See this is the thing, apparently nothing should make a difference for us rich people.
True situation: sales went down and down for the last few years (partly because of piracy, partly because we didn't release enough new stuff). In the end (and I'm not asking for sympathy) the income wasn't enough to live on, we need food and have to buy clothes for the two children to go to school, must pay some bills. Forget about holidays and luxuries - luckily we live in a nice part of England and can go for a countryside walk for most of our entertainment and sanity. Yeah, we're lucky. Now I'm not about to say we hit a dire situation, actually we have some savings to go through a hard time. BUT the income we were receiving was not enough to live on sustainably. Britain is a rich country, but that doesn't mean we are all rich! If we don't earn money, we'll have to get another job, and can't develop LFS any more!
I'm not asking for sympathy, we did some hard work and released this mods system, and income is up right now. How long will it last? I don't know! I hope it will stay at a sustainable level. But there isn't anything so sure as to say we have a guaranteed income so can reduce the price any amount because we're just gonna be so nice. No, we have to work for a living and try to maintain this product so we can live on the income. And each customer is a cost because we have to continue to provide a service to them for many years to come, as we have done for approaching 20 years now. It costs money and time, which is why we ask for a reasonable one-off payment.
This is why I specifically mentioned that this effect is unique to digital goods, because producing a digital copy costs nothing, whereas for a physical copy you have a minimum sale price that equals to production costs, and to make a profit you have to price it even higher.
You can play around with some parameters https://www.desmos.com/calculator/nul66dz2ut
D means demand flexibility and C is costs of making a copy. Green line is how much money you make in total at any given price point.
And so I was right to begin with on all accounts, and you called me a troll for that.
My friendly advise is still the same: implement a subscription model and more flexible regional pricing. You'll make more money that way. If it's good enough for iRacing...
I understand the point raidho36, but if the price of a computer is the same everywhere, it would be like asking for O&G companies to lower the prices at the gas station because the life is expensive as is the price of the car you are driving ... not reasonnable.
As soon as you can afford a computer to run videogames, a wheel, the electricity to make it run, but telling that the price of an 18£ game is too much for what it is makes it difficult to believe.
In poor countries, PC is a poor man's gaming platform. Low end PCs are very cheap, especially second hand, and piracy plus relaxed regional pricing makes PC gaming affordable on a shoestring budget. Consoles on the other hand are more expensive bar high end computers, and console games regional pricing is very stiff, rather close to original US prices, plus it's very difficult to pirate on consoles. Not to mention PC is a far more useful product than a console, it has much greater value by itself. People in poor countries play on PC precisely because it's a very cheap option. So it's kind of a backwards logic to say that since you can afford the cheap gaming platform, you must afford the expensive game pricing.
Turkish lira lost 130% in 2 months
and the country that plays this game the most is turkey
because it is a poor country, players usually played crack
but now the situation is different s3 came and new cars
scawen said it won't crack s3
maybe that's why turkish players should be given a chance
Unlocker or lfs pro exe cannot make the new s3 update illegal, are we 100% sure about that?
(
There are some changes to the way game servers work. We believe the only way to prevent piracy is to no longer release any server code at all (or even support LAN games).) I saw this post, that's why I'm asking
Well to be frank, it has been an honest an revealing discussion here and there are points made on either side that sound good, not so good or bad, depending on personal views and backgrounds. At the end of the day it is a business decision, that those who run the business make. Noone else. And any customer or potential customer can ask nicely but if their wish is declined it should not start an debate about anything on the spectrum of entitlement to economic hardship. Neither should it start a dabate about the political situations, while they play their role in the great picture, they are of no help in the matter at hand anyways.
And while arguing is good if done in a calm and civil manner, I share the feeling with Gutholz that the discussion goes nowhere now.
If you can't afford a video game, then don't buy it. You're not entitled to it and you should be saving your money for more important things if you can't spare 18 euro. End of discussion, it's not that hard of a concept to understand.
They offer you some money but you not gonna take it, because you feel entitled to have everyone pay the full tag price no matter what. You know this type of thinking used to be the norm in video game publishing realm until Steam came along and proved for a fact that it's more profitable to make a cheaper sale than to make no sale at all - something that should be patently obvious to anyone. Odd that after so many years of Steam existing, some people still hold on to this backwards thinking.
Heck this even applies to physical goods. Imagine you're an indie automaker and you built a supercar that cost you $1 000 000 to do, and you set a price tag to $5 000 000 because that seemed fair to you. But nobody wants your car for 5 million, what do you do? Let it sit in the garage until it rots away and eat the loss of $1 000 000? Or maybe try to sell it for $2 000 000 instead, for potential $1 000 000 profit? If nobody buys it for two million, you can try selling it for one million, in order to break even. Even then, it's still better to sell it for half a million, at a half a million loss, than to not sell it and tank a full million loss.
I called you a troll because you accused me of lying and told me we did a scummy move.
Anyway, other than the insults, thanks for the contributions, but I'm not that interested in your learned stuff that isn't backed up by actual results. Remember we have run a successful game for nearly 20 years and I believe this is proof that we aren't complete numpties.
I agree. I had hoped that the conversation would come to an end but it looks like I'll have to close this one to stop enless repetition!
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Thanks, everyone! We are very grateful for the support and it has been very exciting seeing this new lease of life for this game we have worked on for so long. There's a lot more to come and we are very grateful that we are able to continue developing it, thanks to the contributions of our community!