Discussion about the cost and value of new Amiga games and whether they are overcharged or not!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by nikosidis

Worthy
GFX: 51% ?????????

What the F...

It is total beauty. Should get 95%

Yup

...that's one example of why this "Amiga Joker" review is totally bias and a crock of shite; i.e. deliberately under rating games so that a certain one will shine through (thus increases sales)

[Rochabian]

Does someone has sales statistics about a recent Amiga game ?
how many, ratio digital/boxed etc..? It could be interesting to see if price is set accordingly

[malko]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

[...] However this lad knows the craic.....above his LEFT shoulder, TOP of the shelf, decent box that well worth £45.

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Just so that I set the context, here is what was reviewed and the respective scores in the edition of Amiga Joker. [...]

OMG
Worthy GFX : 51%, ANIMATION : 53%
What a good joke .

[Hewitson]

I have no problem with people selling boxed copies of games.

I do not believe that digital downloads of new games should cost. If they do, they should be cracked (if protected) and made freely available just like they would have been 30 years ago.

If this was the C64, these rip off games would be cracked and uploaded to csdb very shortly after being released.

[Alpha One]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Yup

...that's one example of why this "Amiga Joker" review is totally bias and a crock of shite; i.e. deliberately under rating games so that a certain one will shine through (thus increases sales)

I personally don't like the AJ ratings too but in this case it's probably because the whole game looks very similar, seems as its only one tileset for the whole game. Of course it looks very nice but you can't rate it with e.g. 95% if a game like Superfrog only got 72% with all those different beautiful levels.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Alpha One

I personally don't like the AJ ratings too but in this case it's probably because the whole game looks very similar, seems as its only one tileset for the whole game. Of course it looks very nice but you can't rate it with e.g. 95% if a game like Superfrog only got 72% with all those different beautiful levels.

From the same mag? Don't compare different mags. or ratings from back in the day. Regarding ratings it is a difficult thing. If I made a mag. I would stay away from it and write a review about what I think about the game. It could then be a list updated from now and then with favorite games, game of the year etc.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by nikosidis

From the same mag? Don't compare different mags. or ratings from back in the day. Regarding ratings it is a difficult thing. If I made a mag. I would stay away from it and write a review about what I think about the game. It could then be a list updated from now and then with favorite games, game of the year etc.

AJ is Amiga joker... And comparing to games back then is perfectly relevant. Especially if it is being sold

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I do not believe that digital downloads of new games should cost. If they do, they should be cracked (if protected) and made freely available just like they would have been 30 years ago.

So I'll spend 1000 hours creating and developing a game for free for people to digitally download and enjoy.

Sorry, but exactly how does this business model work?

[Alpha One]

Yes, it's from the same mag.

Other examples concerning GFX ratings from AJ:

Lionheart: 89 %
Turrican II: 93 %
Shadow of the Beast: 92%
Agony: 91 %

So 95 % for Worthy would not really fit here. :-)
(It's a nice game and I bought it, don't get me wrong)

Originally Posted by nikosidis

From the same mag? Don't compare different mags. or ratings from back in the day. Regarding ratings it is a difficult thing. If I made a mag. I would stay away from it and write a review about what I think about the game. It could then be a list updated from now and then with favorite games, game of the year etc.

[Tigerskunk]

So, now that I am not on mobile/cell phone anymore, I'd like to write a longer text what I am thinking about this issue..

First off, I am really sad that people are shitting here on Richard, mobster style.
He was like one of the first people who created a new game for classic Amigas in recent times with Reshoot, and inspired me to start coding Inviyya.
It was not to everyones taste, but I can respect the endeavour.

Plus, he is a really good person. We should not treat each other like this in the Amiga scene like what I see happening in this thread..

Then, we should differentiate the discussion here between digital prices and boxed editions.

I concur that charging almost as much for digital than for the box is a bit weird. That is the only fault I see here.
Personally I would not charge more than 10 Euros for a digital download. And I see this as a way to express some gratitude in the form of a little amount of money to the developer. There will be cracked versions (I even asked Ross already to do a trainer for Inviyya when the time comes) for those who don't think the game is worth some respect in the form of money.

Now, when we talk about boxed version, I have to state in front that I don't give a shit personally about these.
But, a lot of people are asking for those. And then, it seems, they don't want those shitty little boxes that Tanks Furry, Bridge Strike or Solid Gold were delivered in, but something that looks and feels quality.

You have to see those boxes as collectable items. It's a lot of work to get these things produced, you need to assemble these boxes by hand, put disks, Manuals and goodies in there, write and design and print a manual, etc. Charging as much as 30 or even 40 euros might seem steep to you, but it's still self damaging and a shit load of work to produce these things.

So, if you want these boxes but think the prices for these are outrageous, you are right. Still, it's a huge hassle to get a quality boxed game done, and charging 30 or 40 euro for it is completely okay in my opinion.
If you don't want to pay for these, just get the download or the crack.

Add/edit: reading this thread, people like me who are coding games that are sold for a small price are called "leeches", "rip offs", "greedy devs" etc... Makes me really reconsidering going on, if this is how people here think about this.

[buzzybee]

So one of the mods moved this discussion from the "Rotator"-thread right here. Wise move. But by choosing such a biased title ("Discussion about Game Developers overvaluing their products") @DamienD again proves that he is not at all interested in discussion, but rather in spreading his own opinion.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Then quite obviously, you need to find a more competitive alternative to Digistore24.

Let's be clear here, 45% is nearly HALF of the selling price.

You could do all the hosting and selling yourself, there are plenty of budget alternatives than literally giving away half of your efforts to someone else.

Yes, technically I could do that. In fact, every game developer could do that. So, why do they all still share their profit with publishers, iTunes, Steam or any other means of digital channel? Because they do not want to go to jail. If you have a closer look, the digital distributor takes care of a lot of work. He should

• handle all the most common ways of paying
• handle digital delivery reliably
• offer some basic kind of customer service
• handle invoices and taxes worldwide legally and reliably. Anybody who does that himself either has to be a tax lawyer or risks real serious financial penalty as soon as tax officers get wind.

So I hope I could make my point clear: There is lot of work involved with digital distribution, as with physical distribution, and it takes a lot of knowledge to do it right. That´s why Digistore - and all other digital channels – charge 20% to 40% of revenue split for their services.

Having said that: If anyone has worked with a digital channel which ticks all of my boxes and whose revenue split is less than 20%, then please tell me. I am happy to put the digital version of RESHOOT PROXIMA 3 up there when its finished and forward the financial benefit.

[Amigajay]

Didn’t really want to comment here as its obviously a sensitive subject for some, but like Steril says i think it’s becoming a bit of a witchhunt type thread which despite what you think should have not be taking as far as its getting imo.

Price wise any developer or publisher can charge what they like, no amount of screaming or moaning should change that if that’s the price they have set. The only time the price should change is if/when they have set it wrong and the sales bomb, again then its upto them to change it. If its too high for you then don’t buy it, just don’t buy it and say the price was too high afterwards!

That’s not to say i don’t like high price tags, personally a lower price tag to reach a wider audience is always better than a higher price tag with a lower audience, especially if more games are being made from the same developer, people can be loyal with purchases but if the first game is out of reach them potential sales of more games will already be lost.

@Steril not everything thinks this way, same with any social media don’t think the voices of a few represent the voices of the many.

But the only disturbing part for me is the review scores, is does look pretty bad to rate your their game highly and ‘maybe’ keep certain other games below the 80% range to highlight their game as being stand out.

Again its all speculation, people can rate games as they please of course, but it would come across underhanded if their own game was self rated.

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Didn’t really want to comment here as its obviously a sensitive subject for some, but like Steril says i think it’s becoming a bit of a witchhunt type thread which despite what you think should have not be taking as far as its getting imo.

Price wise any developer or publisher can charge what they like, no amount of screaming or moaning should change that if that’s the price they have set. The only time the price should change is if/when they have set it wrong and the sales bomb, again then its upto them to change it. If its too high for you then don’t buy it, just don’t buy it and say the price was too high afterwards!

That’s not to say i don’t like high price tags, personally a lower price tag to reach a wider audience is always better than a higher price tag with a lower audience, especially if more games are being made from the same developer, people can be loyal with purchases but if the first game is out of reach them potential sales of more games will already be lost.

@Steril not everything thinks this way, same with any social media don’t think the voices of a few represent the voices of the many.

But the only disturbing part for me is the review scores, is does look pretty bad to rate your their game highly and ‘maybe’ keep certain other games below the 80% range to highlight their game as being stand out.

Again its all speculation, people can rate games as they please of course, but it would come across underhanded if their own game was self rated.

I think that you are right, at least partly. Amiga scene has history for shameless price moaning to justify piratism.

For me price is high for a game like this. I would hapily pay that if game would be more ambitious. Something wich we doesn't have already or more complex playability, etc.

I really would like to pay similar sum for Desert racing of Bardos, but total lack of playabilty removed my insterest fast.

Currently I have put my hope for this game http://aquabyss.com/

[buzzybee]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Just so that I set the context, here is what was reviewed and the respective scores in the edition of Amiga Joker.

So a couple of points I would make:
1) Reshoot-R while it's a good game, isn't in the same league as Turrican 2 or Monkey Island, I don't care what anyone says...it just isn't.

2) The reviewer (probably Richard) forgot that Rygar is a direct arcade port, the quality of the port should be judged against what the arcade game was like which in my opinion is very close, had this been done then it may have scored higher, I should also add that it's the only free game on the list.

I guess I was a little upset that Rygar scored only a little higher than Power Glove and Skill Grid, although I wiped my tears away turning the page to see it was in the same league as Flash Back.

I have nothing against Richard, but if I was him I would probably not have reviewed my own game in a magazine that I'm associated with because the end result of what was published was a right fucking load of bollocks.



Graeme

Find it very disappointing you are posting about AJ here, calling the collected one month work of about 10 people "load of bollocks", while you are not able to understand the german text and so have no right to insult the creators and hundreds of (mostly german) readers who love the magazine. You could easily have shared your thoughts on RESHOOT R and Rygar personally, on our personal channel. I would happily have translated some of the text from AJ. You would then have known this:

• The review of RESHOOTR clearly observes the team structure behind AJ and RESHOOT R, and makes no secret about being me as the creator of both.
• The review of RESHOOT R is of course NOT being written by me. You can find the authors initials at the bottom of the feature
• I asked the author to write a unbiased review and share his opinion, like I did hundred of times at various community events.That´s what he did
• Don´t believe me? Then check out ratings in other mags and medias, and compare. Ask AmigaBill. Watch Morgan Just Games on youtube. Read Retro Gamer UK, they gave 90%. In fact AJ has one of the lowest scores.
• Regarding Rygar: Yes, I wrote that review, as the initials clearly show. You could have known instead of guessing, you have a copy of the mag! The review praises the quality of the conversion; how much of great coding and dedication went into the conversion. It´s the arcades original 1986 gameplay itself which leads to the rating. I had a few people play the game, and they just did not find it that much fun. Too hard, too repetitive. Sorry.
• Most other reviews in AJ were written from several members of the retro and Amiga community. Check out the names of the authors, ask them yourself about ratings if you really are interested. You will find the scores mirror their personal experience, and I only dared to balance them a little bit (+/- 5 percent) based on my own impressions. That´s how reviews are created, for christs sake!

I am really fed up with this biased discussion, based on lack of knowledge and obvious wrong information. Steril707 is exactly right: If bringing stuff like Amiga Joker, RESHOOT R or RESHOOT PROXIMA 3 to the Amiga community leads to insults and wrong claims, it may be time to reconsider investing any more precious time.

[malko]

Originally Posted by buzzybee

[...] @DamienD again proves that he is not at all interested in discussion, but rather in spreading his own opinion. [...]

Having followed this thread since the beginning I only see people giving their opinion (some more strongly) BUT both sides are represented equally.
Otherwise you have to also consider "Amiga Joker" as an opinion spreader (and not just as a simple medium of information.

Think this thread will gain in readability when the "personalisation" will stop.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by buzzybee

Find it very disappointing you are posting about AJ here, calling the collected one month work of about 10 people "load of bollocks", while you are not able to understand the german text and so have no right to insult the creators and hundreds of (mostly german) readers who love the magazine. You could easily have shared your thoughts on RESHOOT R and Rygar personally, on our personal channel. I would happily have translated some of the text from AJ. You would then have known this:

• The review of RESHOOTR clearly observes the team structure behind AJ and RESHOOT R, and makes no secret about being me as the creator of both.
• The review of RESHOOT R is of course NOT being written by me. You can find the authors initials at the bottom of the feature
• I asked the author to write a unbiased review and share his opinion, like I did hundred of times at various community events.That´s what he did
• Don´t believe me? Then check out ratings in other mags and medias, and compare. Ask AmigaBill. Watch Morgan Just Games on youtube. Read Retro Gamer UK, they gave 90%. In fact AJ has one of the lowest scores.
• Regarding Rygar: Yes, I wrote that review, as the initials clearly show. You could have known instead of guessing, you have a copy of the mag! The review praises the quality of the conversion; how much of great coding and dedication went into the conversion. It´s the arcades original 1986 gameplay itself which leads to the rating. I had a few people play the game, and they just did not find it that much fun. Too hard, too repetitive. Sorry.

I am really fed up with this biased discussion, based on lack of knowledge and obvious wrong information. Steril707 is exactly right: If bringing stuff like Amiga Joker, RESHOOT R or RESHOOT PROXIMA 3 to the Amiga community leads to insults and wrong claims, it may be time to reconsider investing any more precious time.

This is exactly what I thought. Richard did not review his game himself. I think the score Reshoot R was fair anyway. Discussions about review no matter if it is cars, games or hi-fi equipment will go on forever. That is why I said that in my opinion is better to write a review without any score.

Please Richard and other devs. Don't let a few people distract the beautiful work you are doing. There will always be someone that are jealous or have some strong opinion they try to push on others. You do what you do and charge what you like for it. I understand that some think you would sell more if the price went lower but I think the business model Richard followed is spot on!

[roondar]

For the record, I'm not opposed to a discussion about value or pricing and digital vs physical. What I'm less happy about is how this thread has turned into a rather "personal" thing (sorry, my English is normally good but I don't quite know how to express what I exactly mean here. I'm trying to say it seems aimed too much at specific people and I'm not happy about that part).

With that in mind I'd like to add to the discussion on pricing (not people) by pointing out the high prices for collectors editions are nothing new in the retro world. It happens everywhere, not just the Amiga. On the very same site (http://binaryzone.org/retrostore) that sells Rotator, they also sell about 20 other collectors editions featuring games on several platforms.

These include Starquake for the Amiga priced at 39.99 UKP, Slipstream for the C16/C64 at 39.99 UKP, Mayhem in Monsterland for the C64 at 39.99 UKP, etc*. But it's not limited to this site: Protovision sells games on the C64 for very similar prices, as did RGCD for some limited releases (though those are on cartridge). Similar things happen for other platforms as well, with expensive games available for the 8 bit Atari's, Amstrad, ZX-Spectrum, the consoles, etc.

What I'm getting at here is that you don't have to see these prices as reasonable: by all means disagree with them. I find some of the prices listed absurdly high myself. But making it out to be something primarily done by one (or perhaps a few) guy(s) and calling just them out seems quite unfair to me.

*) Note that several of those collectors editions are also available in non-collector form at far more reasonable prices (around 13 UKP) and that generally (but not always) the digital versions will be cheaper.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by buzzybee

Find it very disappointing you are posting about AJ here, calling the collected one month work of about 10 people "load of bollocks", while you are not able to understand the german text and so have no right to insult the creators and hundreds of (mostly german) readers who love the magazine. You could easily have shared your thoughts on RESHOOT R and Rygar personally, on our personal channel. I would happily have translated some of the text from AJ. You would then have known this:

• The review of RESHOOTR clearly observes the team structure behind AJ and RESHOOT R, and makes no secret about being me as the creator of both.
• The review of RESHOOT R is of course NOT being written by me. You can find the authors initials at the bottom of the feature
• I asked the author to write a unbiased review and share his opinion, like I did hundred of times at various community events.That´s what he did
• Don´t believe me? Then check out ratings in other mags and medias, and compare. Ask AmigaBill. Watch Morgan Just Games on youtube. Read Retro Gamer UK, they gave 90%. In fact AJ has one of the lowest scores.
• Regarding Rygar: Yes, I wrote that review, as the initials clearly show. You could have known instead of guessing, you have a copy of the mag! The review praises the quality of the conversion; how much of great coding and dedication went into the conversion. It´s the arcades original 1986 gameplay itself which leads to the rating. I had a few people play the game, and they just did not find it that much fun. Too hard, too repetitive. Sorry.
• Most other reviews in AJ were written from several members of the retro and Amiga community. Check out the names of the authors, ask them yourself about ratings if you really are interested. You will find the scores mirror their personal experience, and I only dared to balance them a little bit (+/- 5 percent) based on my own impressions. That´s how reviews are created, for christs sake!

I am really fed up with this biased discussion, based on lack of knowledge and obvious wrong information. Steril707 is exactly right: If bringing stuff like Amiga Joker, RESHOOT R or RESHOOT PROXIMA 3 to the Amiga community leads to insults and wrong claims, it may be time to reconsider investing any more precious time.

Make no mistake Richard I have a lot of respect for you and consider you a pal, but from my point of view the ratings (not the reviews) in AJ are unbalanced and a load of bollocks in my opinion.

I'm sorry you're disappointed, but like I said you opened yourself up to my opinion by rating your own game.

I am in no way calling the work of the authors a load of bollocks - it's the ratings of the games that pissed me off.

Graeme

On another note - this entire thread needs to calm the fuck down. We don't have many decent devs on the Amiga and this sort of shit makes me want to program an Atari ST.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

and this sort of shit makes me want to program an Atari ST.

Now i know your talking bollocks

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Steril707

So, now that I am not on mobile/cell phone anymore, I'd like to write a longer text what I am thinking about this issue..

First off, I am really sad that people are shitting here on Richard, mobster style.
He was like one of the first people who created a new game for classic Amigas in recent times with Reshoot, and inspired me to start coding Inviyya.
It was not to everyones taste, but I can respect the endeavour.

Plus, he is a really good person. We should not treat each other like this in the Amiga scene like what I see happening in this thread..

Then, we should differentiate the discussion here between digital prices and boxed editions.

I concur that charging almost as much for digital than for the box is a bit weird. That is the only fault I see here.
Personally I would not charge more than 10 Euros for a digital download. And I see this as a way to express some gratitude in the form of a little amount of money to the developer. There will be cracked versions (I even asked Ross already to do a trainer for Inviyya when the time comes) for those who don't think the game is worth some respect in the form of money.

Now, when we talk about boxed version, I have to state in front that I don't give a shit personally about these.
But, a lot of people are asking for those. And then, it seems, they don't want those shitty little boxes that Tanks Furry, Bridge Strike or Solid Gold were delivered in, but something that looks and feels quality.

You have to see those boxes as collectable items. It's a lot of work to get these things produced, you need to assemble these boxes by hand, put disks, Manuals and goodies in there, write and design and print a manual, etc. Charging as much as 30 or even 40 euros might seem steep to you, but it's still self damaging and a shit load of work to produce these things.

So, if you want these boxes but think the prices for these are outrageous, you are right. Still, it's a huge hassle to get a quality boxed game done, and charging 30 or 40 euro for it is completely okay in my opinion.
If you don't want to pay for these, just get the download or the crack.

Add/edit: reading this thread, people like me who are coding games that are sold for a small price are called "leeches", "rip offs", "greedy devs" etc... Makes me really reconsidering going on, if this is how people here think about this.

This is just a minority of the Amiga community. I agree about everything you say here. Don't let this get into you. It is always like this. You devs. are not greedy at all. You do this almost for nothing. It is just a dedication that you could spend elsewhere.