Betting on the release date

[Elwin]

Originally Posted by Tibster

Quality=Price.

OK its obvious but :
We have Legend with 40-50 hours of gameplay with 100 quests 500 battles for 25-30E
and now with AP 30 hours around 300 battles around 80 quests for 40E. How do you coment that?

[Divebomb]

Originally Posted by Elwin

OK its obvious but :
We have Legend with 40-50 hours of gameplay with 100 quests 500 battles for 25-30E
and now with AP 30 hours around 300 battles around 80 quests for 40E. How do you coment that?

well kb:tl was an unknown quantity when it was released. it had to earn its name, armored princess is a big deal and many people are really excited for it. that's the reasoning I can see, people WILL pay to play it. a little too aggressive and cynical on 1c's part, of course.

a little activision style with what they did with modernwarfare2 in the us. raising the regular pc price over all other games, because they can.

[Elwin]

Well kinda true many poeple will pay, at least those who are forced to it. In my country there is at least choice : native retail version for 20E or english digital for 40E. Guess what 90% of players will choose

[Metroplex]

Originally Posted by Elwin

Well kinda true many poeple will pay, at least those who are forced to it. In my country there is at least choice : native retail version for 20E or english digital for 40E. Guess what 90% of players will choose

Or you can download the pirated copy, which for sure will appear a few hours if not days after release for free, that will send home the message that if it's too expensive people will get it for free.
p.s. I will buy the boxed version, if no boxed version then I have no choice but to go pirate until the boxed version appears.

[DGDobrev]

Well, sadly, that is the only thing that developers fail to consider. When their product suddenly receives a huge round of applause (thus good image of the trade mark), they usually up the prices, expecting a huuuge revenue. Well, in the modern economy situation, things usually don't go that way.

Looking at some of the opinions on the sales on the Russian forums, the Russian copy was very popular. It was around 15 euro (I think it could be found for less), and a lot of people could spare that much money, since you only need to deprive yourself of drinking and smoking (Note: I do not smoke) for a few days and voila - the game pays off. And then it pays off even further when you do a few playthroughs. You can well squeeze 90+ hours out of this game to try all 3 classes and check out all their options. It goes to over 150+ hours when you decide to try out the various difficulties.

Modern economics unequivocally shows that people will buy and support a product which is cheap and offers a good value for the money. KBAP had the potential to become one. So if the price was 15E, many people would have jumped at the game and stripped the shelves in the game shops from it. If the game was 20E, people would readily do that again. If the game was 25E, it is still a decent price, although some people will look at it with criticism. 30 euro starts to get a bit much. 40, that's a rip-off.

So, the developers should decide what do they want:
Example: we have 10 000 people who love the game and want to buy it.

9000 sales at 15 euro and 1000 people who will download a pirated copy
7000 sales at 20 euro and 3000 people who will download a pirated copy
5000 sales at 25 euro and 5000 people who will download a pirated copy (let's assume that 25E is a 50/50 situation, where quality and price clash)
3000 sales at 30 euro and 7000 people who will download a pirated copy
2000 sales at 40 euro and 8000 people who will download a pirated copy and have the same amount of fun (well, probably with less support, but who of them will care)

9000x15 is close to 7000x20. What is the difference? A person who had enjoyed the cheap game is more likely to share his thoughts with his friends and tell them where he bought it. A person who liked the game through a pirate copy, is more likely to share with his friends where he downloaded it.

So if I was a developer, I'd take the 9000x15 euro any day, provided it covers my expenses. Keeping in mind that the game was cheaper in Russia, I'm certain all the expenses have been covered and there was a certain revenue - otherwise the price would have been higher in Russia.