Big hub bub about pricing

[MrRoivas]

Just recently, the PC gamer blog Rock Paper Shotgun did a short post about the upcoming Avernum remake: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/29/role-on-avernum-escape-from-the-pit/

 

What really took me back is how what dominated the conversation were a quite large number of people declaring their complete and total opposition to paying 25 or more dollars for an old school indie game.

 

Has anyone else encountered this? I thought the fact that Jeff's games were so massive would stymie such complaints, but I guess not.

[Dantius]

Hm. The only mentions of Avadon I've heard on other sites were mainly people faking having a hissy fit over "OMGWTFBBQ THIS GAEM SUX" so they could justify pirating it instead of having to pay like $30.

 

Size is a very good reason to buy Jeff's games, and the 40-60+ hours (or 25ish in the case of Avadon) you can get playing them are absolutely worth the price. Especially when you consider replay value compared to other AAA games- Jeff's games are many times more replayable than, say, Dragon Age, which was billed as six games in one, when really it as just six 1-2 hour "origin stories" before you got to the main game that was the same for everyone. In Geneforge 1, playing as the Takers as opposed to the Obeyers meant that the last more-or-less half of the game was radically different, which basically packed in a second game- well worth the price of admission.

[nikki.]

The only thing of interest from that link is this comment:

 

Quote:

I’d really love to see one of the older Spiderweb games in a Humble Indie Bundle someday. Would introduce them to a new audience.

[Earth]

Avadon ain't easy and most things are learned with trial and error and that doesn't suit to casual gamer.

[Alorael at Large]

The Humble Indie Bundle might be a way to wring a few bucks out of old games, but selling a new game like that is a recipe for disaster. It could work, but it could also backfire terribly. More importantly, it would shackle Jeff's sales to games that tend to be completely different.

 

—Alorael, who would love to see Blades of Avernum in a Humble Indie Bundle, though. The sales have been poor anyway, and getting it into more hands would mean more potential players and, critically, maybe a few more excited designers.

[Enraged Slith]

Consider how cheaply you can purchase games these days through services like Steam, and it isn't surprising that people are skeptical about paying 25$+ for something that looks like it came out in the mid 90s. These people probably wouldn't buy these games anyway, so I doubt it's an issue.

 

I have a feeling that most of Jeff's new customers are young children anyway. The price doesn't matter to them - they're hooked on adventure and the only cure is their parent's credit card. At least, that's how it was for me with Exile 2 (thanks dad).

[Alorael at Large]

Jeff's games looked like the came out in the mid 90's in the 2000's. Now they look roughly similar to Baldur's gate, circa 2000: the animations aren't as nice and the areas aren't hand-painted, but the general idea is similar. The level of polish besides graphics has steadily increased. These aren't old-fashioned games.

 

Many of the games that are dirt cheap on Steam and GoG are actually old. Jeff can't compete with them. He also doesn't have to: once those are played, his games will still be around. If that loses him some customers, those are customers he can't win over.

 

—Alorael, who anticipates fury over $10 A:EftP on iPad when it's twice that for new players on computers. He also anticipates that Jeff will do good business. Ultimately, with games, you can't even please most of the people some of the time with prices.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Alorael-Bok

The Humble Indie Bundle might be a way to wring a few bucks out of old games, but selling a new game like that is a recipe for disaster. It could work, but it could also backfire terribly. More importantly, it would shackle Jeff's sales to games that tend to be completely different.

Yeah, it's definitely a risk. The folks who translated Recettear (normally a $20 game) offered it as part of a five-game $5 Steam bundle for a week, and while the sales numbers were great, they were only getting $1 in revenue per sale of the bundle (and after Steam and the original developers were paid, the translators' share amounted to less than 30 cents per sale, although that still adds up when you move 100,000 copies). This especially rankled since a lot of people were buying the bundle just for Recettear. Bundling works better for generating publicity than for immediate money-making.

[Randomizer]

Jeff seems to be lowering the price both because it's a remake and to make it closer to the probable iPad price.

 

Although players that get the games elsewhere to save money are getting burned. Steam has lots of games that won't run with Apple's new Lion operating system. The problem is mostly due to Steam and not the games.

[Men are from Slars]

Based on some googling, Lion seems to be creating problems for a lot of programs, I'm guessing due to changes to the filesystem format. Steam's issues seem to be file path related.

[Tyranicus]

I couldn't get Steam to work at all on the Developer Preview, but on the final version of Lion, I haven't noticed any issues. Of course, I haven't tried every game though.

[Skwish-E]

I think Jeff had so much volume at $10 for Avadon on the I-Pad that he can now justify lowering the cost of the other formats to increase sales. I would still pay $30 - $35 for Jeff's games on Windows, but apparently, some folks aren't as generous with their money as I am.

 

The $20 price point may cause sales to double, which would mean more money than the existing customer base at $35 each. Especially since a bunch of people are whining about the I-Pad price being lower.

[Callie]

I play Civ V through Steam and it's working fine with Lion.

 

On the other hand, the first Avernum trilogy does not work: It says "Power PC applications are no longer supported." EV Nova works fine, along with Spore and Civ IV. I think the problem is that Lion got rid of Rosetta Stone, which was how I could play the first trilogy in the first place.

 

Edit: Tyranicus has a fix for said problem.

[A less presumptuous name.]

RE: Pricing

It looks like Jeff is getting a lot of the same crap he got when he released Avadon for $10 on iPad. Of course, he's being very upfront about it now, so people can't just deal with it. You know all of the prices to begin with - if you want to pay, great; if not, your loss. Sorry, but it annoys me when people complain about prices for things that are nonessential to their life.(of course, one can argue that after a time, SW games become essential for life)

 

RE: Steam and Mac

I really don't like how forward-oriented Apple has become. I'm still running a PowerBook G4, which uses a PPC core. Moving to Intel is great, but don't forget about us? And now they're removing support for older platforms. I get that they want to cut fat, which is why new OSes don't support PPC, but why remove completely backwards-oriented things like Classic Environment and Rosetta Stone? At least have them as optional installs when a person buys the computer. I'd like to continue using my old, paid for software on my new computer in a year.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Master1

I really don't like how forward-oriented Apple has become. I'm still running a PowerBook G4, which uses a PPC core. Moving to Intel is great, but don't forget about us? And now they're removing support for older platforms. I get that they want to cut fat, which is why new OSes don't support PPC, but why remove completely backwards-oriented things like Classic Environment and Rosetta Stone? At least have them as optional installs when a person buys the computer. I'd like to continue using my old, paid for software on my new computer in a year.

Apple does not want you to continue to use your old stuff, though. They want you to recognize that you can no longer run your old software, and that you should instead purchase all new software so they can make profit. It's the same reason why new software isn't always compatible with old machines- so that you are encouraged to purchase a new machine and give them your money.

People used to (and still do) give Microsoft crap about this, but Apple has really taken this to a whole new level in the past few years. There's a reason that their stock has done so well, and frankly it's not consumer-friendly business practices.

[nikki.]

Yeah, as a user of both Mac OS and Windows the differences between the two are really clear on this subject. Microsoft give compatibility mode options as a default (sure, you have to right-click, but that's not hard), and software I bought years ago works now even on Windows 7. It's not always perfect, but the option is there. Apple just seem intent on saying "no, you need to do it our way", which is kinda unfair.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

They want you to recognize that you can no longer run your old software, and that you should instead purchase all new software so they can make profit.

Unfortunately, their logical business practices get in the way of third party software. Wanting me to upgrade to their new OS makes sense, but that is how so many classic games have been lost - computer upgrades without backward compatibility. I may be a bit old-fashioned, but I like to be able to use what I've paid for until I sell it. (This is why I will always prefer books to e/iBooks.)

...Apple has really taken this to a whole new level in the past few years...

And this is my problem. I understand the gradual movement from old to new - it keeps the market fresh and healthy. But the degree to which Apple is doing it lately is quite frustrating. If only I weren't so hooked on their computers...

[Randomizer]

The Apple requirement is running OS 10.4 or later so my old G4 laptop on OS10.3.9 is obsolete for newer Spiderweb games.

 

Apple makes the hardware too so they want to encourage buying a new computer and the new software.

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Master1

I really don't like how forward-oriented Apple has become. I'm still running a PowerBook G4, which uses a PPC core. Moving to Intel is great, but don't forget about us? And now they're removing support for older platforms. I get that they want to cut fat, which is why new OSes don't support PPC, but why remove completely backwards-oriented things like Classic Environment and Rosetta Stone? At least have them as optional installs when a person buys the computer. I'd like to continue using my old, paid for software on my new computer in a year.

Apple isn't removing support just to make you buy a new computer. The Classic Environment cannot run on an Intel Mac. It was never designed to be able to run on anything but a PPC processor. As for Rosetta, various upgrades to the OS in Lion break how Rosetta works. Yes, they could have worked on the code to make it work, but why should they? With the exception of a few older games, most applications for the Mac are already Intel.

[Rowen]

Are you saying that my Preforma is outdated? It plays Escape Velocity great and lags only a little when there is a lot of laser fire on EV: Override.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus

Apple isn't removing support just to make you buy a new computer. The Classic Environment cannot run on an Intel Mac. It was never designed to be able to run on anything but a PPC processor. As for Rosetta, various upgrades to the OS in Lion break how Rosetta works. Yes, they could have worked on the code to make it work, but why should they? With the exception of a few older games, most applications for the Mac are already Intel.

Fair enough, I should probably have looked into things like that before going on a tirade. Maybe my real problem is that I'm too cheap to stand the thought of losing software someday. I just like things that last forever. Sentimental, that's what I am.

[Men are from Slars]

Apple has had an unfortunate cycle of major switches, moreso than PC environments. First the switch from 68k to PPC around 1994, then the switch from MacOS to OS X around 2000, then the switch from Motorola to Intel around 2006. But they all seem to have legitimately improved the computers.

[Alorael at Large]

Right. The fact that it was possible to run PPC programs on Intel at all was a huge benefit. Also probably necessary for Apple to continue to operate, but still, nice. And it worked almost flawlessly. But continuing to support old architecture on new machines is, well, a losing proposition. Don't like it? Don't jump to Lion.

 

—Alorael, who will be sticking with Snow Leopard for a while yet. That said, he'd bet that Apple will stop selling Snow Leopard shortly, if it hasn't already. And that's a shame for those people who want to keep happily using Rosetta.

[VCH]

My 2006 imac is not supported by Lion.

 

What really sucks is I waited like 3 hours to download Lion off the pirate bay then found that out. I guess I'll have to buy a new computer in another 1-2 years.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: VCH

My 2006 imac is not supported by Lion.

What really sucks is I waited like 3 hours to download Lion off the pirate bay then found that out. I guess I'll have to buy a new computer in another 1-2 years.

vch what is the matter with you

don't talk about illegal activity on the forums, there is a rule for this and everything

this is a warning

[VCH]

Yes Lilith, sorry Lilith

[The Mystic]

Back to original topic:

 

I don't really mind the current price of Jeff's games. Considering how large his games are, and the amount of work he puts into them, it's actually quite reasonable.

 

Originally Posted By: MrRoivas

What really took me back is how what dominated the conversation were a quite large number of people declaring their complete and total opposition to paying 25 or more dollars for an old school indie game.

Reminds me of another blog I ran into a while back. However, in this case, the conversation was dominated by people unwilling to pay any price for any software, indie or otherwise. I know I'm cheap, but I definitely wouldn't ask Jeff to give his games away for free.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

while i might hate the idea of paying money to microsoft for windows, i do think that they have the right to charge for their hard work.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Darth Ernie

while i might hate the idea of paying money to microsoft for windows, i do think that they have the right to charge for their hard work.

I don't really care for spending money on it either, but again, I'm not going to ask for a free copy, either (except maybe for the older versions, like Windows 3.1 or Win95/98). Fortunately, there's a computer store fairly nearby, and they sell OEM versions of Windows, which tend to be much cheaper for the same software--and have the added bonus of not having to uninstall 5GB of useless trialware crap.