In the past, I’ve written quite a lot about how much i dislike the free-to-play model for games. As I’ve said, I think it harms the design of a game to be thinking in terms of revenue and not enjoyment. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t design a free-to-play game that is both designed in terms of fun and that happens to then do rather nicely from in-app sales. The most obvious way to do this is with purely cosmetic purchasable items.
So regardless of how much I’ve whinged about it, that doesn’t mean I regard it as black and white – as if all free-to-play games are evil because they’re free-to-play, and all traditionally priced games are not. It all rather depends on the game, and the motivation of the developers/publishers responsible.
So this article got me thinking – in part because it does rather talk about things in these binary terms, but mostly because of this:
First though we have to accept a universal truth. Just because we put effort in to our game doesn’t mean it’s worth a given amount of money. Your game is worth what people are prepared to part with to obtain it.
Hmm. I think this section neatly clarifies exactly why I have such strong feelings about game prices and monetisation. Because I don’t believe this at all. No, my game is not worth what you decide it is, it’s worth what I decide it’s worth. You are, of course, free to disagree with my determination – regard a game as under-priced or over-priced depending on how you feel about it. It might be worth more or less to you than it is to me and if sufficient number of people share your opinion, that would certainly make me reconsider my own – but it’s still up to me whether or not I reduce the game’s price to reflect that.
I mean, that concept of “it’s worth what people are prepared to pay” is true in some contexts. Like an auction, for example. A painting. Some rusty old junk that somebody eventually realises is of historical value. But digitally downloaded games with infinite supply? No, I beg to differ.
So perhaps it’s purely this that makes me annoyed so much by weird pricing. £200 for alpha-access, you say? So you judge the worth of your alpha (despite the fact that alphas are hugely feature-incomplete, often incompatible, and buggy messes) to be £200? Crickey. Your choice, but wow. Frankly, no massively incomplete, buggy, and potentially incompatible game could possibly be worth that much, so I can only assume that most of that price is the value attached to allowing the consumer access to your development process.
Okay, fair enough – there’s definitely value in that, especially if the game is high-profile and exciting, spear-headed by a chap many of us would like a chat with over a cuppa. But what about the value the consumers bring to the table? How does that factor into the price? They are, after all, providing feedback, bug reports, compatibility information and all that jazz which’d be expensive were you to use a QA company.
So anyway, if that’s what was done – determine the value of access to the alpha, the forums, the ability to speak to the developers then add on the value of the alpha build provided, and subtract a bit for the value the consumers bring to the table – and if the figure arrived at was £200… then I’m not sure I would have a problem with that. It would still strike me as awfully expensive but if that’s what they decided, that’s their decision. Instead, though, the same old argument is trotted out: “The intent was actually to keep the number of players down.” This, I do not buy.