OMG, I can finally take something off my signature after Wednesday night. Can't wait, grats Kepa and Rocketcat. I think this has a good chance to be (my personal) Game of the Year.
I'd just like to stop in and show my support for this game. I will be buying this during the opening sale, it looks incredibly good. I haven't played the other Rocketcat games but the previews alone had me extremely intrigued, and all this confirmation on TA about the developer and those other games have convinced me! I literally have hundreds of games which I've downloaded for free, and dozens and dozens of 4.5-5 star games which I've eyed and gotten when the price goes down, but this is one of those games I'm going to buy without hesitation. Looking forward to playing this.
Plus MG's price will go down (for the only time) on release of the game. I think in the future, we're going to not do price changes for our 3 dollar games, at all. I'd much rather just, say, provide a bigger Fan Pack for people that get the game early instead of a discount. On other platforms, pre-orders generally get you a 10% discount, a 33% discount is pretty much unheard of. I wonder if that will still work as a good incentive, though. No discount ever, but you get a single IAP pack for free (that's also probably all the IAP the game has on release) which is otherwise 2 or 3 dollars.
I think that would be a good idea. I know that I would instabuy your games as long as they were a reasonable price (<$5 or so, but even then I'd still probably buy it).
Kepa, I think that's a really good idea. I'm sure that fans will be happy with the free IAP plus you guys still get the game's deserved price tag, which I am sure nobody will hesitate to pay for. I really appreciate your policy on "no discount". I've purchased all your games and has thoroughly enjoyed all of them. This will be another insta-buy for me! More developers should be like you!
While its nice to have lower prices.. I also like idea your idea regarding pricing. By not really having sales, people that want the game won't wait for sales cause you guys don't have sales! For me for instance, if theres say a Gameloft or EA game I want..I know they'll put it for 0.99 eventually so I'll just wait. But if I see a game from a developer that I like, and see their games never go on sale, I'll just buy it... Anyways..maybe that only goes for me.. Man..I can't wait for Wed/Thurs.. =D
Yes I approve of this, i tried to have this discussion on the shadowgun thread but people were getting all pissy. I never understood the lets put it up full price first then sale later idea, true fans should get it cheaper on launch then no more sales. Just like u say Kepa.
It's way more profitable to do it that way. You get most of your sales at launch, so a discount at launch actually hurts you. That's also why we're probably going to discontinue the practice of having discounts at all, and just move towards "free IAP pack for early buyers". I'd have done it for this game, but didn't think of the idea early enough. Plus I don't mind a loss in profits, because we're immediately going to make more action RPGs with the knowledge of what worked/didn't work in this one.
The fact that you guys never make sales, except the early buyers sale, makes you my favourite developer on the appstore. I don´t know how many times I bought an app, only to have it go free one day after. Keep up the great work.
Actually, it makes little sense to price it lower at launch and then raise the price later. Keeping customers happy is good, but there are much better methods of doing so without committing pricing suicide. If you look at most products, almost nothing is priced lower at launch. Want a 2012 model of a car in late 2011? More expensive. Want a PS3 on launch day? Either pay 1k+ on Ebay or waste 12 hours in line (the Ebay prices are people taking advantage of the fact that Sony selling the PS3s at market price). Etc etc. If you sell a game for $5 on launch day and then $10 a couple weeks later, everyone's who's willing to pay $10 already owns it for $5. I think more developers should follow RCG's model of offering an early buyer's bonus in the form of free IAP at launch. This would give them room to take advantage of price discrimination by lowering the prices of their games, while not making all of the early adopters feel like they just got spat on. I don't mean to imply that RCG will drop the price on MG or anything, but most devs do toy around with the prices, and this would be a great way to get a hold of both the frugal and less frugal consumers without upsetting either group.
Exactly, keep in mind also knowing you gave your true fans or day one full price guys a discount or free iap I will be buying all your other games since I like how you do business!
How about you think of it like a music CD or a DVD, which will launch at a discounted 'sale' price and then go up in price a week later?
