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

[BippyM]

I've said this once, but I'll say it again..

Would a developer prefer 10 people pay £30 and recoup £300 or 30 people pay £15 and recoup £450?

Due to the small numbers involved (i don't think any if the taxmen are going to come looking for such a small figure) , a developer could easily sell the game themselves as a digital download and use PayPal or similar. To help with piracy they could even put a binary signature for each version.. That way if it is leaked, they could probably trace it back, and with no real protection, who's gonna check?

[Predseda]

I think we should also mind the diference between developer and publisher. In case of Rotator, developer is Banana team, publisher is Psytronik. Who is responsible for pricing?

[buzzybee]

Originally Posted by BippyM

I've said this once, but I'll say it again..

Would a developer prefer 10 people pay £30 and recoup £300 or 30 people pay £15 and recoup £450?

We got a nice name for such a calculation in Germany - it´s called Milchmädchenrechnung, because that´s how little girls do the math. If you had read my former short calculation, you should be aware that the developer gets only a fraction of gross sales. And this fraction narrows down considerably with low prices, because unavoidable costs for production, sales and distribution are higher per piece. So selling 30 pcs of 15 EUR/£/whatever does not at all provide a better profit to the developer. Also, I seriously doubt your assumption that a low price tag leads to considerably higher sales. You got any proof for that?

Originally Posted by BippyM

I don't think any if the taxmen are going to come looking for such a small figure

Asking homebrew developers to risk their financial health and betray the tax office, just so that you and a handful of people save a few bucks on the digital sale of an Amiga-game – sorry, that´s just laughable.

[buzzybee]

Originally Posted by Predseda

I think we should also mind the diference between developer and publisher. In case of Rotator, developer is Banana team, publisher is Psytronik. Who is responsible for pricing?

This is a very small business. Usually, in such a constellation, all parties involved share opinions and then decide on the pricetag of a product together.

[grond]

Originally Posted by buzzybee

Asking homebrew developers to risk their financial health and betray the tax office, just so that you and a handful of people save a few bucks on the digital sale of an Amiga-game – sorry, that´s just laughable.

I also at that. And at the same time he tries to take the moral high ground by alledging you of having uprated your game and downrated your competition because, after all, horizontal scrollers on the one hand and action puzzlers on the other are really competing hard for the very limited pocket money of balding middle-aged men and there are really no youtube videos that show the actual gameplay for people to see...

I haven't seen a worse display of character in quite some time.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Steril707

No, I would not. Like I stated a few pages earlier. 10 Euros for download, a trained version (probably done by Ross) for free a few days later, and a boxed version where the price will be dictated by how expensive it will be to create all that shit.

But, and that's the point, I cannot criticize anyone else for doing it differently, since we are living in a free market, and every Amiga gamer or collector is allowed to vote with their wallet.

On the Patreon thing, if you think this is bad practice, I'd think you should simply install a new forum rule not allowing this kind of thing if you think it's bad.

(btw: I think you are doing a tremendous job here on EAB, Damien. Hopefully we might meet on Amiga35 this year and drink some beers )

I'm thinking it could be an idea to put a button with extra beer or something when buying the game? 10Euros is to little I feel and buying the boxed version does not give you that much extra I think. No matter what I give you 30Euros or I will not buy it

[malko]

Originally Posted by BippyM

[...] Due to the small numbers involved (i don't think any if the taxmen are going to come looking for such a small figure [...]

If I understood correctly, @buzzybee is a freelance (he is his own boss/independent). Thus, the taxmen are not going to look at the small figure he will make with the selling of his game but theses figure will be added in the annual global pot. Missing some numbers can have consequences then.

[saimo]

When I was a teenager (so, more precisely, between 1989 and 1993), I was surprised to see how pricey the Amiga and PC games were. Not only because I couldn't afford them, but also because of how they compared to other goods or to the C64 games. In 1991 or 1992 I asked my parents to buy me my first boxed game: (the Empire edition of) The Amazing-Spider Man for C64. I thought that the price, somewhere below 20000 Lire (about 19 Euro today) was fair: for that, I got a big box, a cassette, an instruction manual, a full-color comic book authored by Todd McFarlane, and, of course, a (cool) game. The prices of most Amiga and PC games instead ranged, in modern day figures, from 30 to 80 Euro. While I'm pretty sure that some of them were definitely worth the price (for example, the really high quality ones, those that had lots of contents and/or came with massive manuals, lots of disks, etc.), in general I had the impression that those prices were just too high.
Please note that the above is not intended to be an in-depth analysis or comparison: the point I want to make, instead, is that such impression always made me want to release games at fair/affordable prices.

Last year I released my first commercial game for Amiga (SkillGrid), but given that the physical edition was published by RGCD, I let them set the price for both the physical and digital edition (although the earnings of the digital edition go entirely to me, and actually precisely because of that, I felt the right thing was to let them decide). Even if I know that the guy behind RGCD (James Monkman) is driven by passion, I was pleasantly surprised when he made a first estimate, based on the prices of the other two Amiga games he had released before (Powerglove and Tiger Claws). I was even more pleased when he decided what the package would include (much more than I'd have liked, but it was up to him) and the price he set for that - in fact, for:
* a big clamshell box with inlay and foam insert,
* a glass-mastered, offset-printed CD in jewel case with tray inlay and 16 pages booklet,
* two floppy disks with glossy stickers,
* two spare floppy disks stickers,
* four metal badges packed in a plastic bag with cardboard tag,
* two postcards,
* a sticker,
* an A3 poster,
all in professional quality and produced in UK (i.e. not a cheap country), he set the price to just 17 GBP, leaving a decent profit margin for both RGCD and me.
I can't reveal the figures (that's information private to RGCD), but I can tell that after a while the production cost of the physical items was covered, and that since then we both have been earning a little money. Now, for sure we aren't getting rich and the profits don't justify the amount of work and the risk that went into the product, but wishing otherwise, considering the target platform, would be irrealistic. But this case (and the same can be said about other games), proves that it's possible to release a quality Amiga game in physical form at a reasonable price.

As for the price of a digital download, I firmly believe that it should be substantially inferior to the corresponding physical product, because:
* the digital download isn't affected by production costs (which weigh quite a lot);
* software-wise, the amount of work that goes into them is basically the same;
* selling them involves more or less the same / comparable costs (fees, taxes, etc.), and, actually, physical editions require the additional effort of handling (which isn't necessarily covered by the shipping expenses).
Morever, the argument that the digital download helps offset the expenses of the physical product isn't that valid: the physical product should be self-sustainable (the publisher has to believe in its own product and do the appropriate planning) and charging the customers of the digital edition part of the costs of the physical edition isn't fair; also, RGCD proves that it is definitely possible to release a physical product without the support of digital sales (as said above, RGCD earns 0 from the digital sales of SkillGrid).

[malko]

@saimo : Thank you for this valuable feedback based on your own experience.

Cost of games (in general) is not a new subject.
Here is an article I already linked in another thread in the past : Amiga Format 03.1994 .

[smila]

Speaking from experience of releasing titles in those large boxes with all the extras, very little profit is made i can tell you that, the devs will get a few £ per unit, publisher getting the same.
The empty box alone is really expensive, then you have the art to pay for ( i did the cover art so i know how much it costs ) and all the extras inside, the postage etc, not forgetting the amount of time and effort all this takes.
In such small communities if you want a game in a spanky box with lots of fab loot inside you have to pay for it i'm afraid.
If you don't, cool, don't buy them.
I'm sure the download price will be cheap enough.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by saimo

When I was a teenager (so, more precisely, between 1989 and 1993), I was surprised to see how pricey the Amiga and PC games were. Not only because I couldn't afford them, but also because of how they compared to other goods or to the C64 games. In 1991 or 1992 I asked my parents to buy me my first boxed game: (the Empire edition of) The Amazing-Spider Man for C64. I thought that the price, somewhere below 20000 Lire (about 19 Euro today) was fair: for that, I got a big box, a cassette, an instruction manual, a full-color comic book authored by Todd McFarlane, and, of course, a (cool) game. The prices of most Amiga and PC games instead ranged, in modern day figures, from 30 to 80 Euro. While I'm pretty sure that some of them were definitely worth the price (for example, the really high quality ones, those that had lots of contents and/or came with massive manuals, lots of disks, etc.), in general I had the impression that those prices were just too high.
Please note that the above is not intended to be an in-depth analysis or comparison: the point I want to make, instead, is that such impression always made me want to release games at fair/affordable prices.

Last year I released my first commercial game for Amiga (SkillGrid), but given that the physical edition was published by RGCD, I let them set the price for both the physical and digital edition (although the earnings of the digital edition go entirely to me, and actually precisely because of that, I felt the right thing was to let them decide). Even if I know that the guy behind RGCD (James Monkman) is driven by passion, I was pleasantly surprised when he made a first estimate, based on the prices of the other two Amiga games he had released before (Powerglove and Tiger Claws). I was even more pleased when he decided what the package would include (much more than I'd have liked, but it was up to him) and the price he set for that - in fact, for:
* a big clamshell box with inlay and foam insert,
* a glass-mastered, offset-printed CD in jewel case with tray inlay and 16 pages booklet,
* two floppy disks with glossy stickers,
* two spare floppy disks stickers,
* four metal badges packed in a plastic bag with cardboard tag,
* two postcards,
* a sticker,
* an A3 poster,
all in professional quality and produced in UK (i.e. not a cheap country), he set the price to just 17 GBP, leaving a decent profit margin for both RGCD and me.
I can't reveal the figures (that's information private to RGCD), but I can tell that after a while the production cost of the physical items was covered, and that since then we both have been earning a little money. Now, for sure we aren't getting rich and the profits don't justify the amount of work and the risk that went into the product, but wishing otherwise, considering the target platform, would be irrealistic. But this case (and the same can be said about other games), proves that it's possible to release a quality Amiga game in physical form at a reasonable price.

As for the price of a digital download, I firmly believe that it should be substantially inferior to the corresponding physical product, because:
* the digital download isn't affected by production costs (which weigh quite a lot);
* software-wise, the amount of work that goes into them is basically the same;
* selling them involves more or less the same / comparable costs (fees, taxes, etc.), and, actually, physical editions require the additional effort of handling (which isn't necessarily covered by the shipping expenses).
Morever, the argument that the digital download helps offset the expenses of the physical product isn't that valid: the physical product should be self-sustainable (the publisher has to believe in its own product and do the appropriate planning) and charging the customers of the digital edition part of the costs of the physical edition isn't fair; also, RGCD proves that it is definitely possible to release a physical product without the support of digital sales (as said above, RGCD earns 0 from the digital sales of SkillGrid).

Great post right there saimo; especially the last paragraph concerning "digital download"

Your pricing; and the other 8 listed in my previous post are all fair / decent in my view:

Originally Posted by DamienD

Black Dawn Rebirth:
Physical: https://doublesidedgames.com/shop/co...-dawn-rebirth/ CAD$ 59.99
Digital: https://doublesidedgames.com/shop/co...-dawn-rebirth/ CAD$ 12.99


Worthy:
Physical: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=308 €23
Digital: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=309 €9


Bridge Strike:
Physical: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=405 €17
Digital: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=407 €11


Skill Grid:
Physical: https://rgcd.bigcartel.com/product/skillgrid-amiga £17
Digital: https://retream.itch.io/skillgrid/purchase?popup=1 $7.99


Pong4K:
Physical: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=427 €9
Digital: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=428 €5


Tiger Claw:
Physical: https://rgcd.bigcartel.com/product/tiger-claw-amiga £15
Digital: https://rgcddev.itch.io/tiger-claw/purchase?popup=1 $2.99


Power Glove Reloaded:
Physical: https://rgcd.bigcartel.com/product/p...reloaded-amiga £15
Digital: https://rgcddev.itch.io/powerglove-r...rchase?popup=1 $2.99


Solid Gold:
Physical: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=256 €13
Digital: Free


Trap Runner:
Physical: https://www.amigashop.org/product_in...roducts_id=289 €15
Digital: Free

[roondar]

I have zero problems with physical collectors editions. Especially at Psytronik as they almost always have a non-collectors version as well and generally offer a much cheaper digital version. Same with RGCD and Protovision. That said, the overarching discussion of digital vs physical is interesting. Just what kind of discount is considered to be the "minimum OK" for digital?

I guess it depends on where you personally allocate value: if you mostly value the game itself, you probably will be fine with digital prices that are close to the physical price. If you consider the physical goods to be a sizable portion of the value of the game, then I'd guess you probably won't.

Personally, I've always felt that digital games ought to be cheaper because of the lack of physical goods and associated costs. This is not based on any market knowledge, but rather how I personally allocate value. Meaning: even if digital distribution were to be more expensive than physical distribution*, I'd probably still feel this way as I personally attribute more value to physical goods than digital ones.

* Which it most certainly doesn't have to be. Just check out sites like itch.io, who note on their "accepting payments" page that the seller gets to choose for themselves how much they pay itch.io for the use of their service. They then proceed to use an example of just 10% for the remainder of the article.

[Tigerskunk]

It's my personal opinion as well, that the digital download price is the price of the game itself. Which should be in the neighborhood of what Indie games usually charge on modern platforms.
I am willing to pay up to 10 Euro for a decent game without thinking too much.
15 Euro starts to hurt me a bit. Must be a really nice game that has a lot of production value or some genre that I really love.
20 Euro is for top tier Indie games like the Games Shin'en produces. I usually even don't spend that much money on most AAA titles, and wait instead until they get a sale.

Everything more than that is AAA stuff where I really know that I will spend a lot of time with, like Zelda Breath of the Wild or From Software games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne or the newest iterations of Street Fighter.

For instance, I'd really love to try "Shovel Knight", but for the consoles available to me this game costs around 25 Euro. And seeing the videos about it, while it looks charming, I don't feel like dishing out that much money for it.

So, for me, I see Inviyya at the 10 to 12 Euro price point. I think it's a nice little fun game for the Amiga 500 with some decent to nice graphics, but in the end it doesn't invent anything new with being a shooter and contentwise it's not an incredibly long game (like most shooters )

Like I said before, with physical editions, this whole calculation is very different though. I guess in the end I'd get less money from them then I'd get from digital distribution, and more people complaing about stupid high prices for them. To be honest, personally I'd like to skip these all together. But some people really want them, and are sad if they don't get them.

[Predseda]

Agree, completely.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Like I said before, with physical editions, this whole calculation is very different though. I guess in the end I'd get less money from them then I'd get from digital distribution, and more people complaing about stupid high prices for them. To be honest, personally I'd like to skip these all together. But some people really want them, and are sad if they don't get them.

I've been really rather impressed with RGCD's Amiga physical releases. Priced very nicely compared to what you get. They may not be put in a beautiful cardboard box, but they have a charm all their own.

Just a thought for the next Amiga shoot em up I want to buy

[BippyM]

Finally, someone with experience who's head is in the real world..

I think £10-£15 depending on quality is a fair price for a digital release. I ask myself.. Will i pay £15 for a new game for an old limited system, or £15 for something modern, that quite probably offers more for the price.. The only argument would be.. A more modern title has a larger userbase, but is also easily swallowed up in the quagmire of releases, amiga won't have that issue, but a much smaller userbase means less sales are likely, but all new games will stick out, and get lots if free advertising!

[nikosidis]

I think it is little wrong to compare with PC, Android and modern console prices where you can get lot's of quality games from 10 - 20 Euro.

In the very limited Amiga market it is very easy to understand that a quality game would sell just a small amount compared to other modern platforms.

No offence to the creators of lot's of the Amiga games released last 2 years but there are few of them that are worth anything over 10 Euro. They would just not sell and I would not buy them.

A high quality Amiga game I'm willing to pay quite much. If the game company or game developer choose to sell for 10 Euro I think it is a loss. I don't think it will gain Amiga users or the quality game developers as they will stop developing.

Let me put an example.

Worthy is sold for 9 Euro. The boxed version that was quite low in price so they did probably not earn much more than on the digital version.

For a high quality game like that, and I'm talking about Amiga platform would you not pay at least 20 Euro?

I'm quite sure with 20 Euro they would have lost around 10% sales. I know they are now working with bitbeamcannon and will deliver some high quality games like Metro Siege that will also be for other platforms. That is all good but maybe if they had earned more money they could have developed more Amiga games only. They even talked about extra levels for Worthy but it never happend. AlarCity that looks fantastic and very high-quality might never happen. Again I'm thinking it is partly their own fault. Don't sell high quality as low as low, medium quality. That is my message to game developers and Amiga users.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by BippyM

Finally, someone with experience who's head is in the real world..

I think £10-£15 depending on quality is a fair price for a digital release. I ask myself.. Will i pay £15 for a new game for an old limited system, or £15 for something modern, that quite probably offers more for the price.. The only argument would be.. A more modern title has a larger userbase, but is also easily swallowed up in the quagmire of releases, amiga won't have that issue, but a much smaller userbase means less sales are likely, but all new games will stick out, and get lots if free advertising!

I think it's fair to compare new Amiga games with Indie games on other platforms, like consoles (not on mobile/cell, they completely trashed their market resulting in mostly shitty microtransaction games for 99p).

Let's look at the Switch, for instance. It has a lot of nice indie games with medium to high production values, priced from 5 to 20 Euros.

I think with the Amiga, we should be aiming to be able to compete with those games, price and quality wise.

Maybe with an added 2 Euros "nostalgic retro" tax added, and for the hassle of having to deal with coding for old chipsets instead of Unity or some other modern engine, where you can simply concentrate on game design instead of coding weird shit in asm. But in the end, what we are able to do here are little indie games. Not Ace combat, GTA or the new Zelda.

And personally, I buy those Indie games in a 5 to 15 euro range, depending on genre and quality.

But, that's me. And like I wrote before, we have a free market, and everybody can price their games however they want. If it works for them, who am I to throw stones.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by nikosidis

Let me put an example.

Worthy is sold for 9 Euro. The boxed version that was quite low in price so they did probably not earn much more than on the digital version.

For a high quality game like that, and I'm talking about Amiga platform would you not pay at least 20 Euro?

These are the prices for Worthy; very decent and fair if you ask me:

Worthy:
Physical: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=308 €23
Digital: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=309 €9

...and as far as I know from comments in the thread by both alpine9000 and Tsak; it sold very well indeed

This has a lot of do with a fair / balanced / realistic price for both physical and digital download.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by DamienD

These are the prices for Worthy; very decent and fair if you ask me:

Worthy:
Physical: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=308 €23
Digital: https://amiga.net.pl/index.php?lng=e...=10010&tms=309 €9

...and as far as I know from comments in the thread by both alpine9000 and Tsak; it sold very well indeed

This has a lot of do with a fair / balanced / realistic price for both physical and digital download.

I concur with the digital price. But it's hard to judge the physical edition of a game, just by looking at the price here.

There are many factors playing into this.
On A1K, I heard a lot of complaints about the Box Worthy came in from the usual collectors there.

A digital download is a download.
A physical version can range from only a disk that will get sent to you up to a super high quality heavy cardboard box with custom art, glossy 4 colour manual and lots of expensive goodies.

It's simply hard to compare which price is okay or not for different physical editions without examining their distinct production values.