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MarketTantrik

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Think of it as a way to support indies, and you probably wouldn't feel the pinch that bad.

You know, Indie is supposed to be cheap. Why? Because its Indie, so no blood sucking corporation to eat up the revenues. If you're an Indie dev, price your games properly.

 

 

 

peace

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You know, Indie is supposed to be cheap. Why? Because its Indie, so no blood sucking corporation to eat up the revenues. If you're an Indie dev, price your games properly.

peace

They come up with "pay what you like" stuff too, and make amends. :)

I do not think it could have been priced any lower than 800 MSP for the content it has, may be blame MS for forcing this pricing not the dev. MS would have even asked for exclusivity, so with other revenue channels cut-off, Playdead would have agreed to the pricing. And you do not let such a deal go, when you know that if your game is good you can fetch 350K download for certain.

 

Come November and we would be lining up to buy the yearly COD for 1000 Rs more than the regular prices...and still we can't we put up with one slightly overpriced indie game.

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COD isnt by an Indie dev. Or are you trying to say that you don't mind being ripped off as long as its by an Indie dev?

 

And wasn't Braid for 1600 MS Points? This isn't the first time. And like you said, this could easily have been 800 MS Points.

 

People use "Indie" as a free pass to do whatever the f**k they want. It's all good as long as its by an "Indie" dev.

 

 

 

peace

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People use "Indie" as a free pass to do whatever the f**k they want. It's all good as long as its by an "Indie" dev.

 

True. And it applies to everything from movies to music... to games.

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You know, Indie is supposed to be cheap. Why? Because its Indie, so no blood sucking corporation to eat up the revenues. If you're an Indie dev, price your games properly.

 

peace

 

:lol:

 

You do realize that MS takes up nearly half of the revenue of games like these.

 

If there is no one to take a giant bite out of their money then Indie stuff can/is cheap. Look at self published games on the PC. Hell even, look at steam. Look at the Ipod/Iphone games. Dozens of Indie games that range from 2-10 USD.

 

And lastly just because its Indie doesnt mean it didnt cost anything to make. Braid took nearly 200k to make IIRC. There are dozens of games that have nearly bankrupted the creators. Its not exactly peanuts and they arent doing it for charity. They need to make money off this to continue to exist.

 

Just because its Indie people seem to think you can make games for 200 bucks in a few weeks in your basement.

 

Edit Queued the demo. Lets see.

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COD isnt by an Indie dev. Or are you trying to say that you don't mind being ripped off as long as its by an Indie dev?

COD publishers aren't working out of coffee-shops or basements, they aren't supporting themselves on their personal savings either, they are a public company and backed by huge investors. And they do not give sh*t about what goes in their games if they make money, these guys DO. Talk of original ideas/design innovation/freshness...the USP of indies. They are not ripping off.

And this.

And lastly just because its Indie doesnt mean it didnt cost anything to make. Braid took nearly 200k to make IIRC. There are dozens of games that have nearly bankrupted the creators. Its not exactly peanuts and they arent doing it for charity. They need to make money off this to continue to exist.

 

And wasn't Braid for 1600 MS Points? This isn't the first time. And like you said, this could easily have been 800 MS Points.

Yes, Braid was priced 1600, Blow changed it to 1200 later.

You do realize that MS takes up nearly half of the revenue of games like these.

This. And if MS weren't such a douchbags they could price it at 800.

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Yeah I mean even at best case scenario these guys are making 5 USD for every copy sold.

 

Dont confuse Indie developers with part time modders. For a AAA game like this, assuming that it takes 2-3 guys working full time for a year or so to make it (actually AFAIK its taken them longer) and each programmer gets paid about 40-50k a year, thats still well over 120-130k spend from their pockets. Throw in some art guys, music guys working part time and you can easily end up spending 150-200k on a big Indie game. And remember we havent added any advertising costs yet. At 5 bucks a copy they have to sell 40k copies just to break even. And 40k is a HUGE number for a game that will not get any TV, magazine ads or premium space on websites and is exclusive for one console. And thats just for getting back the money they put into it. To get any kind of return on investment and get working on their next game they have to sell at least double that.

 

And lastly before we jump the gun and start blaming MS for this. Remember there is a reason why developers are willing to hand over half the earnings and their left nut to feature in the Summer of Arcade. They could just as easily put it on the PC with their own website and take all the cash for themselves. They go to MS because it gives them a chance to be the next Braid, Shadow Complex, Trials etc and hit the big numbers.

 

Complaining about the quality of Indie titles is fair game. Being Indie doesnt excuse trash. But saying they should hand out their games for half the current price is stupid.

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And lastly before we jump the gun and start blaming MS for this. Remember there is a reason why developers are willing to hand over half the earnings and their left nut to feature in the Summer of Arcade. They could just as easily put it on the PC with their own website and take all the cash for themselves. They go to MS because it gives them a chance to be the next Braid, Shadow Complex, Trials etc and hit the big numbers.

Agree with you totally.

MS is taking huge cuts from these sales. In fact, they are also getting cut from the community XBLA titles - 30%. But the window of opportunity is really huge here for the indies...no doubt about that.

From Wiki:

 

Nearly 70 percent of Xbox 360 owners connected to Xbox Live have downloaded an Arcade title with the attach rate being 6-7 titles per user. Original games typically receive 350,000 downloads in the first month. Titles have an average 156% financial return over twelve months with the first two months of sales accounting for just 35% of total volume

Data is from:

http://zone.msn.com/images/v9/en-us/site/VAustin_MS_Casual_games.pdf

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Joe Danger developers Hello games said XBL is a slaughterhouse for indie developers and most games get 25-40 k download only. It took 50k for them to break even for Joe Danger.

 

EDIT: Link

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That 350k figure is just downloads not purchases. That would include demos and trial versions. If I had to guess I would say buy rate would be about 10-20% for about 80% of those games, there was an article last year after the summer of arcade sale that said the same thing. So yeah, the JD guys are right on the money.

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MS not only takes a cut, but they also dictate pricing. You can't price XBLA titles on a whim. Everything need to go through Redmond.

 

Think of it like the iTunes Store :lol:

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Joe Danger developers Hello games said XBL is a slaughterhouse for indie developers

 

in a blog post yesterday he pointed out that this whole 'slaughterhouse' comment was taken out of context. (source)

 

as for the indie pricing argument, i don't see why they should have to price the games cheap just because they are indie. they price the game based on what they think it is worth and you have the option to buy it or leave it depending on what you think it's worth. comparing industry metrics on how much games cost to make, how long they are, what tech they use etc. is rather pointless. let's go with some examples... starcraft 2 cost 100 milion dollars to make, and it is selling at 60$. so should a game with a budget that is a tiny fraction of 100 million be priced as a tiny fraction of 60$? rpgs like fallout 3 or dragon age have potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay for 50$. so should a 4 hour game be priced at less than 50 cents? one of the best indie games of 2009 was machinarium... in fact, it is one of the best i've ever played. and it was fairly long too... lasted me over 7 hours. i paid 15$ for it, and i thought it was worth it, but i can understand if it wasn't for someone else. later it went on sale on steam for 2$ or something, and i still knew people who wouldn't buy it. why? because it was made in flash. no matter how long the game is, no matter how good the game is, no matter how cheap the game is... they would not buy it because they can't wrap their heads around paying for a flash game. what sense does this kind of bias make?

 

it's hard not to feel sympathetic for indie developers. most of the time, they bet the farm on their work. we hear about the success stories like braid and garry's mod and stuff like that, but we rarely hear about the developers who lost everything in the gamble. that, however, does not excuse games being overpriced, but let's not expect them to be very cheap just because they were made independently. let them decide what they think their game is worth, and the market will decide whether they were right or wrong.

 

limbo isn't coming to the pc, so my interest in it is limited. however, if it was coming, i would not have paid 15$ for it. just doesn't seem worth it to me... the good thing is, being on steam guarantees that it would be 5$ or less at some point very soon and that's when i would have bought it. but i wouldn't begrudge them for selling it at 15$ either... if they can get sales at that price, good for them.

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I'm loving the game. I had to go out and I was finding it hard to put the controller down. Some of the stuff in there is just sadistic. Its amazing how the game can make you cringe without even showing you anything too graphic.

 

My only gripe is that most of the time you find your way forward through trial and error, which means dying a lot.

 

 

 

peace

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