[casual_games] Price as Signal

[Todd Sawicki]

The thread on pricing is interesting because when you look at revenue
per download assuming $20 price point and a 1% conversion rate - the
amount of money everyone is making per download is pennies - in this
case $.20 per download.  Advertising can easily be made to generate 20
cents per download so I think the curveball is what happens when
ad-supported casual games start becoming more popular.

 

Personally, I believe games will be priced at the revenue maximizing
level.  For certain games with crazy high conversion rates like Zuma -
the $20 full version/ free trail model will work best.  For less popular
titles, free full versions supported by ads _might_ make the most
revenue as the free price will overcome barriers to playing (perceived
value then is a full free version vs. a standard crippled trail).  Once
upon a time, I worked in the digital music space and know Sean Ryan from
those days, and I think he will agree that free music sharing encourage
a lot of music sampling that wouldn't have otherwise occurred.  The
difference here is that it is relatively easy to build advertising into
games or around the games whereas revenue was harder to track against
free illegal downloads.

 

And to add more fodder to the debate - you have the RealArcade
subscription program as well as the new GameTap subscription service
adding more choices on pricing for casual games to consumers.  

 

Todd Sawicki

Sr. Director of Marketing

Zango 

 

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