Thanks, DasBilligeAlien. I never bothered to keep track since this was a learning project, so my development cost all consisted of my own time. But I like your highly professional approach and will certainly keep it in mind for the next project(if there ever is another). Right now, I've been doing exactly that: Comparing my game to others and getting a feel for price. I just didn't think it was necessarily the most effective way to come up with a hard number. I suppose if you compare enough games/prices a suitable figure may become apparent. It's just all so subjective.
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Yeah its never easy. But it is also plattform specific and if you want to do any sales. A game on a iOSapp store or mobile in genreall will bem uch cheaper than its PC version. Xcom cost around 50 € at reales on PC and only 18 on the app store. (I think there was half a year between the releases, maybe more.) It's important to look at comparable games on YOUR release plattform.
If you want to use the momentum of sales for your game you should give you some wiggle room in your initial price.
I nearly forgot one of the most important rules of selling:
It' always easier to lower a price than to increase it.
Price reduction is one of your most important tools in selling your game. Use it wisley.Thanks again. I only have a Flash game and I've been keeping that in mind, but there's not as much to compare with. Good rule about price reduction. I also have one other factor to consider: If I put a price on it I have to allow it for downloads which increases the chances of pirating/reskinning etc. If I put it up as a freebie right away I can keep it as an embed and avoid that worry. Especially since I'm not finding much justification for more than a buck or two and I can't imagine any big download numbers.
Pirating is not something you should worry about as you can not fight it. Nobody can. You have to accept it as part of any market. Pritating and even more so reskinning is actually only a real thing after you have succsess. Only very very few games got into trouble through pirating (Freelancer comes to mind).
I personally think tha most of my games are not yet worth to be sold. So I went the freebie way.
Yeah, I hear ya. You're probably right it's not something I need to worry too much about. But I think I'm conditioned to be very conscious of copyright and in general IP protection. It's rampant in the graphic arts world(and in many others, I'm sure). Pretty much to the point it's considered acceptable. Ever heard of Fiverr.com? How else does an artist make any money creating a logo for five bucks? The BS is pervasive. Even on Etsy. Countless superhero items. I can't imagine ANY of them are legit. And Etsy just lets it happen. Anyway, I drifted off topic a bit. I try to keep a tight, heavy lid on my IP whenever possible. In this case, I don't think I'm losing out on much by holding out on downloads, so I've decided to go freebie and see how Leaf's “pay what you want” philosophy works out. Thanks again for all the good advice.
I feel you, I am a graphic designer myself. I know of the ridiculuss situation. A friend of mine (a german illustrator) was notfiied some day that a few of her works where printed on pillow cases somewhere in china. Sold on the streets of shanghai.You can do nothing about it.
I dont know about fiverr.com but similar sites from germany. They have modular system with logo parts and put them together in 5- 10 mins. At least some of them. But they are sold mostly at 30 - 100 Euros not 5 dollar. :D
You can't fight piracy without a massive legal budget. Even then its futile if the pirat operates from somewhere remote and most artists I know don't even have the money to send a cease and desist letter.
If you see a copyright violation of your stuff you can inform websites like etsy and others to take the them down. But it is your obligation as copyright holder. Not that of the website owner(differs from country to country of course).
Glad I could be of help. I will follow you.
The main problem however is that large companies like Marvel/DC/Disney don't bother going after small vendors. Probably not worth their time. But if you're a legit schmoe trying to sell your artwork, say putting your own robot design on a night light, you are losing sales to the guy selling R2-D2 night lights. Sure, many customers may only have bought the R2-D2 but there may have been a significant number to have bought yours if Etsy bothered to police this situation a little better. It's not like they are unaware. But they ignore the situation as long as they can get away with it since they'll make more overall sales that way. And Etsy has been called out by their vendors for other dishonest practices but I've already gone way off topic here. In any case, as a vendor you're left with the choice to try to compete with dishonest vendors, risk doing it yourself, or staying out of it altogether...by trying something else, like making a video game ;)
On "Your Time" is just that. Your time is precious, and costly. Developing a game in your time, is still taking away from hours of you doing other things. If you're looking to keep track of development cost, your time is definitely one of the most important factors to count. If you want your game to be free, that's dandy, but when you're looking at it from a break even angle, how long did it take you to make the game, and how much time you plan on spending on the game after development should be measured.
Thanks, Wasteland Dan. I understand your point and have kept that in mind during development. However, much of that time was learning as I went. I'm actually a graphic artist who gave this gaming a shot. It's hard to separate the student game developer from the professional when considering the total time spent. The graphics, music etc. was much less time than figuring out all the game logic. Lot of trial and error. In any case, if I charge what's reasonable to pay myself for the time spent it would be a ridiculously high price. I'm already in the hole either way. Just trying to cut my losses.