Quick questions guys !

[TheAgent]

Perhaps i buy the $99 license and attempt to sell my game, what if my game isnt a huge hit and im stuck at making 400 bucks or something stupidly low (worse case scenario) I know losing money is the risks of selling a game and what not, but what would happen? i know epic demands a royalty fee and what not, will they just take that certain percent from my $400?

Thanks a bunch for any replies. This is just so that i can be ready for worse case scenarios :}

[Aldaron07]

Perhaps i buy the $99 license and attempt to sell my game, what if my game isnt a huge hit and im stuck at making 400 bucks or something stupidly low (worse case scenario) I know losing money is the risks of selling a game and what not, but what would happen? i know epic demands a royalty fee and what not, will they just take that certain percent from my $400?

Thanks a bunch for any replies. This is just so that i can be ready for worse case scenarios :}

You don't owe them a percentage of your revenue then, just the $99. It's not until you make more than $5,000 in revenue that the 25% royalty kicks in.

[TheAgent]

Thanks a bunch! Just what i needed to know hehe, Do you or anyone know what the default beginning price of an indie game is? I always thought $9.99 or somewhere around 10 bucks?

[CreativeCoding]

Thanks a bunch! Just what i needed to know hehe, Do you or anyone know what the default beginning price of an indie game is? I always thought $9.99 or somewhere around 10 bucks?

Well, the way I go is releasing a demo of the game. See how popular it gets. Then judge how much the full game should be from the demo!

Say, my demo gets 50,000,000 downloads (that would be sweeet!), so I might base the price a little higher, say, $5. It's low enough that people (even kids) can afford it, but high enough so that if even half of those people buy it, you will still be rich!


Estimated earnings if 50,000,000 people liked your demo: $125000000*

*If half bought the full thing at $5

[Solid Snake]

Pricing an indie game isn't arbitrary. Don't just slap on a figure and call it that. Pricing has to be right, or you give off the wrong vibe / message.

If you set it too low, then people may think that the game is **** and won't buy it (aka, why is this game price so low?).

If you set it too high, then people's expectations will be much higher and what they want out of the game may be more than you can achieve.

The game's price also needs to make sense from a business point of view. Don't price the game at $5 when it has cost you $900'000 to make because you'll never make enough money to even pay off the cost of development. (This is only for games that have a single point of sale; that is you only sell the game and nothing else).

There are a lot of opinions and thoughts as to how you should price the game, and they don't always agree with each other. But what they do agree on, is that they shouldn't be arbitrary.

[TheAgent]

Thanks much guys for the support and the positives and negatives. Its just that im so used to seeing steam games or itouch games that suck and are at 9.99 so just wanted opinions, its also its very right that a games spent fortunes on should definitely cost more, which is why games now are 59.99 or 70.00 with bonus **** that really isnt worth it.

[CreativeCoding]

Ah yes, I get your point. Too low = Bad expectations...


So yes, $60 is outrages and $5 is too low. You also need to make up the money you spent on the game.

Estimated:

Bink Video One Product Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, or Wii: $7500 US ($6000 for PC, mac, linux, PSP, DS)

3d software: $4000 (maya and 3ds max cost almost the same)

License: pfft, an easy $99.


And that's just some of the stuff...

[Simmonsj_91]

Work out your costs first.

then add a small percentage ontop for profits.

Thats basically how it should work IMO...

Undercut other simliar indie games which are being released that month if possible.

If there are none then you can consider yourself in a sort of monopoly, so charge a FAIR amount, otherwise people won't buy it.


Also, i don't think i've once seen a low priced game and decided its **** due to its price... the indie game community will usually be more informed than mainstream games and do some form of readup before purchase.