Sometimes, when developers say their game is at a sale price at launch, it’s always like, “haha, yeah, sure." I mean, Threes ($5.99) managed to stay at $1.99 from its otherwise-appropriate $2.99 price for the longest time. But I suppose people didn’t pay attention when they found out that Adventures of Pip ($5.99), which recently made its way from desktop to mobile, went from a 66% off $4.99 price to $14.99, the price that it is on Steam, well, there’s been some anger about it. To which, I have to say: stop it. You’re the reason why paid games are dead on mobile.
First off, why should Adventures of Pip be any cheaper on mobile than it is on Steam? It’s literally the exact same game. You can play it with a controller, you can hook it up to your TV, there is functionally nothing different in the experience between the iOS version and the Steam version. Why should you pay less just because you can carry the game in your pocket?
The problem is that people who gripe about mobile games’ prices have attitudes that make paid games such a toxic thing on mobile to begin with. Here’s how a Steam customer would react to Adventures of Pip being 66% off:
Playing around with @davidoreilly 's awesome free rigs to recreate my favorite #gif on the internet. #animation pic.twitter.com/bi7EteoO6v
— Jason Shum (@shumface) June 29, 2015
When I saw that the game was $4.99 on mobile, a third of the price it was on Steam, you know what I did? I went INSTABUY on that sucker so hard, there should have been an ASCII cat there to mark the occasion.
This sort of attitude is why free-to-play exists. The people who would pay for games on mobile aren’t willing to do so at prices that are in any way sustainable for the developers who make them. Part of this is just the economics of digital marketplaces where scarcity is dead, sure. And I’m guilty of buying games at sale prices too, I’m no angel, but I also buy my fair share of games, and do buy games at launch prices often enough too. But the race to the bottom attitude has persisted for years, and on mobile it’s fueled by the all-too-many people who have been willing to only buy games when they’re $0.99 or free. This makes it impossible for many developers who would rather just sell you a game for one price to actually do so, because you won’t even shell out $3 or $5 for a game, even if it’s the same game you pay triple the price for on Steam. And when the exact same game is priced the exact same price across different platforms, people freak out.
So, no more. You missed out on the Adventures of Pip sale? Too bad. Now you have to pay your fair share, and you should be glad to do so, because you’re helping support a market where developers can actually charge fair prices for all their hard work and get a reasonable return in the process, and maybe make more paid games for you in the future. And you’ll like it.
And if you want to complain and not buy games at fair prices, then I hope you enjoy the free-to-play future, because it’s the one you made. But you’ll probably complain about that one too.
