30$+ Price tag = No thanks

[Masochist]

Does Introversion really need to make $30 per copy of a game to stay in business and turn a profit? That is a great price for a AAA game with hundreds of people on the payroll and $$ millions in dev costs.

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My concern is not for myself but for the gamers out there that cannot have a taste of this game legally and how crappy some people here want to treat gamers that cannot afford $30 for an alpha of a game.

Really? "I don't think the devs need to or deserve to make $30 a copy because in the past that's not how it was" is what I totally just read. That's pretty F'ed up of you to suggest that the devs can not or should not make as much as they want to or choose...they are not OUR employees and they are not OUR slave code monkeys meant to do our biding...

Secondly...if a gamer really cares to get the game they can save $30 and buy it. Chances are if you are a gamer that means you have games and hardware to play them...you were able to save for them right? Why not now?

Perhaps now times are harder for gamer X or Y...that's still a pitiful excuse as to why a gamer (or anyone for that matter) can not save $30. Saving takes time...deal with it.

All I keep seeing in your posts and many other like it are simply people not wanting to pay $30 because it is an inconvenient price point for them. Excuses and whining. Especially when new games cost $50-$60 a pop and I am sure that doesn't stop them when the next cool title comes out.

[mik3k]

Masochist you gotta work on your reading comprehension. You are way in over your head.

I support the devs. I offered feedback that I think their price is too high considering the market, the gamers, the state of the game, etc. Take off your shock collar for a second and realize that a criticism is not a bad thing. No one is going to kick you out for actually listening to someone and not attacking first. Heck, I could be wrong. They want feedback from buyers of their game - that is what I'm giving.

You took one thing I said and embellished it and twisted it until it no longer resembles what I said. Nicely done.

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Now, I'm trying to be nice, but you guys keep overreacting and exploding at anyone that disagrees and twist the meaning of what someone says. But I have patience and that is what allows me to tolerate people like you.

[Illanair]

*chuckle*

Oh Mik. You are simply adorable.

[Xzalander]

I offered feedback that I think their price is too high considering the market, the gamers, the state of the game, etc.

Just a few things, 1. Price too high considering the market? I think not. The average price in the market is about on par with $30/£20 even for "indie" games Minecraft, Terraria and a whole bunch of others now cost around this figure and "considering" the market average is more $45-50 / £30-35 for new release games; Its cheap.

2. Too high considering the gamers? Considering its made £100k in a few short hours; I'd say thats a bit moot. The gamers themselves have shown its not too expensive.

3. State of the game? Well again; Moot. its in alpha and you pay for a pre-order with FREE alpha access. Not Pay for alpha with a free Pre-order.

As for your prior comment about Oddworld and "the olden days" ; Your logic is a little flawed.

Olden Days : Game cost X Developers got X - Y.
Self Published: Game cost X Developers got X.

The price of the game is the same to the user in the end, so it shouldn't make a flying bit of difference that a publisher isnt taking a cut. Infact it should make you happier as it means these developers have more money to create the games they want and the games we enjoy. Instead of breadlining it due to publishers taking more than 80%. Then theres not counting the ability to keep their IP.

Does Introversion really need to make $30 per copy of a game to stay in business and turn a profit? That is a great price for a AAA game with hundreds of people on the payroll and $$ millions in dev costs.

And this is exactly what I'm annoyed by. Just because a game cost a publisher a TON of money to market and "publish", doesn't mean the game is worthy of a high price tag and vice versa, Just because a game has a low budget, should not stop it from charging a similar price.

[Dave39]

The average price in the market is about on par with $30/£20 even for "indie" games Minecraft, Terraria and a whole bunch of others now cost around this figure

Terraria is £5.99 (http://store.steampowered.com/app/105600/), and Minecraft was half the price it is now when most people bought it, would it be as popular as it is now if it started at its current price? Almost all "indie" games are sub $20, I'd say the average in the indie market at the moment is more like $15, I mean just browse Desura for a few pages and a price trend is clear: http://www.desura.com/games#popular, at my count there are only 4 games on the whole of that site that are at the $30 level.

Considering its made £100k in a few short hours; I'd say thats a bit moot. The gamers themselves have shown its not too expensive.

The problem is everyone that's bought it at the moment is likely either an introversion fan ready to give them money at any opportunity, or has been following Prison Architect closely. Probably not the best people to make objective calls on whether something is too expensive or not as these two groups were always going to buy it regardless of price.


I guess it all comes down to whether Introversion have the reputation in the minds of the general gaming public to command the price point it's currently at. The market is saturated, people are fickle, fans will buy it, but will anyone else?

Perhaps more fundamentally, do Introversion care if anything they do is a commercial success, is breaking even while doing something you love the ultimate aim? If so then maybe just selling to the fans is enough!

[mik3k]

I offered feedback that I think their price is too high considering the market, the gamers, the state of the game, etc.

Just a few things, 1. Price too high considering the market? I think not. The average price in the market is about on par with $30/£20 even for "indie" games Minecraft, Terraria and a whole bunch of others now cost around this figure and "considering" the market average is more $45-50 / £30-35 for new release games; Its cheap.

2. Too high considering the gamers? Considering its made £100k in a few short hours; I'd say thats a bit moot. The gamers themselves have shown its not too expensive.

3. State of the game? Well again; Moot. its in alpha and you pay for a pre-order with FREE alpha access. Not Pay for alpha with a free Pre-order.

As for your prior comment about Oddworld and "the olden days" ; Your logic is a little flawed.

Olden Days : Game cost X Developers got X - Y.
Self Published: Game cost X Developers got X.

The price of the game is the same to the user in the end, so it shouldn't make a flying bit of difference that a publisher isnt taking a cut. Infact it should make you happier as it means these developers have more money to create the games they want and the games we enjoy. Instead of breadlining it due to publishers taking more than 80%. Then theres not counting the ability to keep their IP.

Does Introversion really need to make $30 per copy of a game to stay in business and turn a profit? That is a great price for a AAA game with hundreds of people on the payroll and $$ millions in dev costs.

And this is exactly what I'm annoyed by. Just because a game cost a publisher a TON of money to market and "publish", doesn't mean the game is worthy of a high price tag and vice versa, Just because a game has a low budget, should not stop it from charging a similar price.

I didn't make this stuff up. READ what Lorne Lanning the developer had to say again - http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... ivate-jets

I understood that lower costs with digital distribution would lower the price to the customer. Why would you as a customer continue to pay the high cost of games when the costs have been cut so drastically? That's why steam is thriving and has grown into such a giant company. Established AAA developers are finding out they can and do make a ton of money by lowering their prices on steam and moving a ton more copies. EA has finally in the past couple of years finally started having sales on their products. I don't ever remember EA games being on sale before 2-3 years ago. Call of Duty that sold over $1 billion on the last game and never reduced their prices - yep free weekends on steam and 50% off sales. I spend probably an average of $20 on games and have 2 steam accounts with around 700 games total. Am I cheap? No. I'm smart and get more games for the same amount of money. Millions of people on steam like me with huge libraries. I will occasionally pay full price for a game, but even preorders can be had for 25% off from sites like Amazon or greenmangaming.com.

The days of exclusive, limited, overpriced indie games is over. I bet devs absolutely love guys like you that are willing to overspend on their games, but the real money is the mass of humanity on steam that has been buying over $1 billion worth of games a year since at least 2010. You get on steam with a good product, price it correctly, and sales are gigantic. Or you can stick with your shrinking core of a few thousand loyal customers willing to spend $30 for your game. Devs are really good at doing the math.

I think it is great they raised over $100,000. That shows there is a lot of interest in this game. Make the game great, price it right and that could turn into $10 million like Terraria. Even a $10 game like Gmod has sold over a million copies on steam.

Keep it $30, people that cannot or will not pay for it will obtain it other ways, interest starts to fade, and a game that should have made huge money gets forgotten for the next big game. Gamers will look at this 2D game and wonder how it is any different than any iphone game ported to the PC. A few will buy it, but most people will see the price and move on to the next game.

Space Pirates and Zombies was a great example of a game that I think it was $15 or $20 new. They had decent sales numbers. Then they had a big sale where they cut the price to something like $5 and in a couple of days they made more money than they had the whole year previous. They were ecstatic. Great devs, great game that finally got the recognition and money it deserved. I'm not saying Prison Architect should sell for $5 - I'm saying $30 is too much.

[Illanair]

Good lord mik - are you the self appointed cardinal of "Make the game cheaper" chapel? On and on like a drone.

[christopher1006]

Just a pointer to those who don't really care for the $30 dollar price like me, PA will problably keep the $30 price as retail. From there you'll see plenty of sales dropping the price down to $5-7 dollars or less on programs such as Steam, personally I intend to buy this as I love management games and trust what I've seen of this company to give me the game I've been wanting with a name like that. You claim it's blocking out the majority of gamers who would pay $20 for it. I won't say if that's true or false since I've seen no hard evidence to either, but is it really going to kill you to wait for a sale instead of playing buggy builds and filing reports on glitches?

Seeing the emotions or maybe just simple trolls on this topic it should be intereresting to see the types of people an opinion generates anger in.

EDIT: Spelling corrections

[mik3k]

I would like to apologize. Never meant to get into a big fight over something so simple. I should have just said I think it's too expensive (for some people - not me) and left it at that.

It is a great game and can't wait for a finished product. It is kinda buggy, but that's to be expected. Maybe I just never played alphas to the point of breaking them or bugs in alphas didn't have the effect they do here because of the type of game. I will probably just set this aside until the next build is released. It is truly an investment to show Introversion your support at this point.

If you can't afford it, just save up because you may rage over some of the game breaking bugs right now especially if you are choosing this game over a finished game. That is just constructive criticism and not meant to knock the game. Just a heads up on the state of the game right now. It just isn't ready for prime time yet - Soon hopefully.

[PortalPerson]

Hello,
I hate to dig this thread up again, but I recently searched about for any discussions concerning the high price of Prison Architect, and this was the first. Now I'm a university student in Oz, as well as an avid gamer. I am, however, not decked in gilt, and as such, have to buy games in packs (such as the Humble Bundle, where I get six games for ~$6-7) or low priced indie titles. My regular spend is less than $15 usually, unless I see a major title. And I've gotten several good games, such as Intrusion 2 (most recently), Terraria, Minecraft and Sequence. Back to the topic at hand, unless I am getting the full and complete version of a high end game, I am not willing to spend $30 on an indie title, nonetheless. A game like this would at most be a $15 gig, especially in an alpha stage. I suppose a game like Prison Architect in terms of popularity is Cortex Command, which debuted at $20 (I think...). Now I didn't buy this game either, as it would have been an impulse buy (further inspection revealed how frustrating it was). But the point is, indie groups with the passion to make games, or make money, do not *start* at $30 simply because it scares too many potential customers away. Now I found out about this title through a Yogscast series which got me hooked on it, however after visiting the front page, I quickly decided that that was too much, and I used a friend's copy to test it out. Much to my dismay, it was bug-ridden as all hell, with foundations not building properly (this is v5) and for some reason prisoners wouldn't arrive if I deleted the CEO's message. But I am living proof that $30 scares customers away, that it appears to be a money-grab by the devs when I can pick up three or four other non-discounted indie titles for the same price. Prison Architect does not appear to be better graphically or gameplay-wise from an other life-sim on the market, so why is it so expensive?
Rant finished.

[Branoic]

There are plenty of interviews on the web with the devs talking about their pricing structure. Go read them. Here's a good one:

http://thegamershub.net/2012/10/intervi ... certainty/

The tl;dr version:

The pricing is carefully considered and deliberately set because the devs didn't want hundreds of thousands of people who paid a low amount - they wanted a smaller number of people to pay a higher amount because that way they would attract people who were more interested in actively participating in helping the alpha and future development.

They know that there will be a certain percentage of lost sales to poor college students etc, and really, they're okay with that.

[MrLDarragh]

I agree with most. £20 is a very reasonable price considering you get Alpha, Beta, the full game, and the steam version when it's released.

Not sure if you know, or if it's been mentioned in this thread previously, but the discount code 'folsom' gets you $3 off of the price!

[PortalPerson]

I guess its just that there are so many *better* games that are finished, that are less than half the price of Prison Architect. Now I have been enjoying Uplink (another of Introversion's games), however even that is a third of the price of Prison Architect. Its fair enough to pay $30 on a massive indie game that has superb graphics, multiplayer, storyline, etc., but on an Alpha state? When Minecraft was released in Alpha (which I bought), it was $5. $5 and I would get every other update they released. That was a damn good deal. However right now Minecraft costs ~$27 for the Final Release version. That is a finished, polished, working version that doesn't kick over and crash everytime I try to overwrite a save file. And I managed to play the latest version, and its improved a lot over the first, but the labourers still don't take stuff into the storage area, or finish the foundations, and during the last saves I've made, the prisoners won't arrive.

tl;dr its a rough unfinished game which doesn't command the reputation to demand $30 in such a market and trend that is present today.
EDIT: $3 is not enough to bother with. Post again when they 3/4 the price.

[paktsardines]

unless I am getting the full and complete version of a high end game, I am not willing to spend $30 on an indie title

For god's sake, this again? Once more then: YOU ARE GETTING A FULL AND COMPLETE VERSION OF A HIGH END GAME!

You just have to be patient. In the interim you get to play the alpha (and beta too, when it's ready).

As a student you already know that $30 is only five or six beers, and PA won't leave you covered in your own vomit. Bargain.

[Mas Tnega]

Minecraft didn't have shit in it when it was $5. You hit things and you put things down. Some things hit you back. Oh, and you could make a minecart. Deeeeep.

I got it when it was more than $5 and it still didn't have much more than that.