PuppyGames: The Customer as a Commodity
Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 19, 2014
Since I’m sleep-deprived and exhausted and haven’t had much time to spare to the blog with this Comic Con demo coming up, I’ll just link to a really good (and, no doubt, soon to be demonized) blog post by fellow indie Cas Prince:
Because You’re Worthless: The Dark Side of Indie PR
Because I have a fairly niche audience, I haven’t been through quite the meatgrinder that my more popular fellow indies have. While I’ve gotten some bug reports and had to help with some issues, I’ve been able to maintain more than a 20:1 ratio of supportive emails vs. critical emails. Since one nasty email has a negative influence proportional to twenty positive ones, that’s important.
Accept it or argue with it, he makes an interesting point. While the race to the bottom has commoditized games, the flip side is that they’ve commoditized customers as well. When things get super cheap, only big numbers count.
Stuff to ponder in the new indie world.
Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 5 Comments to Read
ShadowTiger said,
The most relevant info for me was the realization that being on Steam might mean you can’t control your prices. I have heard that Playstation Plus and Amazon can put your game on free without your permission, but this is a bit different I think…
“Technically Valve don’t actually dictate the prices we charge. Actually, they do. Utterly. It’s just not talked about. ”
Not sure what it means, and since its under NDA. I would assume they do something similar to amazon where you get more % of revenue if you charge a certain range of prices.
Cuthalion said,
As I commented on Puppygames’ post (under the name goblinJoel), it’s just surreal to me and kind of sad that we now have to prove our game is worth $20. $20. Just $20. That’s what you bought bad or old games for a few years ago.
Michael Miller said,
Eh, while I completely sympathise over the implied trouble with Steam (and presumably other distribution channels) and their tacit control over pricing I wonder if a part of the problem stems from indies largely having to act as their own business managers (and marketing teams, and PR people and accountants etc.). We ridicule companies like EA for hiring CEOs that know nothing about games, but I am sure there must be some sort of point where a company would profit from having someone who is more knowledgeable (or at least more experienced) in dealing with contract negotiations, lawyers and the like. I realise that a small company won’t have much power in negotiations with Valve, but perhaps every little advantage would help?
Anon said,
> As I commented on Puppygames’ post (under the name goblinJoel), it’s just surreal to me and kind of sad that we now have to prove our game is worth $20. $20. Just $20. That’s what you bought bad or old games for a few years ago.
True – but there always were a lot of bad games out there.
Bad clones, quick and dirty cash-ins, sloppy derivatives, overly ambitious bullshit.
Yes, even back then and I wasted a lot of money on shit.
So, if you prove to me that your game is worth $20 I’ll buy it at that price.
How? With enough trailers and perhaps a free demo (which helps when I’m interested enough).
If your games doesn’t meet my interest then I don’t care what price you demand – I won’t bite (strategy, sports, world-building or military simulations, for example).
My opinion of course doesn’t help you much in a world where you can get five games for five bucks…
Kyle Haight said,
I’d much prefer to pay one developer $20 for one game I want and will play than to pay 10 developers $2 each for a bundle of 10 games of which I want and will play only one. That’s one of the dark sides of the bundle/huge backlog trap — you’re sending less of your money to the developers who are making the games you actually play.