So Time Gentlemen, Please! is a bit of a bargain. Even though I know the fastest route through the game, it still took about an hour and a half to get through when testing. For a first time player, I’d say you’re looking at 6-8 hours, even if you don’t spend a great deal of time hunting around for hidden little jokes by trying stupid things.
For £2.99, that’s a pleasant chunk of gameplay, and I’m fiercely proud of how reasonably priced it is- as an Indie developer, it’s nice to be in the position to consider things like cost from the player’s perspective. Word around the Internet is, generally, that it’s either reasonably-priced or blisteringly under-priced, depending on how many truffles that particular reviewer can afford to snort and wash down with liquid gold, or whatever it is they do.
This all leaves me with something of a dilemma for the upcoming episodes, though. With an intended playtime of ‘about an hour’, each story is going to be considerably shorter than Time Gentlemen, Please! Hour-for-hour, quid-for-quid, that means each episode should probably be about 50p.
In all honesty, that price point would probably just bankrupt me.
Now, I’ve got a vague idea in my head of how much I think I’m going to have to charge. It’s based on ‘projections’ and TGP’s sales figures and all that sort of businessy nonsense… But in all honesty, I’m more interested in hearing what you lot think. How much you’d be willing to pay for an hour’s adventure-based comedic entertainment.
I was going to set up a poll, but that seems to me a rather too rigidly-defined way of going about things, so if you’ve got two minutes, please do leave a comment with what you think is a reasonable price. If you agree with someone, mark their comment up with the little green thumb.
I’ll then take everything into account when pricing the episodes. It’s community-driven development! How very futuristic.
106 people responded to this post...
PLEASE NOTE: this is a little bit like preaching to the converted, and I’m very aware of that. If you’re here, it’s presumably because you’ve played and enjoyed the Dan and Ben games to some degree. But please approach this from a more general perspective, if you can :)
thats freaking tough, VERY tuff,
hhhmmm,.. id say about 1.50 in our great british pounds, id be willing to pay that, 1 mighty piece of eight would be very nice price but would be difficult for you guys 1.50 is alot nicer, for both of us, assuming that TGP made some form of profit,.
oh, great section in games TM this month, its why im here now, that and being on steam aswell.
indie global dominion is just a television show away
I reckon about 1.50 as well.
2 Pounds is probably what would be fair. (considering the price of TGP)
Frankly I’d say £2 is perfectly reasonable (although I ended up donating for BTDT because of how ridiculously cheap TGP was).
That said, a £1.50 price point would easily be in the impulse price point for the sort of people who don’t really play adventure games but would be interested in shorter adventures.
I may think about Itunes pricing by way of comparison - and not necessarily of games, but music. A quid does have the power of a round number, but I think a quid fifty would be fine.
You’ll get away with two quid as well, if you went for it. I mean, think of it as - say - the price of a comic.
KG
£2 is perfectly reasonable, and I very much doubt anyone who enjoyed TGP would begrudge paying it per episode, assuming the content is of similar quality.
I think I’d happily pay $5 or $6 US for each episode…
Mason
My advice would be to charge 99p - or 90p ($1.50) - for the first episode (get people interested) then £1.50 for each future episode.
Or a fiver for all - depending on how many you’re planning of course.
Well, if I look at it in the sense of buying 6-8 of them to make up one TGP, value-wise I’d probably still be getting a good deal at $5 of my Australian dollars per episode. I have about $15 in the bank at the moment though, so any more than that would be pushing it. To get a definite purchase from me it would probably need to be $2-3, so about $2USD or so.
(Value calculations depend on a reference point, of course — I rarely pay more than $20USD for a game, and usually wait until they hit about $10.)
Another vote for ~£1.50, £2 at a stretch.
I suppose a good pricing guideline would be something like a DVD rental, but its years since I did that so have little idea how much it costs.
2 or 3 € would be nice.
As a “fan” i would pay more but for an hour of gameplay I’m not sure beotian would pay more.
£1.00-£1.50 a pop or some sort of batch/lifetime sub (based on how much I enjoyed them and if you could promise me at least 10 consistently spaced bite-size games, I’d slap down £15 right now)
I think I’d pay about 3EUR for an hour of gameplay if it’s reasonably awesome. Anything more and I would feel obliged to wait for a weekend deal or a more advantageous episode pack.
You could also make a kind of “season pass” much like TellTale do and ask, for instance, 15EUR for the complete pack of five (for the sake of argument, let’s say there’s five). Then also offer the individual episodes for 4EUR a piece (possibly less for the first episode, then end with an epic cliffhanger, muahah).
I’d say, make it a mandatory donation-based thing - when it’s this cheap you may as well, and you’ll get a few people giving pennies, lots giving a pound, and a few giving fivers. You’ll end up with a lot higher average that way anyway.
I’d suggest paying attention to the McDonalds saver menu, someone must have spent weeks deciding to price their most expensive ‘cheap’ item at £1.29 (double-cheeseburger).
I’d go for £1. Or 79p/99c like iTunes.
But for the love of god, have some sort of season pass available, lazy lazy people like me put off buying TGP for ages, not due to price, just because it’s a faff to pay for things online (especially if you’re using SecureCard or whatever on your own debit/cc). So one transaction instead of 5 or 6 is much more reasonable.
And since you do have fans now, how about some sort of package offer - ie. you pay say £12 for 5 episodes (instead of £1 each) but at the end get a CD with a signed cover or something.
I think £3 would be perfectly reasonable, but you’ve kind of shot yourself in the foot with TGP; you’re not gonna be able to charge the same for a significantly shorter game. £2 would then be the logical next step (or £1.99 for obvious reasons). £1.50 is probably getting on the cheap side and 99p is definitely too low.
I like the idea of charging less for the first episode, then more for subsequent. And if you have any idea how many episodes there are gonna be a season pass will be a good idea. But I guess by the way you work, Dan, that’s not really an option!
I’d say that £2 sounds eminently reasonable to me.
It’s cheaper than a pint, cheaper than a blockbuster rental, cheaper than a cinema film, around the price of a comic and twice as expensive as a 3 minute song on iTunes.
Really anything less than a fiver and you are in impulse grab territory and I’d say the only reason to keep it lower than £3 is to stop the inevitable griping that people are getting less for more (even though the £3 price point was such excellent value in the first place).
I think that it should be 2 or even 2,5 pounds rather than 1,5. These are still very attractive prices and the numbers look more classy.
Personally, I don’t believe too much in making money from impulse buys unless you’re making a game for a platform like iPhone, sell on casual portals, or something like that.
I’ll agree with the £2. That’s roughly $4AUD and something I’d be willing to pay.
As others have said, offer a season pass, too.
Time Gentlemen Please was such astonishingly good value that I’d almost forgotten it was only £3. When I heard about this episodic format I imeediately thought that 50p would be a ludicrous price point. I’d probably pay £2 an episode but really only because I’m a fan. £1.50 seems about right for the level of entertainment you’re pitching, that’s what I’d be tempted at for a game of similar quality from someone else. 99p hit’s that magic “Well it’s not even money” price point.
It depends on how many episodes. Assuming around 5, I’d say £1.99 a pop or £7.99 for the bundle. And cheap at the price!
I think around the £1.50 to £2 mark would be about right, depending on the number of episodes you plan on making.
Below a quid is a heinouisly low price for such an amount of awesome, above £2.50 and I think your getting too close to people wanting TGP lengthiness.
£2 sound right to me. I’d be up for the $4AUSD per game, like someone else mentioned. The seasonal pre-order is also a very good idea, something I think many would be down for, and even prefer, to waiting to pay for each game. You did kind of lock yourself in a room with the very underpriced Time Gentlemen, Please, eh?
Hmm, also, maybe consider using http://www.kickstarter.com/? I don’t know how appropriate it is for your projects, but I’ve seen it put to good use by some games (Liferaft, Radical Dreamers etc) to garner support.
Err, Saturated Dreamers*. Apologies for the triple post >_<
Here’s another vote for the £1,5-£2 range, which seems reasonably enough for something episodic. TGP was dangerously underpriced, but I’m willing to write that off as a youthful transgression if Zombie Cow promises to be a good capitalist organization and extort the hell out of its customers whenever you release another non-episodic game…
What’s the going rate for a Greg’s pastie and a can of Coke? £1.50? SOLD!
I can go hungry for a slice of gaming pie.
Like the idea of the buffet cart though.
i would be fine with $2 instead of ~$1
I’d pay five of your pound money. I’d pay more, but I’d also pay five.
You pretty much answered you’re own question before you asked it. Everyone agrees TGP is very reasonably/under-priced. So you sholdn’t be tempted to price the new episodes in proportion with that. That’s being too generous.
For about an hour’s worth of gameplay I’d easily pay £2.00 - £2.50. Anything above that might make me think twice, but I’d probably go up to 3 quid with a bit of arm-twisting.
@ForteDante - Kickstarter is a nice idea but US only I fear.
Didn’t notice that clause - that’s a shame.
Given that I’ll happily give Telltale £5 for an afternoon’s entertainment, I see no reason why I wouldn’t extend you the same courtesy.
That said, I reckon the £1.50 - £2.50 range is a nice sweet spot. At that price it’s cheap enough for series newcomers to take a chance on it, which is the main thing. The rest of us will buy them regardless.
Maybe there’s a future plotline about going back in time and convincing yourselves to put a more sensible pricepoint on TGP.
I wouldn’t change TGP’s price whatsoever - I think it’s the perfect spot to spread the word.
Just to remind everyone, if you’re feeling in any way unfomfortable about TGP’s low low bargainous pricing you can always donate through PayPal, or buy another copy through Steam. THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO UPPER LIMIT!
;)
I’m quite willing to pitch in the price of a pint - of course now that I’m back to being an impoverished student instead of earning money on a work placement year that’s going to be a £1.50 of watery, pishy Tennants instead of a 3 quid pint of glorious real ale!
In seriousness i I think that for an hour or two of quality entertainment two pounds is not unreasonable. As someone else pointed out that puts you on roughly the same price per hour as Telltale’s episodic stuff - which I’ve always felt was reasonably priced.
I would have suggested you go all Radiohead and do a chose your own price thing but from the sounds of it that didn’t work too great for Ben There Dan That (and if I’m being honest I only donated for that because I felt TGP was under priced).
£1-2 good for me!
Hey, and once you get Steam to package em all up like they do for the Telltale games, you could, I don’t know, have a *shock* 10/5p discount for buying the whole series. That would guarantee sales
I think that 2 quid per episode sounds about right - but a Telltale-style season pass for about 8 quid is a great idea.
I’d've thought that most people who are on board for the first episode will certainly be getting the rest (so long as it contains the hours worth of funny/ sweary/ gross-out/ self-referential gameplay that we’re all going to demand!).
I think it’s also worth noting that as well as getting the price right one of the key things with episodic gaming is keeping the games coming on time and at regular intervals. Delays are unlikely to affect any diehard fans but people who are just trying things out are unlikely to remember to come back if the next game isn’t there waiting next month (or on whatever timescale you guys decide to release these at).
$3 US. You should also probably offer a season subscription deal if these episodes will be coming at regular intervals. Like if it were four episodes at $3 a pop, charge $10 for the season pass.
I would pay 2 Euro for an episode.
I agree that £2 seems like a further bargain, and like most, feel TGP is fantastic value - but, as you said, the price made it extremely popular and a lot of good press came directly from it.
I would also suggest some kind of ‘buy the whole series’ arrangement. Consider me in the casual-Internet-user-who-like-computer-games demographiic, and I feel that many small payments, or ANY small payments, isn’t about the money but the inconvenience of going through the process of paying.
Make it simple for those like me who want to play, have a spare £10-20, but don’t want to get our card out every time, worry about whether to refresh the payment processing screen and generally speaking don’t like paying for things over the Internet.
We’re a strange breed - sometimes more is, actually, more.
1-1.5€
Just bought the pack on steam(after seeing the game in the top 10 best rated adventure games I told myself I had to give it a try), and what a blast! Best adventure games I’ve played for years.
As for the price I think 2 euro would be fine. Also selling them as a pack like someone suggested earlier is a good idea(like sam’n'max seasons from telltale).
As long as it’s less than a pint, and since I live in Suffolk it will be, Ill buy. I think £2 sounds the most convincing.
$10 USD (whatever that is in funny money)!
Certainly the current price point for me has been entirely throwaway. What I mean is that I barely even thought about needing to spend £3, I’d have sooner paid that money towards a game than closed my eyes to sneeze, I think that’s just how I am.
Generally though, I think £2 is a fine price for an hours entertainment. Approaching it with an iTunes like mindset helped me get to that conclusion.
Well, thats a tough dilema.
I look at it from a different point of view…
I liked BTDT and TGP very much, so much that I want zombie studios to continue making games as long as its not Gibbage 2.. Sorry Dan & Ben lol…
And because of this, I’m sure you could get away with a £2.00/£2.50 price range. This depends on how frequent the episodes will come out. Very frequent? £2.00… Not so frequent? £2.50…
A fine line needs to be drawn in between keeping your gamers happy, and keeping yourself in business. So I think £2.00 to £2.50 is reasonable.
Anything less is just criminal! I can easily save that one extra pound (euro) from not buying a drink/snack, and spend it on a quality game instead!
You might consider Telltale’s model, and release them each individually for like $3 or $4, or as a pack upfront for some sort of discount, depending on how many are made total.
In all honesty though, yeah, this isn’t the best place to ask the question. I loved the first two so much I’d easily be willing to spend another $5+ for more.
£1.50 is about as high as I’d want to go for a one-hour game in the current style. I’d go to £3 - 3.50 if you put in voices.
I really think you set the bar a little too low with TGP; It’s worth at least a fiver; I’d have stretched to £7.50, and I wasn’t a fanboy, having never heard of you until your glorious arrival on Steam.
I’d pay $9.99 US, and I wouldn’t feel bad about it because I feel like I already fleeced you on your first two games.
I would gladly pay $3 per episode after having played the first two games and understanding how well done they are. If I was a new customer I think $1.50 would convince me to give them a shot.
I was browsing Steam when I first came across Time Gentlemen Please (not having heard of it before) and took a punt due to the very favourable reviews and the £2.99 price tag.
Having now completed the game, I think it was underpriced. I’d say a RRP of £2.99 for each episode on first release would be about right particularly if the puzzle quality and humour remain. But I think you’d then then have to up the RRP on the TGP double pack to about a tenner to avoid buyer confusion and reflect the relative quantitative gameplay.
To mitigate community critisism of the TGP price hike, you could still still sell it at £2.99 as a never ending special offer, but display the RRP price crossed out. This then pitches the original game in the right RRP price bracket enabling future games to be priced more realistically.
I know that this is just pretty much repeating what has already been said but a £2 price would be perfect for me (and hopefully somewhat more profitable for you). I would also be willing to buy a ‘Season Pass’ of some sort and it would be a true bonus if this were to include some wallpapers and other goodies (*hint*).
I loved BTDT and TGP so much I’d pay pretty much anything you asked for whatever you cook up next. What worries me more is this ‘playtime of about an hour’ malarkey.
I’ve been hankering for the next Ben and Dan adventure since finishing TGP, and all I can see an hour of playtime doing is leaving me longing for the next (brilliantly written though it will undoubtedly be).
Part of me can’t help but wonder if this is part of a master world domination plan…
I think all episodes together can cost as much as a regular full price game with a discount for people who buy the whole “season”.
I would pay almost any price for the upcoming episodes as long as they are DRM-free!
$2.99 USD sounds reasonable to me. Anything lower than $5 usually feels worth the purchase, no matter the game’s length; however, as it’s episodic, buyers may consider whether they want to spend $5 every episode (for an unknown amount of episodes!) At 2.99, 10 hours worth of game play would be about $30 — the high end of indie game prices. Higher than that and I would probably hold out for a package deal.
I don’t have a price in my head nor am I that good at converting Australian Dollars to pounds so I have no suggestion in the amount. But a suggestion I do have, I’m thinking that this is going to be an episodic sort of thing, right? So maybe you could give a discount for people who buy the entire series at once… so they’ve bought future episodes, even though they haven’t come out yet.
I rather like the idea of comparing it to the price of a pint. I quite often pay $3 to $4 for good glass of beer, and seeing as how one of these episodes will last longer than that beer will, the same price seems like a bargain!
I would say shoot for 1.5-2 hours and charge 3.99. That way its like a movie replacement at still much less than a movie. I would be happy to pay that much for the quality.
1 hour just simply isn’t enough time for the hassle of getting out my wallet. I will just go rent a movie. 1.5-2 hours for 4 bucks is perfect because it will keep me out of the video store and keep me coming back for more.
Another vote for £1.50 - £2 here
I always put my time-to-fun ratio in line with alcohol. £5 for an hour’s worth of drinking so that’s how much I’d pay for an hour’s game.
Then again, I thought TGP was fantastic - as highlighted by the review I penned for PC Zone…
Hope you liked it by the way, I certainly enjoyed the game :)
! hour of stuff = 2 Euro, but for you 3.
To be honest however Id pay 30 euro if you gave me 15 games as they are released.
I think 1.5-2 pounds is a good idea, im no businessman but i think that would sell well, personally i would pay more because i thoroughly enjoyed both games thus far and I like to see good developers be compensated for their hard work. this can however be accomplished through donations, the people who loved the game will probably donate, and the newcomers and everyone else can justify the low price for themselves. I would like to point out though, that tgp was more polished than the first game. while i dont know how many hours of work were spent here and there, i think that its in part owing to the fact that it is a refined idea. in which case its reasonable to say that the episodes will also benefit from their predecessors. anyone waffling over the math of what a shorter game should cost should keep that in mind
First I’d like to say that playing the two games is of the most remarkable entertainment I so far have experienced.
For an hour of gameplay I’d pay up to 3€ if u manage to keep up the high quality. Making it entirly donation based would also be worth a shot, since at least I started to like the two chaps so much that I’d pay them for their adventuring job even if they didn’t ask for money.
Greetings
@ Marco
It was a wonderful review, thank you!
Maybe the price should be dependent on what kind of beer the customer drinks..?
I think about $3 an episode is entirely reasonable. That’s cheaper than renting a movie and this is far more entertaining. Also, a subscription/package deal, like the one “Conor H” mentioned would be especially rad. I’d definitely drop like $45 up front knowing I’d get new content as it was released!
One thing you could do is expand your planned episodes to a little more each, perhaps getting through two climaxes in one episode. What Telltale does is allow for full season purchases at the start, then you get each as they come out. That could work well, IF you could follow a very specific schedule of release (people want what they pay for)
I think it’s worth pointing out that we simply don’t know how many episodes we’re going to do - could be a season’s worth, could be one. So a ‘buy the whole season up front’ package simply isn’t going to happen - because if the Episodes don’t make any money, there won’t be any more, simple as that.
Tbh, I think I’d be more than happy to pay the same price as with the previous Ben and Dan games; it’s barely over the price of a pint, and that’s fun for what, 20 minutes? You’ve got to pile on more pints to get more fun, so a good hours worth of adventure gaming for £3 is absolutely fine.
At the same time, I won’t say no to £2 either, obv.
I’d say £1.79, based on the price of the other games, and the fact it sounds like a nice number.
It would also make it one of the cheapest Steam games, so it would show up when people sort by price, and would undercut that sneaky Windosill.
I’d probably pay around $3-4 for a good hour’s worth of Ben and Dan (don’t know how much that is in your limey product-buying thingies), though honestly I could be convinced to go higher if it’ll encourage you guys to make more. I fear the day when the series wears on me to the point where it’s not worth playing anymore, but who knows how long that will be? I imagine I’ll be eager for new episodes for some time to come.
Windosill have changed their Steam price from £1.80 to £1.79.
I vote £1.78 for the episode.
I would happily pay anything upto £2 an episode but since I am confident in you guys to make a great game I would happily lay down £9.99 for a collection of the episodes.
£2.50 to 2.95 - I mean that’s hardly anything really, especially for the quality you turn it out .
Less than 2 quid and you are underselling yourselves.
I would happily pay £2.50-£Infinite for an episode of the B & D games. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest about the price because your games are most excellent.
Just remember to include the racism bar, more Nazi Dinosaurs (or even Mexican Dinosaurs - complete with somberos and tacos, Senorsaurus even :P).
:D
I got both episodes as a double pack on steam for next to nothing and have to stay I was astonished by what I got for it. I’d probably pay two or three pounds for future episodes.
I’d pay £3 for an hour of entertainment. Spend that much on a pint often and it doesn’t last that long. And using my brain is a lot better than softening it. Probably would go higher too.
Oh, and I’d be very keen to see these on Steam wherever possible, as it’s very convenient to have them there.
Oh, I could probably see £1.50 to £2 working for regular people.
I think £1.99 would the best price.
Honestly, £2 is an ideal price point. Any cheaper and you’re making the product seem cheap. I’d be worried about paying less than that for it, actually - it would make me think that I’m only getting a pound’s worth of entertainment if I’m just paying a pound.
Without trying to analyze your past pricing decisions too much, I’d say that £2.99 was a good price to help TGP get popular. But you’ve proven yourself now, and your brand is established.
Obviously, I would have paid £10 for TGP and I’d pay around £5 per episode - but that’s a fan talking, and you don’t need to market to me.
It’s also important to keep the episodes cheaper than TGP.
So yeah, £2.
I’d second 1.99 GBP ~ I’d recommend doing the crappy marketing thing of making it that and not 2 pounds straight as it does look cheaper to people.
Buying it as gifts would be a cool way to spread the love… I know I wouldn’t mind spending a tenner and sharing extra copies amongst friends.
Actually what about £2.49? That could work too.
I paid a small fortune for the new monkey island series and so far they have been massively disappointing and full of bugs.
I know that your next installment won’t be so tragically disappointing and would happily pay the £2.99 again.
Actually know, for god’s sake please round it up to £3…even ASDA is doing that now.
nic
I’d be willing to pay $2-3 US dollars per episode.
Keep in mind the quality of the games is gradually improving even if the gameplay itself is getting shorter.
I’m thinking that £1 or £1.50 on your site and £2 - £2.50 on steam would work quite well for you guys.
I would hate for there not to be more episodes becasue you priced it too cheap .. however i would also hate it if there weren’t more episodes if you priced too high.
to be really harsh an Ep of Monkey island or Sam and max is £4 when bought together higher than £2 might be a struggle.
I just finished Ben There Dan That, and I just purchased Time Gentlemen, Please. I’m assuming I’ll like TGP as much as I did BTDT, which is why I’m commenting already.
I don’t really like playing episodic games as they come out, and tend to wait until the whole series is finished and then play them all in a row. I’d probably be willing to fork over $10 to $15 for the series as a package.
Just finished the TGP demo and went straight out and bought the full game (but not played it yet). Judging by the demo’s quality, £2.99 is an absolute bargin. Sod play time, if the quality is there then £3 is still a bargin. Like others have said, it’s possible that even cheaper pricing = shit quality in peoples minds, and dropping the price even further for future episodes might not do you any favours…
[rant]damn App Store! Now people think making this stuff takes 5 mins and only costs 15p + two Tescos vouchers![/rant] ;)
Yeah guys, we had a great time playing both Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please (and recommended it to a few people as well) and would be more than happy to throw out a few bucks per for more episodes… Can’t wait!
I really loved BTDT and TGP and i’d be willing to pay definitely $5USD for future episodes even if they were only 1 hour long, it would definitely be worth it.
Keep up the good work, you guys make awesome stuff, I’ll spread the word!
Finished TGP and BTDT. 1.5GBP/2.5USD sounds fine for “about an hour” per episode.
If you want to go higher consider making a season pass option with a lower price per episode.
Pitch it the same price as eight Ace - £1.49 (one forteh nine). You’ll keep me coming back for more.
Having said that, i haven’t played TGP yet - dl’ing it this morning for my first day off without wife or kids in months.
You’re like scumm-based crack dealers BTW - the first taste is free, the second is reasonably priced, but WHERE WILL IT EEEEEEEND?
sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!
I was going to echo Mr Gillen’s comment, and then I had a bit of a think about it. Rare, that.
Watcha could do is let people pay how much they want…? I mean yes, I know you’re not Radiohead and yes, we all have to keep afloat in these credit crispy times, but it would be ballsy.
Wait. Does ballsy bankrupt people? Possibly.
Making three episodes? Charge $2 a pop and sell the pack for $5 as a bundle (in advance of making the last two parts). Making more? Do something similar, selling a season pack of sorts. Hook in the maybes with a single and get quick cash from the devotees for the pack.
TGP was a bargain but it’s distinctly indie-looking, which is enough to send people off into Sam and Max territory if they don’t know what they’re doing. The people commenting right now are more likely to pay a higher price than the people just passing through, and sadly it’s those passers-by that pay the bills, not the commenters.
How about selling the episodes like TGP on this site?
The idea:
Sell each episode at about 0.99 to 1.50 pounds and include a donation option (like the one for BTDT) to voluntarily add the same amount on top, giving a sum of 1.98 to 3.00 pounds.
Therefore giving people the chance to pay more if they think the games are worth it while not driving potential new players or people with less money to spend away.
I have no idea what slice Steam gets if you continue to use their system, but you could probably use a average value of the added sum above (1.50-2.00 pounds maybe?) for that.
Oh and by the way, although I would surely buy your episodic games, I really hate that kind of release scheme. I’d much rather see you guys do more “full” games. :)
(I also just realized this news was posted back in september and I’m reviving a month-old comment thread. Oh well, maybe this will never be read by anyone. =) )
I’ve just finished TGP having completed BTDT last week, the two were a birthday present from a mate.
Fucking loved both of them, obviously TGP especially and I’m away to donate some monies in a minute.
As for pricing, I think it depends a bit on how frequently you release the episodes. The more frequently they’re released i think the less people will be willing to shell out.
That said, I think £1.99 is a very reasonable amount per episode. Even at my skintest I’m going to be able to find two quid for some guaranteed fun. It’s only going to end up in Wetherspoons coffers otherwise.
I like the bundle idea too. So if you’ve got say 6 episodes planned, maybe you pay £10 now and that gets you immediate access as they’re released. Maybe you also have a £15 price point for a limited time which gets you a poster (as seen in the flat at the end of TGP) and a dinosaur magnet or something.
I hate to be a spoil-sport, because I love BTDT and TGP, but buying a game that is shorter than a movie is not something I find remotely attractive no matter what the price. Bundle them together and I’d consider it. I’m very leery of the whole episodic game concept.
If the new games are an hour long, I probably won’t get them no matter what the price. The question is, an hour of first-timer playtime or a hour of your playtime? I’m ok with paying around 4-5€ for an episode of the same length as TGP.
i think $1 is more than a fair price for only an hour worth of gameplay i usually get 60 hours out of 60 dollar games so one dollar is fair for one hour of playing
as an add to my last comment i just read somebodies post ( forget who ) and it gave me an idea most people wont buy such a short game so why dont you combine 2 episodes and sell it for $2 so its longer or people can pay say 8 dollars in advance for like 10 episodes and it will be like buying a full game instead of only buying the episodes with the best reviews or none at all since people who did not play BTDT or TGP will think its a ripoff to buy a game thats only a hour long
you previously stated that you had more for Revenge but it didnt work out the way you wanted, most people wont buy a hour long game so besides tricking them why dont you use some of the old ideas and ones that people created to make it like a two and a half hour game for like $2.50. this would give you alot more profit and a hour long game for $1 even with 50000 buys you still wont make enough profit since you have worked on this project for so long, and since nobody works for free and your going to have to increase the price and no ones gunna pay more than one dollar for only an hours worth of gameplay. ( if you had 65,000 downloads of btdt then probably only 50,000 got tgp or 50,000 who would be interested and know about your upcoming games) and since you have been in developing revenge for such a long time you at the very least would have to charge $3 and use donated money to buy ads for all your games but mainly TGP and revenge ( you could still definatly run ads if you made a 2.5 hour game for $2.50 which would hopefully increase the number of BTDT and TGP and Revenge fans and profit.) sorry for the poor grammar hopefully soneone at zombie cow studios knows what im trying to say
im considering going into business school (one day a long ways away) and hopefully can produce video games one day and was wondering what was wrong with my idea since i love zombiecow studios and only want them to succeed any ideas on how to revise my ideas? (im just bored while waiting for revenge to come out. also i want to revise my ideas which i thought were kind of good, where did i go wrong did i do anything right?) (i know its off topic but im bored)
Id be more than happy to go for £1.50 - £2
If it was also released on steam that would be even more awesome (Thats where I bought the other 2 in 1 pack)
I would be more than happy to pay $3-4 US per episode.
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