Slashdot Mirror
Letting Customers Decide Pricing On Game DLC
An anonymous reader writes "How much should game developers be charging for DLC? It seems that one indie dev has decided to carry out a unique experiment. The latest expansion pack for Gratuitous Space Battles is priced at $5.99 — or is it? It turns out there is both a standard ($5.99) version and a discount version ($2.99). And the difference between them is... nothing. The buyers have been left to make their own decisions on whether or not they should pay full price, and send more money to the developer, or treat themselves to a deserved discount. The buy page even lists comparisons of national incomes, average salaries and even the price of sausages to help buyers make up their minds. Will this catch on? Will Microsoft start asking us whether or not we should get a discount and trust us to answer honestly?"
At least for me "DLC" reads as "Stuff we took out from the main release or would give out in a free update but now sell as extra to squeeze more money out of the customers", 'cause that's exactly what has been done by most publishers.
Call it "expansion pack" or "small expansion pack".
Next give some sort of no-monetary-value reward for people who pay the larger amount. Maybe easier access to the developer and the ability to suggest improvements for the next version.
That said, is the "expansion pack" even worth the small amount? For all we know the two amounts listed are "more money than it's worth" and "way much more money than it's worth" and this is all a poor-man's advertising gimmick. Certainly getting the game to Slashdot will bring more sales.
(Disclaimer: I have no idea if it's so or not. Maybe the use of the word "DLC" has put me in a overly-negative mind-set with regards to this and even the large amount is great value. Take my opinion with a pinch of salt).
Well, he's basically tesseracting the gap in time between when the DLC is released and the point where it goes on sale on Steam for half price (which is where it sells the most, according to him) by offering the DLC at the sale price, while also offering people who are willing to pay full price the option of paying what he feels his work on the content is actually worth.
The fact that he expects to make money on his work should be no surprise. He's experimenting with different ways of doing it instead of trying the tried-and-tested-to-be-shit method of throwing your loyal paying fans under the DRM bus.
I'm all for DLC, don't get me wrong; I love the fact that new areas and items can be implemented after a game is released. I understand that releasing new content after a game's initial release isn't free; it costs developers and publishers money, but people really need to look at how much some DLC packs cost. That being said, sometimes publishers and/or developers do some really cool things. DLC that is available for free on launch day? Totally awesome...there was stuff that they really wanted to get into the game, and obviously ran out of time before the discs had to be pressed; I really appreciate it on the rare occasion when it occurs.
But what's with DLC you have to pay for being released not even a week or two after a game is released? Couldn't you have just delayed the freakin' game for two weeks if it was that awesome?!? Seriously, publishers...if there is an amazing dungeon or a few great items that just absolutely HAVE to be in a game, give the developers the extra couple of weeks to implement them into the release version. Don't make us pay extra money because the game had to be released NOW NOW NOW, and there isn't time to include things that you should. Can you imagine if you had to pay for DLC to get the Spear in Secret of Mana, or if you had to pay for DLC to unlock secret ingredients in Secret of Evermore?
Developers/publishers walk a fine line with DLC. They need to be careful.
Living With a Nerd
Oh come on. No shit $2.99 covers the cost. It's digital. The incremental cost to the developer to ship another unit for a piece of software is tiny, tiny, tiny. Most of the $2.99 goes to profit, R&D and fixed costs.
Now, he still needs to pay those developers who made the software, buy computers, rent office space, etc. I'm sure he's done the math and knows he can achieve that by selling X at $6 or 2X at $3. Of course, he could go open source, set the price at 0 and make it up on volume [/stupid slashdot joke]. In Econ 101 he would have read about the price curve that suggests that fewer people will buy at $6 but maybe not so much fewer that it isn't the better price for his business. For a businessman, the ideal scenerio is to charge everyone the most their willing to pay - price stratification. This is why you have coupons at the grocery store. People with little money and lots of time can clip coupons and pay less. People who have more money will not and will pay a higher price.
The play here is not that he's trying to sell the 2X number with some paying $3 and some paying $6. He wants to first make sure he is able to break even by selling something like .5 X @ $6 and X @ $3. The $6 price helps him break even the same way the $3 price does. Plus, after Econ 101, you learn the price curve is somewhat BS in the first place. Part of what he's doing is stating "We think the product is worth $6, but are offering a 50% discount to poor people and assholes (distinct groups)." Now, regardless of why I look at the $3 price, I am much less likely to think, "Is $3 too much for this expansion?" because it's already a half off discount and be more likely to purchase. He may actually sell more units at $3 than he would have without the $6 option.
These guys are just remarkably (for better or worse) upfront about the price stratification. He's also a freak'n brilliant marketer. Free publicity on Slashdot is a win.
All software pricing is arbitrary. Always. It's up to a vendor to ask for what they think the product is worth, offer discounts / sales / etc to those who think it's worth less, and for the consumer to either purchase or not. The vendor needs to deliver a product that delivers a fair enough value that consumers will purchase their products again / not leave angry messages on forums or app stores.
Thats because most DLC is stuff they didn't include in the original game because of laziness, time or greed.
Yes, run Linux.
(Please don't mod me funny. I'm serious - I've seen lots of people pirating Windows and Windows apps, I've seen lots of people running Linux for all sorts of reasons but I have never yet seen anyone run Linux because they can't pirate software. Because they don't want to pirate software (and perhaps can't afford to purchase legitimately), sure.)