(long post incoming) Here's my little about-to-go-to-sleep, deep shower thought for you: the price of a game actually matters a lot more than you think when it comes to how people treat/review a game, and how much final enjoyment they get out of it.
I don't just mean the fact of paying less making you feel happier you have more money or anything, but more so on an individual level.
Lets say you make a good mascot horror game or something. If it's priced at a normal price (let's say $15) it'll probably be seen as a good game, or maybe just forgettable. If you price a good game at a HIGHER price point (let's say a full $50) it will probably be seen as mediocre, or even just plain bad even if the game itself had some enjoyable moments. But if the game was priced at a lower amount (let's say $3) then many people will see the good game as a GREAT game, and in some cases, may become a cult classic when it otherwise would be completely forgotten.
I'm sure it's pretty obvious I started thinking this because of the whole "$90 Switch games" thing, but it reminded me of how a lot of the best steam games are relatively cheap, especially when compared to their triple A counterparts and competition. Maybe it's because they're too scared to risk a lower profit margin, and so they want to price it higher on average so even if it's seen by people as a "Bad game" they'll still make their pie... but I feel like there's plenty of games out there that are priced cheaply and probably made far more than if they made it more expensive from the get go because more people played it.
Though that being said, there is also the other end of it, in which we naturally see things that are less expensive as being less quality (They may see the $5 game and have the expectation it's only 30min/45min, and expect the $50 game to be a full on experience with hours and hours of content and branching paths). So maybe a lot of that has to do with expectation? In which when the game is good and you only got it for cheap, you're much more inclined to be surprised by it, but when the game was AAA priced any minor inconvenience, hiccup, or bug will sour your experience of it much more.
That's also probably why people are so okay with chapter-based pricing from Mascot Horror (where you pay for each chapter, each of which is a cheaper price than a full game, BUT if you bought each chapter when they came out you're actually paying way more than you should have, or would have ever willingly paid). Which honestly, I've always hated the whole chapter monetization system. Encourages not having a satisfying ending in favor of theory-bait which, honestly, I really want to make a video about. You can drop that one into the idea bucket too.
Free games are weirder in that people are likely to download it but never get around to play. Pretty much everyone (myself included) have free games in their steam library that they have never opened. As such, games that have a small cost at least make the 'responsible' parts of our brain feel obligated to play it because we spent money on it (even if it wasn't much). So honestly I feel like outside of free games, devs should aim for "realistic cheapness" in regards to the amount of money you put your game up for (to ensure you still make a profit and cover the fees of listing your game at all/development costs) while still aiming to low-ball compared to your competition.
Point being: Consumers - give tiny cheap games a chance because they may rock your world, Devs - don't overprice your games or else people might not like it as much as the content provides them, and for the love of god can we stop with chapter-monetization i hate it so much aaauguugghh.
Like I said I'm writing this before bed so hopefully this all makes sense? Because morning me is NOT going to be able to decipher it if not. Also obviously this isn't meant to be an attack on devs with higher priced games, this is more of a food-for-thought kind of thing, and mostly came with the realization of how much money the greedy CEOs at EA, Blizzard, Xbox, etc... have probably lost to OVERpricing their product to the point people thought it was a Bad game at launch when it could have been considered by many as GOOD if they just priced it reasonably and maybe given them more time to iron out the bugs.
Anyways, Thank you for coming to my Ted-Talk. I'm going to bed.
CutCafe
(long post incoming)
Here's my little about-to-go-to-sleep, deep shower thought for you: the price of a game actually matters a lot more than you think when it comes to how people treat/review a game, and how much final enjoyment they get out of it.
I don't just mean the fact of paying less making you feel happier you have more money or anything, but more so on an individual level.
Lets say you make a good mascot horror game or something. If it's priced at a normal price (let's say $15) it'll probably be seen as a good game, or maybe just forgettable. If you price a good game at a HIGHER price point (let's say a full $50) it will probably be seen as mediocre, or even just plain bad even if the game itself had some enjoyable moments. But if the game was priced at a lower amount (let's say $3) then many people will see the good game as a GREAT game, and in some cases, may become a cult classic when it otherwise would be completely forgotten.
I'm sure it's pretty obvious I started thinking this because of the whole "$90 Switch games" thing, but it reminded me of how a lot of the best steam games are relatively cheap, especially when compared to their triple A counterparts and competition. Maybe it's because they're too scared to risk a lower profit margin, and so they want to price it higher on average so even if it's seen by people as a "Bad game" they'll still make their pie... but I feel like there's plenty of games out there that are priced cheaply and probably made far more than if they made it more expensive from the get go because more people played it.
Though that being said, there is also the other end of it, in which we naturally see things that are less expensive as being less quality (They may see the $5 game and have the expectation it's only 30min/45min, and expect the $50 game to be a full on experience with hours and hours of content and branching paths). So maybe a lot of that has to do with expectation? In which when the game is good and you only got it for cheap, you're much more inclined to be surprised by it, but when the game was AAA priced any minor inconvenience, hiccup, or bug will sour your experience of it much more.
That's also probably why people are so okay with chapter-based pricing from Mascot Horror (where you pay for each chapter, each of which is a cheaper price than a full game, BUT if you bought each chapter when they came out you're actually paying way more than you should have, or would have ever willingly paid). Which honestly, I've always hated the whole chapter monetization system. Encourages not having a satisfying ending in favor of theory-bait which, honestly, I really want to make a video about. You can drop that one into the idea bucket too.
Free games are weirder in that people are likely to download it but never get around to play. Pretty much everyone (myself included) have free games in their steam library that they have never opened. As such, games that have a small cost at least make the 'responsible' parts of our brain feel obligated to play it because we spent money on it (even if it wasn't much). So honestly I feel like outside of free games, devs should aim for "realistic cheapness" in regards to the amount of money you put your game up for (to ensure you still make a profit and cover the fees of listing your game at all/development costs) while still aiming to low-ball compared to your competition.
Point being: Consumers - give tiny cheap games a chance because they may rock your world, Devs - don't overprice your games or else people might not like it as much as the content provides them, and for the love of god can we stop with chapter-monetization i hate it so much aaauguugghh.
Like I said I'm writing this before bed so hopefully this all makes sense? Because morning me is NOT going to be able to decipher it if not. Also obviously this isn't meant to be an attack on devs with higher priced games, this is more of a food-for-thought kind of thing, and mostly came with the realization of how much money the greedy CEOs at EA, Blizzard, Xbox, etc... have probably lost to OVERpricing their product to the point people thought it was a Bad game at launch when it could have been considered by many as GOOD if they just priced it reasonably and maybe given them more time to iron out the bugs.
Anyways, Thank you for coming to my Ted-Talk. I'm going to bed.
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 241