[casual_games] Price as Signal

[Lennard Feddersen]

I've had the following poll on my site for the past week or two, here it 
is with current standings:

Full price, no ads, thanks 41% Cost reduced with ads 11% Depends on the 
ads 19% Depends on the cost 13% I only play free demos 16%







I work with Integrated Ads to put ads in front of the free version of 
Battle Castles and I'm thinking about eventually offering a cost reduced 
version of Battle Castles to test this very assumption. That said, the 
above poll (and I know that what consumer say and do are different 
things) suggests they aren't that into it. I haven't checked recently 
but these #'s should be based upon a sample between 50 and 100 users.


Lennard Feddersen
CEO, Rusty Axe Games, Inc.
www.RustyAxe.com

Lennard at RustyAxe.com
P. 250-635-7623 F. 1-309-422-2466
3521 Dogwood, Terrace, BC, Canada, V8G-4Y7



Todd Sawicki wrote:

> 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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