A
question I have been asked is why Mutant Mudds costs only $0.99 on the App
Store when it costs $8.99 on Nintendo eShop. I’ll try to justify it.
Mutant
Mudds was first released on the Nintendo eShop on January 26, 2012. The
Nintendo eShop was a very new market, so all I really had to go on in regards
to comparable pricing of platformers was DSiWare – the digital download store
on the Nintendo DSi. The two main titles I looked at were Shantae and Cave
Story. Shantae was priced at $12 and Cave Story was $10. I felt that Mutant
Mudds was similar in scope to these, if perhaps slightly on the lighter side
when compared to them, so $8.99 felt like a competitive price for a platformer in
a Nintendo handheld market.
When
the game released, most people agreed that the price was fair, even though it
was the most expensive title on the Nintendo eShop at the time – if you do not
count DSiWare titles, which are also available on the store. Including Shantae
and Cave Story.
So
then it came time to think about the pricing of Mutant Mudds in the App Store. I
was new to the market in terms of being a consumer, so I did not have an immediate
feeling of where the game should be priced competitively. I knew it could not
be priced as high as the Nintendo eShop version, due to lack of buttons and 3D,
but I was not sure how much lower I should go.
I
did a lot of research on other titles and gauged how successful they had been.
What is nice about the App Store games is that the data is fairly transparent.
You can see top paid titles, highest grossing titles, number of reviews, number
of active players on Game Center, and other such indications that give you a
decent impression of how well a game has sold. Looking at the top paid apps
today, you’ll notice that the majority are priced at $0.99. Sure, there are a
few that are priced higher, but they typically offer a well-known brand or perhaps
a state-of-the-art experience with cutting edge graphics and such. Mutant Mudds
is not a large brand that can command “premium” price, nor does it sport
state-of-the-art graphics. J
I
even considered going freemium with the game and chopping up all of the game
contents in purchasable chunks, but quickly ditched that idea when it just didn’t
feel natural for this game. But, I am glad I at least considered that pricing
model.
Other
research that I uncovered suggested that even pricing a game above $0.99, say
at $1.99, would result in less than 50% sales – meaning; if you can sell 100
copies at $0.99 you should expect to sell less than half that when priced at
$1.99. That’s crazy!
Another
painfully obvious fact is the quality of games now available on the App Store
for $0.99. In an interview with GimmeGimmeGames, I recently said:
“The quality of games that can be
purchased on the App Store for $0.99 is very high. Titles like Jetpack Joyride
and Bad Piggies make it a very competitive market. We have to try and compete
with that quality and price-point.”
Each
market is different, not only due to the audience that is actively purchasing
goods in those markets, but also due to how that market is presented to the
public. After only spending a short time buying games in the App Store
you are quickly conditioned to hunt for games that are free or $0.99. Only a well-known
brand or an out-of-this-world impressive game can demand “high prices” such as
$4.99 and above. It’s a crazy thing. But, it’s real.
We
make games because we love to. We also want to continue to make games. That
means we have to position our games competitively in each market in an attempt to
maximum on the cash we receive. The inevitable result is that some people will
get upset. I don’t like that fact. But, it is unavoidable. What makes it bearable
is the fact that there are just as many people, if not more, who are ecstatic
about the price of the title in their market, because that’s where they live
and they understand or can appreciate the business side of things.
I
hope this helps shed some light on how we approach such things. Happy gaming.
