended that you’re lumping them in with the retards who bought the light-saber.

Memphis-Ahn

What kind of idiot pays full price for a mainstream game anyways? I’ve only just bought Psychonauts because it was dirt cheap.
Also, everyone knows that venti mint mocha chip soy latte frapucinos are irresistible.

Alternate comic idea: Wait till price drops to $10.

Francesco Poli

This is condescending and insulting. This is going to do nothing more than further cement the idea, in people’s minds, that indie games are by and for snobs.

Matt

Of course you ignore the fact that for the price of two of these $15 indie games, I could get three $10 indie/mainstream games.

Btaylor the Rogue

I bought braid for what, 10 bucks? It was on sale for 5 for a while.

I also bought Darwinia+ for under 10 (do NOT recommend), and it’s back to it’s normal price of 10 bucks.

I also saw a copy of world of goo for 7 bucks.

Mark

Not everyone who thinks that VVVVVV is poorly priced actually spends frivolous amounts of cash on shitty console games, Starbuck’s coffee, and avatar swag.

It’s okay to be thrifty, whether purchasing coffee, avatar gear, console games, or indie games.

Sorry?

strong

hey guys some people need money to live.

and if they sell their game for more, they need to sell less games to make more money.

you don’t want these people to die, do you? do you?

(please don’t respond if you actually do)

Anonymous

Comparing VVVVVV to World of Goo or Braid is like comparing a an adobe mud brick to a cinder block.

A FLASH game done entirely in dated graphics with a repetitive gameplay element doesn’t deserve a 15 dollar price tag.

Beacon Schuler

Would this technique work for AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA?

Alex May

Oh it’s FLASH is it? Fuck me, I didn’t know that. Hey everyone, it’s FLASH. It should be fucking FREE! Loads of FLASH stuff is free!

Deltaflux

Or you wait a year and get those mainstream games for $10 second hand too.

Coward

VVVVVV should have been shorter and written in C++ and OpenGL. Won’t indies ever learn?

Hideous

I paid $35 for VVVVVV and it was still worth every penny.

Unsigner

I don’t think I’ve played four indie games, which together have brought me more joy than Gears of War 2, or Halo 3, or any of the other “sequels to boring derivative games” you try to sling mud at.

Also, keep Braid out of your dirty paws. It’s head and shoulders above all “indie” titles (and many “mainstream”) both in execution, and production values – the things your kind loves to hate.

Aubrey

Ooooh anonymous! You cunt!

m

Do you really think the people who are reluctant to spend $15 on an overpriced indie game are the same people who jump at the chance to buy an overpriced coffee or an overpriced (at more than $0) avatar add-on?

Yes. Absolutely. I know a guy that refuses to buy any piece of software (he’s a software developer too). He drives a BMW. Thing is, most people don’t value software in the same way they value physical items they can hold, including coffee and lunch.

What kind of idiot pays full price for a mainstream game anyways? I’ve only just bought Psychonauts because it was dirt cheap.

Psychonauts nearly bankrupted Majesco because no one bought it. Your $2 steam sale years after its release does little to support the idea that people even want games like that. Because, let me tell you, games of that scope need a little more than piddly $2 sales to be financed.

Comparing VVVVVV to World of Goo or Braid is like comparing a an adobe mud brick to a cinder block.

A FLASH game done entirely in dated graphics with a repetitive gameplay element doesn’t deserve a 15 dollar price tag.

Oh, I’m sorry. I missed the memo where every checklist feature has an inherent value. Good graphics? +$5 to the price. Good music? +$5 to the price.

I think you need to take a look at basic economics. Braid and World of Goo can get off at at that price because they have the resources to do so. Yes, they’re indy, but they have a lot more financing at their disposal and they had a lot more marketing behind them than the maker of V. VVVVVV is, by its nature, a much more niche product targeted towards a niche audience. There’s no way it can sell the kind of volume that some of the other bigger titles can, even if it was $5, so it has to make that up somehow to be able to keep doing this into the future.

trickfred

If speaking down to potential customers as if they were low-IQ, paste eating children that don’t know any better because they think your 5 year old game (a game I have bought multiple times already) is a tad overpriced on XBL is the indie game industry’s idea of marketing their wares, then I think I’ll be too busy drinking coffee and playing my boring, derivative copy of Mass Effect 2 to notice the Darwinia+ release date.

Bad form, IV, for retweeting this.

Richard Conroy

@m +1 “Thing is, most people don’t value software in the same way they value physical items they can hold, including coffee and lunch.”

People don’t buy indy games because they are delivered electronically, and are not tangible/physical products, unlike the plastic box with shiny DVD that is Modern Warfare 2 or whatever.

The pricing/value expectations of the games industry and consumers is all over the place.

There is possibly a good opportunity for an astute publisher to sell anthologies of the best indy titles at retail. Might work, might not work. But the games are worth playing.

Dave Gilbert

Different games are worth different prices, and it’s always a crapshoot to determine what to charge. I’m an indie developer myself, and I’ve sold my games at $5, $15 and $10. After a few games of experimenting I determined that I made the most money at $15. Sure, the cheaper games sold better but not enough to make up for the money I was losing. But this is what worked for me. Other developers are able to sell many more copies than I do, and can easily get by with a lower pricepoint.

In looking at VVVVVV, a small niche game that appeals to hardcore indie gamers, it seems perfectly priced.

Anonymous

I don’t spend my money on games that don’t deserve it. I don’t spend my money on games I don’t like. Why do I get to decide this? Because I’m the customer.

No, I don’t spend $60 on any game – that’s too much. Just like how $15 is too much for a game I wouldn’t want.

Learn to distinguish between fact and opinion. You can’t always see these things on black and white terms.

PsySal

I hear that the sequel to VVVVVVV will feature a very challenging trinket that starts on a screen called “$15 is just too much!” and then require you to jump first up, then down three terrifying, spike lined screens (for a total of six) which are called Venti, Minti, Mocha.

Dave Gilbert

I will say, though, that I’m not giving up my venti mint mochas. What are you, a philistine?

aeiowu

http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/200582690/why-i-am-not-afraid-to-take-your-money-by-amanda

I’m selling my next game for $500. I figure why even put the price point in some gray area between cheap-ass and gracious fan. You either pirate it or you pay me $500.

David Tosser

I am unsure.

I mean.. hell.. yes. some indie games are worth that. But, we really want to move there? I don’t want to raise prices for not reason at all. Part of the beaty of indie games is smallish prices and smallish downloads. If we move furter, maybe the magic will gone.

Bob

This article…wow.
People read this and like it?

Commenter

Interesting…this is basically saying that you can add an extra 5 dollars to that 15 dollar price tag and get a wide selection of 20 dollar games that will last you longer than VVVVVV.

Don’t get me wrong, VVVVVV is a great game (if not a bit overrated), one that I enjoyed…but I still think 15 dollars is overall stretching it.
This comic just fails (almost as much as the indie game community seemingly does, hurr hurr).

piemaker420

or there’s steam sales.

Anonymous

The pretentiousness in some of the comments from fans of this game is delicious.

Dragonmaw

You would pay $20 for Portal, but not $15 for VVVVVV, a game which has the same theme (grab a simple mechanic and explore it incredibly thoroughly) and roughly the same length with a delightful retro aesthetic? Baffles me.

I doubted the $15 price tag on VVVVVV, but the more I played, the more brilliant it became. It really is worth what it is priced at thanks to how focused the design is. Those saying that people defending VVVVVV are pretentious or pathetic should really take a look at themselves. You probably played Portal and loved it and think it’s worth every penny, despite having (compared to other games of the time) dated graphics, short length, and only one gameplay mechanic.

Short of it: games are worth what you get from them, not the graphics or gameplay length or number of features. Don’t be so pig-headed.

Vertel

Yes, and then again, no. A lot of indie games are worth the $15, but then I come across others which are vastly overpriced for what they are. Examples are Creeper World (originally $20, but I was happy to buy at $10) or Brainpipe (which, while fun, is just a tad too much at $15 for what it is). And then there’s World of Goo, which was so un-fun that, by rights, I should have received $20 just for playing the demo.

UK_John

Even if canny hardcore gamers downloaded the HL2 EP1 5 hour gameplay for £12, the retail price in the U.S if you bought it in a shop was $19.99 and in the U.K. was $29.99!!!

So 5 hours for $12, if you think about it shows how the big companies rip us off, however good those 5 hours are, and at either $19.99 or $29.99 you have to say ‘whoa there!’

So $15 for an indie game, if it gives 15 hours entertainment is good enough for me, just like a good $60 game is worth it if it gives 60 hours of entertainment!

The fact that modern games, for the $60, on average, give you 20 hours of dubious fun is one of the reasons indie and retro PC gaming (seen how GOG.com has grown recently?!) has growing by leaps and bounds!

A revolution against ‘streamlined’ multiformat games written for the lowest common denominator has been going on for a couple years now, and is only getting bigger. the major publishers need to get their houses in order and quick!!

My suggestion? The major publishers should give a million dollars each to the best indie teams and then get the indie developer to give the major publisher first refusal. Unless it sucks, the major publisher should get behind those titles with marketing, etc. This way we would get a proper 2nd tier marketplace that all entertainment industries have (Sundance Indie film festival, indie music scene and Public Broadcast TV

Anonymousity

It’s a bit disappointing to be cynically talked down to by a comic, just because you like most people have price point reservations. Instead of being snarky you could, like most other people who sell products, investigate the way people react to different price points and work your model around that. Instead of flinging poo in a decidedly arrogant manner.

Annoyed

Or, you know. Maybe I’m not a fan of puzzlers (Braid) or platformers (VVVVVV). Maybe the word-of-mouth about the game intrigues me, but I’m not interested enough in that sort of gameplay to drop $15.

Naah, that can’t be it. I must be spending all my money on frivolous avatar accessories and fancy drinks.

Indiegamefan

I believe the best solution is piracy! I got Braid and VVVVVV for free, and so should you!

Jambe

Your idea of what warrants expenditure isn’t universal; you are no more “right” about game-value than a Starbucks customer is about coffee-value because VALUE IS SUBJECTIVE! If you’re pissed that people won’t shell out five more bucks to buy your games, either release them for ten dollars or stop bitching. You’re not the only game designer in the world and there’s no fixed rate for development or sale. If game purchases were less discretionary than coffee purchases you MIGHT have a point, but they aren’t, and you don’t.

undead dolphin hacker

$15 is an awkward number, and further, it’s way too much for 99% of the indie shit out there. And yes, like any medium, 99% of it is shit.

“short pretentious unpolished fringe not-as-good-as-a-professional game” is the brilliant part of your post. I lol’d, because, well, it’s true. My eyes just glaze over at this point when it comes to the newest retro-style quasi-artistic platformer.

I’m not even going to try the demo 85% of the time for a $15 indie game. Really the only $15-ers I’ll go for are niche shit which I impulse buy because I know I’ll love it. Knights of the Chalice was the last one I remember, and I fucking loved it. I impulse’d Torchlight too. I didn’t like it in the long run, but I did put enough hours into it to get a good ratio of entertainment return.

$9.99 is also an awkward spot. Between Steam/Impulse/Gamer’s Gate/Direct2Drive there’s at least one $9.99 big-name game every week. Am I going to buy your diddly quasi-polished art game, or am I going to finally grab Men of War? Or Mirror’s Edge? Or Medieval: Total War 2?

Now, drop your game to $4.99 or lower and make a demo which is unlockable (ie, you’ve already downloaded it, just pay the $5 and keep going) and I’ll buy it if I even remotely enjoy it. Fuck, I paid $2.99 for Osmosis, and there’s really nothing to that game aside from relaxing colors and sounds.

You want to avoid piracy for a non-niche indie game?

1.) Hook your player with the “full-demo” version of your game, which is the only downloadable version.
2.) Price it in impulse range (I wouldn’t go higher than $7.49).
3.) Make it faster to pay to continue playing than it is to dig up a crack.
4.) Don’t f-ing dare to beg, plead, or trumpet your lax copy protection. It makes you look desperate and that slows me down long enough to say “well wait a minute, do I really need this?”

To extend point 4: A good example is the Mr. Robot demo. You get an hour of uninterrupted playtime aside from a “Buy Now!” ad on the titlescreen. Cool. But at about 30 minutes this picture of a cute/sad dog pops up with some caption to the tune of “I’m so cute and love dog treats, buy this game so my people can spoil me!” A game I was steadily enjoying and starting to consider purchasing was exited and uninstalled in under a minute.

As for niche-genre games, just price it below $24.99. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy Age of Decadence before even trying it for that price. You’re never going to have an attach rate that’s worth a shit on a niche-genre title anyway, and the pirates will legitimately be the people who would never have paid in the first place.

deanimate

You can read all this or you can spend your time getting to grips with Solium Infernum for $29.99 ($24.99 if the discount is still on).
Quality turn based game set in hell which admittedly may not strictly qualify as an indie game and moreso a niche game but quite frankly who cares? It’s $24.99-29.99 of strategy goodness and is most certainlly worth it if you enjoy games like that.
Job Done 😀

Anonymous

Bad Undead Dolphin Hacker. You’re not allowed to make sense. How else will butthurt continue? D:

Dave Gilbert

Sorry for the plug, but this comic inspired me to write a blog post of my own addressing this issue: http://nygamedev.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-how-i-price-my-games.html

Tim

I’m really surprised for all the angry comments here. First, they should learn to get a sense of humor… while the author of the post is clearly frustrated, I don’t think he’s trying to be insulting. Second, the claim that most people who refuse to pay for indie games because they can’t afford it really is far fetched. I know tons of people who pirate software / games / movies / etc, who then go ahead and waste their money on other things (be it soy lattes or something else).

paritybit

Come on people now, smile on your brother. Don’t read this as an affront to everything you hold dear; it’s a lighthearted poke at our values.

I’ll pay $5 for a coffee; I’ll pay $5 for an indie game. I won’t pay $15 for a coffee; I won’t pay $15 for just any indie game.

I used to pirate games. I know; I’m a bad person. I don’t anymore. Why? I’m a software engineer now. You may be surprised to hear this, but I play far fewer games now than when I pirated them. Do I have less free time? No. Am I broke? No, but I have a spending limit for my hobby. Sometimes it really is true a pirate prevented is not necessarily a customer gained.

Anonymous

Pffft. If that’s supposed to be lighthearted, then Barack Obama is Mexican.

Alex

Jan 30 2010

Interesting. “Since I can’t make my customer pay me what I want him to pay me, I’ll tell him how to spend his money instead.”

Why doesn’t the developer skip that extra few thousand lattes, lose weight, and charge the game at $10?