[casual_games] Different Payment Models

[Ron]

I think the big issue isn't price, but the 1-hour try to buy.  We're 
created this "kid in a candystore" mentality with players.  There are so 
many of these games, and most are just clones of each other, that you 
can play for days and days and do nothing but download demos.  There is 
very little reason to buy anything.

If I like the Diner Dash game play, how many of these games can I 
download and play for an hour?  A lot.

I don't think reducing the price is going to help, not until the whole 
web runs off of a "one click(tm)" type system because once you make 
someone pull out a credit card, there is no impulse purchase.

If we're going to stick with the "$20 buy the game model' (and there are 
good arguments against this as well), we really need to think about 
having real "demo" modes to the games, not just let people play 
unrestricted for an hour.   How well would movies work if the only way 
you got people to go see them was to let them watch the first 10 
minutes?  It wouldn't work (and it would force directors to make really 
stupidly paced movies, just like it forces us to make really stupidly 
tuned games).  We need to be giving people the interactive equivalent of 
the "movie trailer".  Something that really sucks them into the game and 
wanting to play more.

Ron



Michael Mei wrote:
> Regarding the evolution of the $19.95 price point. Long ago Real Networks
> did some customer research and found that there's little price point
> elasticity below $19.95.  There wasn't any significant increase in purchases
> when the price point was reduced as a standard pricing.  And price points
> above $19.95 for the average casual games caused a significant reduction in
> purchases.
> 
> Some of the "more seasoned" veterans of the casual game space, please jump
> in if I got this wrong.
> 
> Also, Reflexive actually saw a reduction in purchases when we reduced the
> price point of Ricochet Xtreme to $9.95 for a significant time period.  In
> my opinion, the user may feel that the game is of lesser quality because of
> the lower price point.  A $19.95 price point may inherently give the game
> the feeling of higher quality.  Remember...it's not from the perspective of
> a Developer.  It's from the perspective of a 38yr old female who is the
> target market and not on this distribution list.
> 
> I will shout out the disclaimer that the strategy for the $19.95 price point
> may have been great for the past and current, and I'm not sure what it holds
> for the future.
> 
> Michael Mei
> Business Development
> Reflexive Entertainment
> www.Reflexive.com
> 949-830-1903  x30
> 
> NOTICE:  The information contained in this e-mail & any accompanying
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> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
> [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]On Behalf Of Alex Amsel
> Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 9:23 AM
> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [casual_games] Different Payment Models
> 
> 
> $19.99 seems like a good price point to me. Once you get much under that
> price, some developers will struggle to make a return (overall), and you
> also don't give the publisher/portal far to go when trying to bump
> sales/special offers. As things stand, the rrp is $19.99 but many
> portals offer various schemes to get games cheaper.
> 
> Having worked extensively in the retail sector of games, the last thing
> you want is to have a low rrp followed by even lower discounting. I've
> seen where that goes and it isn't pretty, for developers or many
> publishers. Sure you may grab some extra sales if the rrp of all games
> was $9.99, but double average game sales across the board? I doubt it
> you'd get anywhere close.
> 
> Also, I know that many companies have researched the time limit/product
> content/price ratios very carefully and, generally speaking, the 1 hour
> + $20 + feature unrestricted has worked best for mainstream casual
> titles. Like many of you, we'd also wondered how they'd arrived here and
> had planned a series of tests. While we may still do some, I've seen
> enough data to be convinced that it works as a general rule of thumb. I
> would still like to be able to disable certain features and detect if a
> game has been bought though, and I think certain games benefit from
> slightly different models (less time, feature restrictions).
> 
> I'm very much a fan of micro-payments, but you need a critical mass of
> people who use them or it just doesn't work. That's probably just a
> matter of time, but whether it'll be next year or in 5 years is unclear.
> Every year people say it will happen, and every year it doesn't, except
> for on very specific games. Micro payments need to be global and either
> for your entire market - e.g. XBLA, or much bigger than your market -
> e.g. through paypal or a similarly known and accepted payment system.
> 
> Also, I don't feel pay per play is compatible with the casual world in
> many cases. The casual demo model works because it draws people into the
> game, and keeps things easy for a considerable amount of time. The pay
> per play model requires repeated plays, so each game can't be too long.
> 
> Pay per time playing could work but I'm not sure if there is a
> psychological element to get over. I'm working with a pay-per-play model
> at the moment but that's more along the lines of if you play for an
> hour, you a subsequently billed accordingly, and the product revenue is
> split according to the time spent on each product during that hour.
> 
> Advertising within the download is an interesting one. It would be nice
> to generate a little revenue from each download, especially if people
> play for more than a few minutes.
> 
> I also agree completely that there is no good reason players should be
> able to cheat the DRMs by downloading the game from another provider -
> that's plain daft and an easy fix, although I'm unsure how many sales
> are really lost through this.
> 
> Just my random thoughts...
> 
> lharrick at san.rr.com wrote:
>> Also, how did the standard of $20 per game come about?
>>
>> Personally, I think the price point is too high.
>>
>> I am one of those people who would almost never pay $20 for a game
>> (compared to other forms of media and entertainment, I feel the price
>> is not a good value)... but there are many games that I would buy if
>> the price were lower ($5 -$10 range).
>>
>> - Liz
>>
>>
> 
> --
> 
> Alex Amsel
> Tuna Technologies Ltd (Sheffield, UK)
> Cross Platform Game Development
> Tel: +44 (0)114 266 2211  Mob: +44(0)7771 524 632
> 
> 
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