I just glanced thru the most popular list, looking at prices etc, and based on that, I don't think Nasty was necessarily overpriced at 400, although it might have done better at 240. There are plenty of games above 80 points currently on the most popular list, even Ezmuze at 800 points. I'd say the main thing limiting interest is simply that it is a shooter, and there are lots of shooter-type games, regardless of how great Nasty might be. Nasty is certainly ON the most popular list, just not near the top. Maybe it will in fact do fine over time.

Frankly, I'm pretty glad that there are plenty of 240 pt and up releases on the list. I was worried that increasingly the 80 pt price is the only option to gain real interest/sales.

Chounard:

Big Daddio:

I am hard pressed to find a game on XBLIG that I feel is really worth $5, I can't.

I don't think you're looking hard enough.  In my opinion Blow rivals any puzzle game on XBLA.  Biology Battle is better than the original Geometry Wars.  If they were allowed to add in the missing XBLA features (achievements, true leaderboards, etc.) I feel they'd easily be XBLA quality and worth XBLA prices.  This is drifting a bit off topic, though, so if you'd like to discuss this specific line of thought, please email me or start a new thread so we don't derail this one.

You actually hit the nail on the head. They do not have the same features XBLA has so they are not worth similar prices. We have also been trained since birth to value a name brand over an unknown. Heinz Ketchup is better than Kroger Brand in the consumers mind no matter what they taste like. My kids friends will talk about Geometry Wars, it's a known entity. If my kid says ohhh but I have Biology Battle it's similar in their minds to saying I have JC Penny Jeans, not Levi's. We have an uphill battle to overcome the brand awareness, and even get people to try our stuff much less part with actual cash for it. Until we do, we are perceived as worth less than a similar branded product.

In my honest opinion, and I'll be blunt, so take it FWIW:

400 points is way too high for Nasty.  The original 200, 400, 800 pt structure for Indie games without leaderboards and achievements was just too high, and even if they had such things, the quality was just too low for 95% or more of them.  The new 80, 240, 400 point structure is far better, and 400 means the best of the best.  Nasty is not the best of the best, even though it could be, and I was really hoping it would be, since I love these Contra style of games, and I always have high hopes for shooters and run-n-gun games, but matching the expectations of Contra and Raiden are not easy.  Because Nasty is a basic platformer, it is one of the simplier games, meaning it should be priced at 80 points.  Please note that this doesn't mean it's no better than the multitude of 80 (and sometimes 240 and 400) point games.  It's just the price it should be, and people will be happy at that price.  240 if it had more complex levels and enemies.  400 points if it challenged (even if it doesn't match) the original Contra for gameplay and fun factor and depth -- I would buy it in a heartbeat.  That's my personal opinion.  And I am being critical, which I think we must with our games, since too many of us have blinders on, and I'm really trying to avoid being one of them with my own game (and other people's).

Consider that people can buy Doom for 400 points -- there's not a single game in Indie Games that comes close to this.

well worth anyone's $5

The problem is not the money, it's the time. Anyone's time is almost always worth a lot more than the money they spend.

Think about trying to optimize entertainment experience per hour per dollar spent. If your game is really long, and only mildly entertaining, it actually doesn't get that high. You'd be much better off making a much shorter, highly entertaining game. That's why short but really well done games (Bioshock, Gears 2 singleplayer, etc) are actually very successful -- while they cost $60, the entertainment density they provide for your time is astounding.

When you design the game, think first and foremost of how you can make playing your game for five minutes the most rewarding thing for the player -- more rewarding than playing Halo 3 online, or reading a comic book, or streaming some fanservice anime from Netflix. It doesn't matter if you have 100 hours of gameplay, if playing for 5 minutes isn't the most fun I can have right now, I'll never play the game at all.

On the web, this is often known as "the attention economy," or perhaps "the competition for eyeballs," but what you're consuming is literally time, it isn't literally eyeballs (unless you're a zombie, perhaps? :-)

JasonD:

In my honest opinion, and I'll be blunt, so take it FWIW:

400 points is way too high for Nasty.  The original 200, 400, 800 pt structure for Indie games without leaderboards and achievements was just too high, and even if they had such things, the quality was just too low for 95% or more of them.  The new 80, 240, 400 point structure is far better, and 400 means the best of the best.  Nasty is not the best of the best, even though it could be, and I was really hoping it would be, since I love these Contra style of games, and I always have high hopes for shooters and run-n-gun games, but matching the expectations of Contra and Raiden are not easy.  Because Nasty is a basic platformer, it is one of the simplier games, meaning it should be priced at 80 points.  Please note that this doesn't mean it's no better than the multitude of 80 (and sometimes 240 and 400) point games.  It's just the price it should be, and people will be happy at that price.  240 if it had more complex levels and enemies.  400 points if it challenged (even if it doesn't match) the original Contra for gameplay and fun factor and depth -- I would buy it in a heartbeat.  That's my personal opinion.  And I am being critical, which I think we must with our games, since too many of us have blinders on, and I'm really trying to avoid being one of them with my own game (and other people's).

Consider that people can buy Doom for 400 points -- there's not a single game in Indie Games that comes close to this.

Thanks for the constructive critisism, I really do appreaciate it. If you ever want to tell me more of your dislikes, shoot an email to kris@funinfused.com. I do plan to revisit Nasty for a sequel some day in the future, though not likely for a while, hopefully when I do I can create something that better lives up to your expectations. I'm a huge fan of the original NES Contra games (Contra and Super C) and wanted to recreate some of that experience but I found myself somewhat limited by the single screen nature of the game (and it's definately crossed my mind to make a game more like Contra than Nasty is, either as a new franchise or as a Nasty sequel). Nasty definately controls like Contra, but it veered away from Contra pretty early indevelopment.

I don't think I considered as much that the low end XBLA games were at the same point as the highest XBLIGs nor factored enough in our lack of achievements and true global high score lists.

Oh well... 86 more days and I can drop the price should I so choose.

jwatte:

well worth anyone's $5

The problem is not the money, it's the time. Anyone's time is almost always worth a lot more than the money they spend.

Think about trying to optimize entertainment experience per hour per dollar spent. If your game is really long, and only mildly entertaining, it actually doesn't get that high. You'd be much better off making a much shorter, highly entertaining game. That's why short but really well done games (Bioshock, Gears 2 singleplayer, etc) are actually very successful -- while they cost $60, the entertainment density they provide for your time is astounding.

When you design the game, think first and foremost of how you can make playing your game for five minutes the most rewarding thing for the player -- more rewarding than playing Halo 3 online, or reading a comic book, or streaming some fanservice anime from Netflix. It doesn't matter if you have 100 hours of gameplay, if playing for 5 minutes isn't the most fun I can have right now, I'll never play the game at all.

On the web, this is often known as "the attention economy," or perhaps "the competition for eyeballs," but what you're consuming is literally time, it isn't literally eyeballs (unless you're a zombie, perhaps? :-)

Sorry but I don't entirely agree with you. I understand what you're saying and I partially agree with the fact that gameplay > pretty much everything else, and fun factor is one of the important things in the gameplay. However I can't really buy the excuse "The game is short but it's packed with fun and entertainment" because it sounds like a uh... excuse.

If you've been able to create a nice, entertaining, fun gameplay style, then I fail to see why the game shouldn't be made longer. I'm an avid RPG (and online RPG) player and a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series and I honestly would be a bit pissed if I paid 60$ for a game with "fun" (not extremely fun, just fun) gameplay but short story/replayability. I like games with a long story and a lot of hours of gameplay simply because it makes me feel the game would last longer (obviously) and make me realize I didn't actually waste my money.

There are two types of players, casual gamers and "professional" gamers. The latter are the ones that, in my opinion, would go for a long lasting game (provided it has a pretty decent gameplay, nothing ZOMG HUGE COOL, but not bad). At least I know I do.

Kris Steele:

Thanks for the constructive criticism, I really do appreciate it. If you ever want to tell me more of your dislikes, shoot an email to kris@funinfused.com.

You're welcome.  I just emailed you with a fairly extensive review.  I hope it helps.

I partially agree with the fact that gameplay > pretty much everything else

That's not actually what I said! What I said was: Demonstrate the best possible value to the potential buyer.

If the gameplay is great, then 20 levels is likely sufficient content to make a lot of sales at $5. 100 levels would be icing on the cake -- but why not release 5 great games with 20 levels each, then? If it's really great, and the content is worth something, you'd make a lot more money that way. If gameplay is merely OK, then 100 levels of merely OK is no better than 20 levels of merely OK -- in fact, I'll probably find something great to play instead way before I'm through the first 20 levels.

To most consumers, $5 is very little. It's half an hour's work at minimum wage in this state. It's the price of a fancy coffee, or the price of two not-fancy coffees. It's half the price of a matinee movie ticket; 1/3-1/4 the price of a 3D IMAX ticket. The choice to buy or not buy an indie game is much more based on whether I, as a customer, will enjoy my time playing it, or not -- exactly how much time there is, isn't at all as important.

Sure, if I the customer am in high school and without a job, $5 might be something like 15% of my monthly allowance (I guess? I'm not up on what a normal allowance is these days). I may want to optimize for the greatest amount of enjoyment for the least amount of money. Yet, if I can buy a used copy of Final Fantasy XII for $25, and it has 100 hours of great gameplay (assuming I like that style of game), then the value of that is "great" times "100" divided by "25" for a total of 4 great-hours per dollar. If Nasty is not "great" but merely OK, and if it has 20 hours of gameplay (?), then for $5, you get "OK' times "20" divided by "5", for a total of 4 ok-hours per dollar. Even in this case, throwing lots of levels at the problem is not the right solution.

However, for most consumers, the "per dollar" part of the equation is so small that it's "great-hours" that count the most, and if you want to sell to those consumers, then you have to optimize for that.

I agree with jwatte, 100 levels is only an important feature to people who already enjoy the core gameplay and thus already have been sold on the game. Personally I'm not dissuaded from trying a demo just because a game is expensive; so if I've been sold on a game by the demo, I'm not going to care much what the price is.

Kris Steele:

If you consider how much time I personally invested (my time at my pay rate) and the money I spent on art/music assets, the cost to produce Nasty is over $20,000. This thinking factored very heavily into my 400 point decision. It's hard to look at how much time I spent, how many sleep deprived days I experienced, how many times I banged my head on my desk because I couldn't get something in the game to work right, and how much of my personal money I invested and say that the final profit isn't worth $5.

That is why pricing decisions in large companies aren't made by coders or project managers or game producers, but by disinterested bean counters. You'll have to decide for yourself if it's most important to: massage your ego with a high price point; massage your ego with lots of trials; or try to make the most money. If you start with a high price and end up with few sales, then drop off all the lists and don't get many trials, you'll feel worse in the long run as well as make less money. When you're feeling at your best (the game is finally done!) is when you have to bite the bullet and find the discipline to make the price... optimal.

I didn't see a trailer for Nasty on GameTrailers, although there was one for the 1337 zombie game. It's funny how half the comments were negative and the other half stated how the theme was hilarious and well worth $1. I know you've spent a lot of time on your game, so I wasn't surprised that you priced it 400, although I suspected that it wouldn't be very successful at that price. Remember those $5 handheld LCD electronic games you can buy anywhere, that have '1001 different games' you can play on them? The hours it can keep you busy, especially divided by price, is astronomical but so many of them are so bad that the average person can find something free and more interesting to do (books from the library, petting the cat, etc.) That's an extreme example where many hours of entertainment and very low price don't create a high perceived value. Conversely, high price will create high perceived value to those who buy it (yeay cognitive dissonance) but probably won't help it sell in the first place.

I think figuring out a price has more to do with your direct competition. Not so much prices for indie games in general. Personally the dude that made ezmuze is my hero. He made an app, prices it at 800, and it's selling very well, and is almost at the top of the top rated list. But the thing is, how many apps on the service are like ezmuze? He's got the market cornered on xbox live, so he has more room to sell at a high price point. 2d shooters... well, you've got a lot more competition to deal with. 

Nostic111:

I think figuring out a price has more to do with your direct competition. Not so much prices for indie games in general. Personally the dude that made ezmuze is my hero. He made an app, prices it at 800, and it's selling very well, and is almost at the top of the top rated list. But the thing is, how many apps on the service are like ezmuze? He's got the market cornered on xbox live, so he has more room to sell at a high price point. 2d shooters... well, you've got a lot more competition to deal with. 

I agree. Any pure, retro, 2D side scroller will have an uphill battle on the indie market. Same as 2 stick shooters. There's just a lot of them. Not only that they're well known genres so gamers have higher expectations. I'm not saying one can't be a great success though. The game has to have a compelling reason in the 8 minute trial to convince a gamer they need to shell out their hard earned money. Also we're in a tougher economy so wallets might be a bit tight. On the other hand since we're independent we have a far greater ability to think outside the box and go in directions that the big guys generally won't. That's our advantage. We have to use it.

I just wanted to pop in and share some good news this time... while download numbers are down due to Nasty being nearly off the new releases list and not on any other lists, conversion rates (which were very low the first couple days) have been steadily climbing. Perhaps with a 400 point game, it's not as much an impulse buy, but people later are coming back to it. It probably helps too that some reviews for Nasty are starting to pop up online, most of which are positive (the largest complaints being price first, then lack of weapons, then floaty jumping). I'm working on a update right now that addresses the later two concerns, which will also help.

I won't know for a while still, but maybe 400 points will turn out to be a good decission after all.

Kris Steele:

I just wanted to pop in and share some good news this time... while download numbers are down due to Nasty being nearly off the new releases list and not on any other lists, conversion rates (which were very low the first couple days) have been steadily climbing. Perhaps with a 400 point game, it's not as much an impulse buy, but people later are coming back to it. It probably helps too that some reviews for Nasty are starting to pop up online, most of which are positive (the largest complaints being price first, then lack of weapons, then floaty jumping). I'm working on a update right now that addresses the later two concerns, which will also help.

I won't know for a while still, but maybe 400 points will turn out to be a good decission after all.

Conversion rates are generally at their lowest when a game is in new releases, since it's being downloaded by folks who like to download most new stuff. Once it's off that chart, the people downloading it are likely to be more interested in it when they download it, so conversion rate goes higher.  Having a decent conversion rate once it's not on new releases is definately what you want for long term sales. The conversion rate at first is more arbitrary, and is affected by things like how many other games came out that week.