Rannen

It would predict the effect of lowering the price on his other older games, which is worth something. I would also take a success as a positive sign that doing another trial with a newer game might be worth a shot. In the end, yes, it's Jeff's call. That being the case, I suppose it's back to Impulse and GoG for me... may I one day find SW games at a price I can agree with.

I'd be the first to admit that I don't necessarily know that a price reduction would boost profits, but I would add that even those in a better position with more of the facts than myself do not necessarily know that they won't. This is why I call for a bit of low risk experimentation. Taking the lowest selling game out of 14 titles and reducing the price in a temporary month long sale ought to present very little risk, being that the move almost definitely cannot lower sales. Assuming the worst case, where all jeff's games are selling equally well and no gain is sales is forthcoming, he would be at the very most out ((1/14)*.6) of his total monthly income, or 4.3% for one month. Note that this is for a total failure, in the worst case scenario. I concede that I don't know whether or not his finances are so grim that he can't risk this. The potential gain, on the other hand, is incalculable. What if his profits increase by 10%? 20%? 100%? It would seem to me that the potential gain outweighs the risk, so long as he can afford to risk that 4.3% of one month's income on the venture.

The fact is that $25 is unusually expensive for a 2D indie game regardless of whatever mitigating circumstances may be present, and most people will look at said price and be unsure whether or not it's some kind of joke. Perhaps a trial could be run with one of his older games? Take Avernum 1, reduce the price to $9.99, and get out as much cheap/free advertising as possible. I seriously doubt the sales of an older game like that are very impressive currently, so there shouldn't be a great deal of risk involved. If it does well, it could open up the possibility of squeezing more profit from each of his games in a similar manner.

Well, the quoted blog makes a good point for those who generally stick to RPG games (especially the stat based classics). I guess my main problem is therefor that I'm not part of the target audience. I love RPGs, particularly stat heavy ones that let me tinker with my characters, but I'm also very fond of shooters, RTS, and TBS. How much broader an audience might a lower price bring in? Beats me. I'll I know is that I'm out here.

I might agree that $25 is a good price if this were the only show in town, but the issue is that competing games of equal or better quality are popping up with equal or lesser price. For example, Baldurs Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2 have become available on Impulse for less than half the cost of a Spiderweb game. There's a fair sized list of such games that it currently just makes more sense to me to buy before any Spiderweb games, and by the time I run through it more will have sprung up! That's why I feel a price reduction might be in order, though I can respect the fact that the limited audience drawn by hardcore statistical RPG games might not be enough to support the devs if the price were lowered.

I bought Avernum 4 from Big Fish games for around $8, played it through and liked it a bunch. When I searched around for more Avernum or Spiderweb Software Games, I of course found this site... and learned that these simple(though large) 2D games are running $25! I just wanted to let the developers know that there are people like me who like the games, are interested in the games, but are unwilling to spend so much money on them. If anyone else agrees or disagrees with me, please feel free to add your voices to the thread.