On the Expectation of Value From Inexpensive Games 102
An article by game designer Ian Bogost takes a look at what type of value we attach to games, and how it relates to price. Inspiration for the article came from the complaint of a user who bought Bogost's latest game and afterward wanted a refund. The price of the game? 99 cents. Quoting:
"Games aren't generally like cups of coffee; they don't get used up. They don't provide immediate gratification, but ongoing challenge and reward. This is part of what Frank Lantz means when he claims that games are not media. Yet, when we buy something for a very low price, we are conditioned to see it as expendable. What costs a dollar these days? Hardly anything. A cup of coffee. A pack of sticky notes. A Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. A lottery ticket. Stuff we use up and discard. ... I contend that iPhone players are not so much dissatisfied as they are confused: should one treat a 99-cent game as a piece of ephemera, or as a potentially rich experience?"
The value of a buck weighs in as well.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Confused about the value? (Score:1, Interesting)
One thing many iPhone developers have learned is that you're much worse off selling your app for $0.99 and going for high sales volume; you get a lot more assholes who expect the world of you because they spent almost a whole fucking dollar. People have seen their app's rating take a nosedive when they lowered the price to $0.99 from $3 or $5. Thankfully these other developers have warned me away from that model for my own apps, as that was the way I had planned to go -- I figured then there'd be low expectations, and I could capture most of the market and make a living from updates and feature-adds. I apparently underestimated how many douchebags there are out there.
The one way Apple is at fault here is that their money back guarantee is ridiculously long given the distribution model; 89 days of usage of a ninety-nine cent app should give the app an automatic five star rating, not let them be open to a three-months-past-purchase refund request. You could also blame Apple for keeping their commission on returns, since they're the ones who set the return policy, but that's a little more up for debate.
Re:Value is asserted, not assessed. (Score:5, Interesting)
So at this stage there will be a demo, a "steam" like rental version ($5 per week) and a full version ($20). Rental becomes a full game once you hit $20 bucks.
Re:Value is asserted, not assessed. (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the same experience "selling myself" as a remote Linux administrator.
I'd fix your services, audit your machines, and provide advice for £40 an hour. A few takers, and everybody was very complimentary when talking to me - but when I doubled my hourly rates I got way more business.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, you should expect the same amount of enjoyment out of a 99 cent game that you would out of a $1.98 cheeseburger, when a 99 cent cheeseburger would've provided similar nutritional value, without that taste?
But, fine, let's look at the shirt. You'll spend $15 for a shirt that says "No, I will not fix your computer," or something like that, but 99 cents on a game is too much? Yes, you have to clothe your body, but I'm guessing you had enough shirts.
Re:As an iPhone game developer... (Score:2, Interesting)
Price is not relevant (Score:3, Interesting)
You're correct. (Score:3, Interesting)
So for what reason does the BMW continue to demand such a price premium if not the simple fact that it's asserted as a high-priced car?
BMWs aren't cars. They're billboards to announce how rich you are. There's no point in buying used, or building one to last more than three years, because having an *old* BMW just means that you couldn't afford to buy this year's model. If you're trying to repair an out-of-warranty "beemer", you're doing it wrong. They're a lot like the "i'm rich" app on the iPhone app store.
What I find confusing, though, is that people of average means who will pay $40k for a car will turn around and make fun of YOU for paying $2k for a computer or more than $300 for a bed. It's like they don't even realize that they could get a decent car for half that price, and have enough left over to afford luxury everything else.
Not quite right... (Score:1, Interesting)
Your ideals are correct, however your approach is all wrong. Let me explain this to your using only recent anecdotal evidence:
I'm not going to cover the AAA titles because they are simple: put together a great game dynamic with a killer team of artists and programmers, and you get your AAA title. Everyone who doesn't dislike the genre will like it, and the only reasons to fathom a refund on these games are "I thought I would like it, but I dind't." Not refundable, I'm afraid. Almost ALL games up until recently were these, so refunds were never an issue.
Now we are getting all these "indie game studios" and people in their basement "publishing" games. Most of these are just "mods" of games which would otherwise be free. Hell, some recent games for sale were free mods before. My point? Lets look at teh good, teh bad, and teh ugly:
TEH GOOD:
I've bought games like Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies. They have very little content (read art/graphics, sound, etc.) They were "cheaper" to make, but they hold just as much value as that $50 Half Life 2 game. They are just as fun and addicting, and I play them for hours, just as I played HL2 and Fallout 3 for hours. It just happens they have about $35 fewer assets put into the game, but they are just as fun. Hell, I just hit 80 hours of gameplay time in Fall Out 3 and I don't see myself putting the game down in the near future... it's addicting. (See the end of the post for a Fall Out 3 rant.)
TEH BAD:
Sin Episodes: Emergence. Great potential, fun gameplay (albeit the same as HL2), and a good story with great (AMAZING) art, especially for an "indie" studio. They promised the game would be extended slowly over time by the release of additional "episodes." So I bought the first full priced episode only to get "we quit, it's over" right after and to never see the game fully realized. I wanted a refund, but I couldn't justify it because it was a good game despite being incredibly short. So I stand having lost a little bit of money, but I don't feel like I wasted my money (this time).
TEH UGLY: /wasted/ my monies. It consisted of non-animated "zombies" simply respawning in "waves" and trying to kill you. That's it. You kill them and they just drop. Such a horrible game. Not to mention the borken server browser and menu system. If you are going to sell a mod, at least put more effort into it than free mods out there. I got to play for all of 1 minute. I demanded a refund of $15. The first game I ever even thought about wanting a refund for. Just because it was so bad. I was disgusted that someone would try to even sell that garbage. I could have made a similar mod for HL2 with just the level editor, set spawn points for zombies and have made the game myself. It was just not even worth $1 to me. Shit, if I paid $0.05 for the game, I would have demanded a refund. (See "Teh Bad" about about a cheap game I bought that wasn't good but not refund worthy.)
Killing Floor was a mod for UT, and made me feel completely "used" by having
REPLY TO ANOTHER GUY:
To the guy wanting to do "rental fees" on steam: Lower your rental fee to $1. Trust me. Access to a game (especially if it's not a AAA title) for 1 week is not worth $5. I wouldn't even pay $5 to have access to Halflife 2 for a week. If it's a good game, price it as you see fit and let it be. If it sells, good... If not, don't blame "market place value" for your business failures. Seems to be the "thing to do" lately: "It wasn't my business, it was the market, BAIL ME OUT GOVERNMENT OVERLORDS!" (Same argument given by RIAA. The MPAA is comming back into a good light with me and a lot of people, so don't include the MPAA with the Mafi-RIAA.)
FALL OUT 3 RANT:
Although I'm a bit upset about only being able to get to a level 20 character, as I'm nowhere near done with the game and am already at level 18, but that's another discussion. This game is ****ing aweesome. I grew up in the D.C. metro area, and they captured the "essence"
The old addage (Score:3, Interesting)
What's that old, but very common, expression? You get what you pay for.
Is a BMW/Benz 5x better than a Honda Civic? It may be a better performance vehicle, but more reliable? Not really. I've got 200k mi on my '97, and while it's reliable it's pricey. How about a Land Rover? Definitely not, yet they are easily twice as expensive as any other SUV.
People commonly associate price with quality. If you go into a store to buy something, and X is $2 while Y is $4, most people will buy the $4 because they assume "There's gotta be something about Y to justify the $2 increase in price.
The worst price? FREE. Why? Because psychologically when someone sees something that is FREE, they assume that it has no value. Have a yard sale? Don't mark anything FREE, otherwise people will look at it and assume it's junk. Would you "buy" FREE food from the supermarket? Doubt it, you'd probably think "there's gotta be something wrong with it."
Bottom line: without doing any research people look at two objects/services of different prices and instinctively think that the higher priced object can justify it's higher price.
Re:Child labor laws (Score:3, Interesting)
If the kid you're talking of has an iPhone
He doesn't. He has an iPod Touch that he got for Christmas. I've seen kids who get Wii consoles for Christmas run out of things to do in Wii Sports and not have any way to buy Nintendo Points cards.