Game Dev Says Sales Screw Your Fans

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I have no idea what the hell this guy is talking about when he says "sales screw your fans." Ummm, what? I do like his pricing idea though.

Sales are great, aren't they? Well, The Castle Doctrine developer Jason Rohrer doesn't think so. Rohrer argued on his blog that rampant sales create a "culture of waiting," where players wait for a good sale before pulling the trigger on a game, which in turn makes launches weak and early adopters disappointed.
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The link seems to come right back to HardOCP again instead of going to the article discussing it.
 
It's been a boon for most indie devs who can get their games on good DD platforms.
 
Total bullshit.
We know the reviewers are paid, the $60 release is nothing more than a paid beta and we no longer get demos to try so we wait for word of mouth or rent the game before we buy it. Blame publishers like EA for making us cynical about jumping on the early boats.
It has nothing to do with whether the game is selling or not.
 
Not many games being released are worth full price.
Also my backlog is ridic. I need to play the games I have before buying new ones, which will be on sale when I'm ready to buy.
 
Seriously. It's called value. If a game which was 'meh' never went on sale, I would never buy it. Simple as that. If it's $5, I'll bite.

Seriously... my backlog is going to take me a while to go through. And it's not even all from Steam Sales! It's Humble Bundle which is doing it to me!
 
It works as long as the game starts with a reasonable price. The reason games go on sale is because they normally start at an unreasonable price to tax fans. The theory being to strike while the iron is hot. Try to get people to rush to buy the game to play before their friends etc.(or before tons of negative reviews trickle in) Then the price is lowered to get revenue from price sensitive buyers.

To me the reason the direct lower price model works is it cuts out the retailer and reduces costs to the end consumer. Starting at a sale price, which has been long forgotten at most retailers.
 
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
 
I don't really agree with his line of thinking. If people want to buy your game at full price on release, they will. Those that want to wait for a sale will do so. Having a "lifetime guaranteed price" is just going to guarantee that some people will probably never buy your game, if it's at a price they refuse to pay.

I like the "Minecraft" pricing model (if the Alpha price is low enough...$20+ is not a good enough Alpha price, IMO, for many games) but the idea of a lifetime price is just silly, especially if your game ends up not being that good.
 
We had no problems 10 years ago paying full price... when the games game out fully developed (for the most part) and we would get DLC for free, run our own servers, mod as we liked, etc... These games were well past the 7-10 hour mark we see for console ports today.

Now we get yearly updates of fluff for full price triple a titles that gauge you later for the dlc.

I pay full price for new games that look like a good value and have a strong developer support base.

If it looks like dlc mania or long term bugs/betas... better to wait until the game is reduced and all verdicts are in if it's even worth the discounted price. (example - Rage :mad: )
 
To add, the ONLY reason the "Minecraft model" of pricing was so successful is because Minecraft is insanely popular, and still commands full price after all this time. I bought it cheap in Alpha, though, and I feel like I got a great deal.
 
Killa|3yte said:
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
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Not everyone likes the same stuff. Your $60 title might be worth $10 to someone else, and vice versa.I'm not a huge fan of sports games, but might be tempted to grab something like FIFA, Madden or Fight Night if it was cheap.

Also, how is it somehow worse for game devs if we are buying hundreds of games instead of 2-3? That makes no sense. We are now more likely to buy stuff we may not even be that interested in.
 
Killa|3yte said:
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
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Actually, the miserable thing comes from games being released that are pretty much completely broken until 3-4 patches after release. Even then, some glaring bugs never get fixed because the publisher doesn't give a crap and has moved onto their next iteration of the same broken game.

It took HOW LONG for Skyrim to get the stupid crazy low FPS and jerkyness because of poor optimization fixed? Sadly, most games with these type of issues never get fixed.

I've actually tried playing a few games that were so broken they were unplayable. One of the Soldier of Fortune games comes to mind.

And what about crap like the newest SimCity. How lond was it before they actually got it working halfway decent. It is still trash compared to the older releases in the SimCity series.

The misery is because the publishers say they are going to release the best thing since the beginning of history, but instead they release a pile of poo and seem to not get why people bash them.
 
MavericK96 said:
I don't really agree with his line of thinking. If people want to buy your game at full price on release, they will.
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This every year I pre-order nba 2k series, BF series and a few others because I really want the game on day one and value the effort the developers have taken to make the series better (although lets be honest the last BF and nba 2k game are a bugfest :D)
 
Killa|3yte said:
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
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So..... people that think a game isn't as great as you think it is, is wrong? Personally, I thought Tomb Raider was pretty good, but it's not exactly "great." I sure as hell, wouldn't have bought it for 60 bucks.

In any case, Sales don't "screw" fans. They help developers get more money from people that wouldn't have put down what was being asked. And they usually ask for quite a bit. The fans, screw themselves, when they can't hold their excitement in. I bought X-COM EU, and I bought it for a discount when GreenManGaming had discounts out for it. I think it was 33 bucks, that I paid for it. Sucks, that I can't get 23 bucks now, because I got it early, but that was a decision I was willing to make. I also got the privileged of playing the game, sooner than the people who waited for sales. What's more important to you? the money or the chance to play the game asap. It's your decision, not anyone elses.
 
cyclone3d said:
Actually, the miserable thing comes from games being released that are pretty much completely broken until 3-4 patches after release. Even then, some glaring bugs never get fixed because the publisher doesn't give a crap and has moved onto their next iteration of the same broken game.

It took HOW LONG for Skyrim to get the stupid crazy low FPS and jerkyness because of poor optimization fixed? Sadly, most games with these type of issues never get fixed.

I've actually tried playing a few games that were so broken they were unplayable. One of the Soldier of Fortune games comes to mind.

And what about crap like the newest SimCity. How lond was it before they actually got it working halfway decent. It is still trash compared to the older releases in the SimCity series.

The misery is because the publishers say they are going to release the best thing since the beginning of history, but instead they release a pile of poo and seem to not get why people bash them.
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Wait, so it's publisher's fault people are buying into this crap over and over again? No one can keep releasing crap forever if people aren't spending money on crap.

I don't have a backlog because I don't buy shit that I am not interested in.
 
SGA76 said:
Total bullshit.
We know the reviewers are paid, the $60 release is nothing more than a paid beta and we no longer get demos to try so we wait for word of mouth or rent the game before we buy it. Blame publishers like EA for making us cynical about jumping on the early boats.
It has nothing to do with whether the game is selling or not.
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Got to say I agree with this. Bring back the demos and you might have a less jaded audience!
 
Killa|3yte said:
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
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I agree with you, a lot of people have a lot of restraint as to when to buy. I do the same thing. Last game I preordered was deus ex HR.
 
dgz said:
I don't have a backlog because I don't buy shit that I am not interested in.
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That's not really the idea behind a backlog, at least not for me. I buy games that I have some interest in, but maybe wasn't planning on buying immediately, if they have a really good price. I just end up with more games than I have time to play.
 
Killa|3yte said:
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
Click to expand...
I don't buy games I know I won't be happy with. I play them when other people buy them, like Tomb Raider. Mostly because someone told me the game is amazing, and then when I play it I find it not to be the case. The AngryJoeShow said Tomb Raider was amazing, but that clearly wasn't the case.

There's a lot of games I know that will be bad, but I try them cause I want to be surprised. It happens once in a while, but like once a year I'll find a good game that I thought was going to be bad but ends up good. I thought Dark Souls was going to be a bad game, but I tried it and couldn't stop playing it.

I never even tried the new Max Payne and I somehow knew it was going to suck. That game is like $5 somewhere, and I still won't buy it. Cause money isn't the only thing I value, but my time. I don't enjoy playing a game that I didn't enjoy, cause it wastes my time.

Games that look too blockbuster are likely to be flops in my opinion. Gamers aren't easily enticed by graphics and explosions over gameplay. It maybe the reason why I jumped on the game at first, but by the second and third game I would have learned my lesson. Fool me once, shame on you.

If there's once thing I can always do, is wait. I can do that cause there's games even I haven't touched. I have games from Sega CD era that I haven't even touched, or even PlayStation games. Pretty sure I even have a Super Nintendo game I need to get around.

If people still don't see why modern games need to focus more on gameplay then graphics, then check out Eqoraptor's Sequelitis videos. Cause games back then couldn't get away with graphics, so gameplay is all they had.

Castlevania 1 vs 2
Megaman Classic vs MegaMan X
Super Casltevania 4
 
Killa|3yte said:
I know this'll be unpopular, but I happen to agree with the premise of the article.

Gamers have become spoiled rotten and nauseatingly entitled. I see people knocking great games like Tomb Raider (or whatever) calling them "meh" and commenting that maybe they'll pick it up once it hits $5 #lolol #yolo.

The fact that everyone (myself included) has 100+ games in their steam BACKLOG has devalued games unimaginably. Remember 10 years ago when we had 2-3 good games a year and were happy? Now we have more than we can consume and we're miserable.
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You are speaking for way too many people here. I don't agree at all.

I don't give a shit about Tomb Raider. I wouldn't buy it if it was $1 because I'm not going to play it. If some company started jacking up pricing over time I just wouldn't buy their games. There's enough out there that I don't really have to care.

There's pricing competition for these big games now. Competition for both players' time from indie stuff and money.

I'm not miserable. Gaming is in a good place. When I was a kid I'd play things until I was completely sick of them since there was nothing else. Now I can move on and find something new easily.

But seriously, that's a myopic view of gaming just because you feel one way. There are plenty of us who don't and aren't "miserable" now that we can easily get more than we can consume. I've had more fun gaming in the past year with stuff like Terraria and Starbound than I've had in probably 10 years' time. I have a bunch of cheap AAA stuff I bought and have only played for a few minutes but who cares, I'm enjoying other things. It's a sale for them and doesn't really bother me.
 
If a game was worth $60 it would never drop in price and would never be in a sale.

People wait because very few games are worth $60.
 
I've got a huge backlog of Steam games I've never even touched.
Almost all of them I've got on sale.
The ones I paid full price for, I played the heck out of because I was waiting for those games and WANTED to play them.
The ones I've got on sale (Steam and Humble Bundle) are quite often games I would have never bought had they not been crazy low priced or bundled with something else I wanted.
So honestly, devs might complain that we're taking a wait and see approach, but in all honesty some of us would have NEVER bought your games in the first place without the sales or bundles.
 
Heh, I didn't know backlogs have an idea behind them. The way I see it, people buy a lot more than they're realistically interested in. I know Steam makes that easy but it's still pointless.
 
Spazturtle said:
If a game was worth $60 it would never drop in price and would never be in a sale.

People wait because very few games are worth $60.
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This. First game i've bought in years for full prices was Super 3D Mario World. Yes its worth full price. However the DLC that is going to be coming out for it, very unlikely.
 
Damn, those guys are fast. Th above post was addressed to you, MavericK96.
 
dgz said:
Wait, so it's publisher's fault people are buying into this crap over and over again? No one can keep releasing crap forever if people aren't spending money on crap.

I don't have a backlog because I don't buy shit that I am not interested in.
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No, it is the publisher's fault that they think that they can charge $60+ for a broken game and expect people to be happy with it.

Do that a few times, and you end up with "customers" that will not buy until the price comes down AND the bugs are fixed.

Each $60+ customer, if they are smart, can only be screwed over by a publisher once. After that, they turn into $5-$15 customers.
 
SGA76 said:
I've got a huge backlog of Steam games I've never even touched.
Almost all of them I've got on sale.
The ones I paid full price for, I played the heck out of because I was waiting for those games and WANTED to play them.
The ones I've got on sale (Steam and Humble Bundle) are quite often games I would have never bought had they not been crazy low priced or bundled with something else I wanted.
So honestly, devs might complain that we're taking a wait and see approach, but in all honesty some of us would have NEVER bought your games in the first place without the sales or bundles.
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Bingo!

The games I bought on sale were games that I thought might be fun to try sometime, but never something that I really wanted to play/own to begin with. So, if they were always full price, the chances of me buying them decreases to almost 0%.

There might be people that are waiting for something to go on sale before they buy it. But I think the vast majority of people buy stuff on sale for the same reason as myself and the above poster..
 
Too limited of thinking with this dev.

1. If I think a game will be worth it, I buy it at full price.
2. If I think a game won't be worth it, I won't buy it at all.
3. EA and other game makers have made us gamers leery of paying full price for "Day 1 Patch" games.
4. If said game goes on sale, I'll buy it just to have it. (I have a backlog of games like everyone else)

Hell, I bought Anno 2070... I don't even know if I'll ever install the game... Sales get me to buy games that I wouldn't have period. If I want a game, I'll support the game maker and buy it at full price.

If there's anything to take away from what he's saying though, is that game sales should actually wait longer than they do. You can get games for 25-50% a few months afterwards it seems. :/
 
cyclone3d said:
No, it is the publisher's fault that they think that they can charge $60+ for a broken game and expect people to be happy with it.

Do that a few times, and you end up with "customers" that will not buy until the price comes down AND the bugs are fixed.

Each $60+ customer, if they are smart, can only be screwed over by a publisher once. After that, they turn into $5-$15 customers.
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The market has spoken, then. What's your point?
 
Dam right I'm not paying $50 for a game that will be on a steam sale for 50% in 3 months, or 25% in a month.
 
Yeah, this guy has it wrong. There is a tiny chance it does hurt the game with people waiting for sales.

BUT - most people who wait for sales, were never going to pay full price, and I'm willing to bet that when its a great sale,. most people who buy it were never even interested, but when they see it for $5, its worth the chance - other than that, they would never care or try the game.
 
Here we go with the "lost revenue" arguments again. If it's on sale, and looks interesting, I'll be more likely to buy it. Some games I never heard of until they were advertised as being on sale. If I buy it, that's money in your pocket, Mr. Dev. If I don't you didn't lose anything, you never had my money to begin with. That's how the market works. Stop whining and adapt to it, or go bust. Economics 101. I'll spend my money however I want, not how you think I should.
 
As much as I would like to buy every game I like as soon as it comes out, that isn't feasible (both from a budget standpoint and a time standpoint). There are a number of factors that determine whether I will buy a game at launch (or at full or nearly full price):

o Extras - if a game has exotic extras (videos, beta access, etc) then I am more likely to take the plunge (if it is a title I am already interested in)

o Franchise - I am more likely to buy a game at launch if it is a series I have played before (and enjoyed)

o Price - a launch day (or prelaunch) purchase of $60 will require more criteria to be met than a purchase of $20

o Developer - a history of quality titles from a developer is more likely to inspire me to take the plunge sooner

o Genre - a genre or title that appeals to me but might not be as popular with the masses might get my dollar to support that genre or title

Bottom line is if they make a good title that gets lots of positive buzz and is something I find of interest I will buy early, but lack of buzz or lack of interest will inspire me to wait (or skip)
 
Whatever happened to preorders being a discount rather than a screwjob?

It's lunacy when you have to pay $60 MSRP to preorder a game sight unseen then within a day or two of launch you can find it for $40.

It's one of the reasons I like to support crowd funded games that interest me. You can put down typically $15-30 up front on the idea... which is no different than getting a great preorder discount. Just the time frames are longer.

But... at least you are supporting right up front the type of game you want, rather than a developer making a game in the dark, releasing it and praying that someone else likes the idea.
 
Lemme tell ya..

PC - Waiting until steam sales
PS3 - Waiting until it appears on PS+
PS4 - Waiting until it appears on PS+ (YES SOME NUMBNUTS SERIOUSLY DO THIS ALREADY)
 
Day one DLC, expansion packs, no dedicated server downloads, mods becoming more and more a thing of the past, broken ass games, have conditioned me to wait. All I have to do is wait, and I can usually get the complete game with all of the DLC for the price of the partial game they tend to ship these days. If I wait even longer, I can get it for a lot less than that.

How is he going to get mad at me for doing that, when he trained me to do it that way in the first place?
 
He is just using smoke and mirrors to do what others have done in recent history. He isn't breaking ground. He also knows that without sales you can't get press for games that have been around for months/years without them. Not unless they do a massive update of some sorts. Very few devs do that for free. Frankly I have grown tired of paying for unfinished products. It isn't that I haven't had fun, its just frustrating constantly waiting for updates. I didn't purchase DayZ because of this and that has trickled to other games such as Rust, ProjectZomboid, Marvel Heroes, MineCraft, Planetary Annihilation, PoE. I love all those games and many more but it gets frustrating waiting for fixes/content.

Sales have been a god send for the community imho. I'm glad the days of paying full price for a game years after release is done. Even blizzard has caved and lowered prices. Hell their games were full price 5+ years after release. A dev/publisher should be grateful if they get a sale off a special/promotion that they wouldn't have. Whats more if developers/publishers would give demo's to the community instead of PAID/BRIBED/BLACKMAILED/FIRST BORN DEALS to reviewers for positive press gamers would be less hesitant to pull the trigger.

What is important here regardless of your view is markets change. You either create/set the market, adapt/hop on board, or wither and eventually die. Complain less and be more proactive.
 
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