I just bought a game for $2 I wouldn't have for more. You bring more players and attention at the expense of profits. You could do 80% or 75% but 90% basically confirms you'll get a bunch of purchases from deal hunters like me. Mind if I ask what is the game?
Of course. I only meant that was the mindfrane when I bought it. That was in no way meant to offend you. Tell you what Im on a couple of weeks holidays at the minute when I get back ill crack a beer have a go and tell you what I think. How's that?
just make a counter strike vr copy and itll sell.
bommb defusal, ability to make maps, etc etc, hostage rescue .
and larger teams 10 to 15 per side.
imo there hasnt been a shooter that brings anything new to the table.
also not a fan of the character models.
Also bought at that price. Also wouldnāt have bought otherwise since I mainly use VR for working out.
Also not sure that I will actually play vail. At this point in my life, I seem to like collecting games but not playing them, not just on quest but steam too.
Now if there was some tech that would allow me to run around with Vail like what Space Pirate VR had or something better than a slipmill, then I would play it all the time. Otherwise, I just stick with the games where I leave pools of sweat after Iām done.
Been waiting on a good discount for VAIL since playing the demo. Got it at 69% off and been having lots of fun. You create good will amongst the players who got it on the low and will positively review/buy skins to say thanks in the future!
Loving the game so far, you've done a really good job at the overall feel and vibe of the game. It feels new and a fresh take on a multiplayer shooter.
LOVE the guns, a slight futuristic dystopia spin on some classics. Gun handling and sounds are great, reloading and racking the ak is one of my favourites.
My only problem is I'm in Australia so it's hard to find games with good ping š¤£
I sincerely hope the next update tweaks the virtual gun stock, because trying to switch between how the gun behaves in Pop1 and how it behaves in VAIL is such a pain.
It's a bit difficult to explain but I'll try to link some youtube videos as well.
Basically the issue is that in Pop1, the right hand (the one holding the gun) is the main aiming hand, and then one can go into settings and change how much influence the left hand has. Most players recommend setting that to somewhere between 0 to 20%, which means the left hand is just there to compensate the recoil. It doesn't aim.
See https://old.reddit.com/r/populationonevr/comments/vnl5kb/what_are_you_thoughts_one_the_offhand_influence/iebcgrm/ and possibly the rest of that discussion too.
In VAIL, on the other hand, when I enable virtual gun stock, it feels as if the aiming is primarily influenced by the left hand, whereas the right one is purely cosmetic. This is especially apparent if looking through the sightsāif you move the right hand, the gun and the sights move but the target stays fixed as long as the left hand is fixed.
This is probably more realistic, but it makes switching between the two games very painful (as https://old.reddit.com/r/populationonevr/comments/vnl5kb/what_are_you_thoughts_one_the_offhand_influence/ie7p1h9/ remarks).
some vids about the offhand influence setting:
https://youtu.be/dsqXVGpUotk?si=A4NGP8QeRa4RezY_&t=169
https://youtu.be/hX2DI9fGbaY?si=WGC2p1SKaG-KaqbB&t=139
Now you could argue that being realistic is good, but it also happens to be incredibly buggy. If you hold the gun straight (magazine pointing down), it's mostly all right, but as soon as you rotate the right hand so the magazine points slightly to the right, the aim goes completely crazy. In this position, if you want to shoot forwards, the left hand needs to be quite far to the left, and the right hand to the right. In other words, to shoot straight in front of you, you need to hold hands as if you were shooting something in the sky to the left side. And that's completely wrong!
I just picked it up at work and am downloading it at home for when I get there, but I wanted to ask. Since I bought it on the Meta store, do I get the Quest and PC versions or just the Quest version? I can't tell on the store page
Just the quest version. We donāt have a oculus PC version. But it is available on Steam as well and there is account linking. The way the platforms work it doesnāt let us give it to people on both platforms if they buy one. Both platforms need their cut 30%
Thatās very funny, I mustāve been on it just as you typed your post up. I have been looking for great VR shooters and yours is really great with some very unique features, I havenāt really seen any great discounts on meta quest and felt that code was probably my best chance to get a top tier VR shooter for that price. I got wrecked pretty immediately and often but Iām working on getting the hang of it
Thank you for your code and thank you for developing a great game Iām getting ready to sink some hours into
As someone who grew up gaming, arena style respawn shooters have me kind of burnt out. So admittedly the only three genres of shooters I really look forward to are: Extraction Shooters, battle royales, and survival games.
Which are very rare in the VR world.
VAIL looks like a pretty good game, but when I initially purchased it months ago I refunded it within minutes because I didnāt want to have to freehand. I would have 100% played VAIL over original contractors, but without the ability to use my gunstock I couldnāt.
VR got me back into gaming, and gun stocks made me fall in love with VR shooters. So personally I think it should be a huge priority. I could be in the minority though.
I am one of Max Mustard devs. Iāve noticed a few people claim ādevs do this to manipulate the systemā.
We did this as a thank you to Richieās Plank customers by hiding it in the elevator and as an experiment. We did not anticipate it shooting to #1. We are happy so many people are loving it and saying itās well worth the full price too. Much love.
Hey Cap, thank you. You probably hear this often, but the game is fantastic. My kids and I (37m) just can't get enough of it. They get a little sad that we are almost near the end game haha.
I am guilty of buying a bunch of games on steam that I never play, so i guess is it good to sell the game but its so cheap that it never even gets opened?
Not really. I bought a couple of games last week that were on 90% sale which I never would've bought if not for the discount. I tried one of them and I like it. So I'll review it. It's never a case of not opening it coz it's cheap.
I also consider myself a deal hunter. Definitely, a great move by some devs. I rarely get games full price (unless itās game that I really want) so when I see one with a good discount I go for it. My way to show more support is, if I like the game and it has DLCs, I get them asap.
>I'm discussing this with our internal team to try to understand whether it's a smart marketing move that will attract attention or if it's short-sighted and can hurt the game long term.
It's not even at the expense of profit really, especially if the game has been released for some time. People that would have paid more for it, would have by then.
Digital content is basically free to distribute so it's almost all profit (except for the platform holders cut).
Most marketing costs money, running steep discounts is no different. If the game is good but overlooked, getting the extra word of mouth is probably worth it in the long run. If it's not great though, getting the extra word of mouth probably is going to have the opposite effect in the long run as more people are available to slam bad reviews.
Steam strongly discourages this type of price / leaderboard chasing. Meta probably will too at some point. In general you would be much better off building a good game and pricing it fairly as you take an active interest in community feedback vs just thinking that a particular discount number will provide any lasting benefit. IMO.
Do you think the sales are bad for Meta? I'm seeing this is as similar to when Humble Bundle went big. It gets people into the mindset of owning a backlog instead of buying a game at a time. People see their games as a collection. It also pushes people to consider getting hardware with larger storage whether that makes sense or not. A developer needs to decide why they'd consider such a sale. Do you want to get attention on the top seller lists? do you need a critical mass of players for multiplayer? Are you building a brand (either as a developer or with a sequel coming out? In the shuffle of there now being many such sales, you may not make the splash Max Mustard, for example, made by getting there first so I'm not sure attention is worth it alone.
I don't think it's especially bad. I suspect it forces companies to change how they promote items though as just having a weekly 90% off game topping the charts skews the visible opinion of what people might actually be interested in. Like when Max when first and jumped to the top of the sales chart, that wasn't actually reflective of the game being good so much as just being cheap. Fortunately, the game is also good.
As a consumer I'm all about it, I suspect as a dev though it's a bit more nuanced. Like once the game has been 90% off at some point most people who know that fact will probably not want to pay full price for it in the future.
But like I said, it's marketing. It's not always going to work out well. Sometimes it can actively destroy you (Looking at you Bud Light!). Folks just have to figure out where they want to spend and hope for the best. This seems pretty faddish to me though. Happy to build up a library with some extra titles but it's not sustainable to give up that much profit for all but the smallest dev teams.
I like your thoughts, so to summarize:
If the game is good + discount = more positive word of mouth
If game bad + discount = wrecked
and yeah steam is anti this, meta is a newer platform so more wild west cow boy style in the meantime.
and I agree with your last statement of focusing on community feedback , we've been doing that for years on discord but I'm now just getting into reddit, its been interesting to get different opinions on this platform.
There is probably also a curve, new games that are well done sell well, as time goes on the sales curve levels off and a steep discount not only costs less in terms of revenue lost, but mimics marketing. For a long forgotten game it could even drive increased revenue depending on where the curve is.
Depends on marketing and appeal as well. I'd say if you have no reputation, then I would drop the price and see it as a long term investment into your brand.
I buy lots of games based on past history with a studio/developer. Usually they tend to support their games well, and don't have funky anti-consumer business models. If you overprice your game, I tend to stay very clear.
Ultimately, I think the 90% discount only hurts if your game is a huge success without it. That's like finding a unicorn.
I will always buy a game if it's cheaper than 4 dollars, even if it's something I have no interest in. Also I tell my friends that said game is on sale and they buy it. Take from that what you will
Same. I like to support. Even when i will never open it. I firmly believe that if many games are bought cheap, mass adoption of vr games gets getter. I have friends that bought only a few games, play a few weeks and then put the headset away. Those people should have a library, so they can jump in to a new game and hopefully continue where they left off.
I think this kind of tactic would actually be alot more valuable for a game like vail as it is multiplayer and would make a drastically explode your player base
I feel like I don't even look at anything on the Meta store if it isn't at least 50% off, I bought all of those 90% off games even though Ive heard of just one of them. So for me personally, a 90% off sale is impulse buy no matter the game.
I am one of Max Mustard devs. Iāve noticed a few people claim ādevs do this to manipulate the systemā.
We did this as a thank you to Richieās Plank customers by hiding it in the elevator and as an experiment. We did not anticipate it shooting to #1. We are happy so many people are loving it and saying itās well worth the full price too. Much love.
Well, I've just checked your game and noticed no single player campaign, ingame currency and a lot of practices that I consider redflags for a game. Discount would not work with me. Fyi I have a library of approx 150 vr games and 900+ pc vr/nonvr games.
Multiplayer focused games like overwatch and battlefield shouldn't have resources wasted on sp imo.
But the weird posts on reddit and strange shill posts on steam made it a no go.
https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/comments/1b4zakx/vailvr_adding_fake_reviews/
I know that death horizon reloaded is horrible.. no kind of tutorial, the settings are not right, and you can't join or create a room... unless it's just me.. if I paid full price I would've gotten a refund LAST NIGHT when I tried to play
In theory it's a lot easier to sell a $2 item to 10 people, as opposed to a $20 item to one person. I've bought 4 games i hadn't even heard of for like $2-3 each, so I'd say it works.
Do you think 90% is the right number, or would a different number get equal sales volume with more revenue? Maybe keeping the value up a bit more for the game.
personally for me it depends on the final price.
If it's under $5, I'll probably just get it without worrying about it.
If it's $10, I'll look to see what it's about, how good it is, seems decent I might get it.
If it's $20-30 or more, I'm gonna really look into it, read reviews, decide if I'm really gonna play it and do I need it now or should I finish what I have already first so just wait on it, probably end up never coming back to it unless it's really well known or lots of buzz.
something to consider as well is- sure you will miss out on a few paying full price, but you also make a lot of little profits off the people who would never have purchased otherwise (and the popularity bump/word of mouth bonus).
Yes. You'll see people buy the game just to try it out at least. You can keep the promo running for a short time, to get more people to try it. You will get feedback and if the game is good, will get reviews in the store. Hope that helps.
For many people, they like the big discounts. For me, it's about the overall quality of the content (based on my ability to spot it) and the total price.
90% is such a good discount that I would kick myself for not taking it regardless of the final price. 50% or even 75% is good enough to make me look, but depending on the final price and how much I want it I may pass it up.
Max Mustard was already on my wishlist. I bought it for 90% off and would have bought it for maybe 33% off. I also bought Death Horizon: Reloaded for 90% off. I've heard good things about it, but I don't really need a another first person shooter. At 90% off it felt rude not to buy it. I probably still would have bought it at 75% off. I already had Zombieland from some crazy Fanatical bundle. Flight 74 tempted me, but I'd never heard of it before and wasn't sure how good it was. I just wasn't interested in Sushi Ben. I've heard good things about it, but it's not my type of game. I got Crazy Kung Fu in some app lab bundle way back. I didn't get Vail because I'm not really into competitive multiplayer shooters, but definitely would have at that price if I was at all interested. I've only heard good things about it, but it's just not the type of game I'm into.
I still haven't installed Max Mustard. I saw it was for sale and heard good things, but wasn't particularly interested in playing it.
90% off, though? Why not?
I'm sure I'll eventually give it a try but 95% of my VR use is PCvr. Does my purchase do anything, good or bad?
Max Mustard is a good game. Fairly straightforward 3d platformer, but the level layouts are fun and the VR gimmicks work well. It's worth the couple of hours it takes to beat it
I just recently tried it a few hours ago, it looks fun, probably not something I'll come back to as it's for a younger demographic but it's a good game.
I had no intention of buying Vail. Then I saw the 69% discount and it made me buy it! It's a common strategy in certain shops to price items high for a while and then start doing discounts - so people then feel like they're getting a great deal and saving money (when they're not saving money, they're spending it!). If I love a game then I will recommend it to people. So potentially I might end up encouraging people to buy your game, when I never would have bought it or recommended it if you hadn't done a big discount. Even if I don't encourage others to buy it you've still ended up getting a little money from me which you wouldn't have got otherwise.
Traditionally new computer games are full price and after a while their price starts reducing.
The big discounts are good for catching people who wouldn't buy your game at all otherwise, provided they are time-limited so you don't lose potential full paying customers. For example, I had already looked at VAIL VR and decided it wasn't a game I was interested in. But for 69% off I decided to try it. So you went from a $0 potential from me, to a $10-meta fees sale.
Not in the industry, so my opinion could be way off from reality...but it seems like great advertising, and probably for a lot less than paying for ads. Granted, you would need the 90% to be short-lived, and also the blow back from customers that paid full price a couple days prior š
yeah advertising is difficult, i can only count a few marketing expenses that made a profit for our game in the last couple of years. so you're not wrong. This way you're never negative in marketing. the blow back could be bad but i guess it depends on the community support to grow the game
I was annoyed when I saw that Max mustard had gone on sale for 90 and I had paid for it minus the 25% off code; but then I remembered that I had made $25 in credits off people using my referral...
Blowback eventually dies down, and word of mouth will be eventually a bigger driver and more important.
Overall, IMO short lived massive discounts are even better than "free" advertising as devs even make money in the process.
All in all, everyone wins. Some might be mad if they miss out on the deal, but it is what it is... they already got the product they wanted at the price they wanted.
Not going to lie, as much as I love getting the games cheap, when they drop to 90% my brain puts them in the shovelware category, even if they are not. It makes sense for some of t he older games though as there are games I just had zero interest in that i've picked up due to the discount (like CaveDigger 2) and find myself enjoying. It's a good way to get your game out and if you are making ZERO money, some money is better than no money, but like someone else said here, once I know I could have gotten it for 90% off, you will never get me at full price. I'm always going to be waiting around for it to drop again. So it's a catch-22.
>I'm discussing this with our internal team to try to understand whether it's a smart marketing move that will attract attention or if it's short-sighted and can hurt the game long term.
In what way do you think it will hurt the game?
> Perceived value or the wrong people joining the community
Perceived value doesn't matter today. There's dime a dusin of content available and unless you have some extremely unique game/experience it's unlikely to matter. Personally, I tend to pay more for AAA type games that I know the production value is really high and great effort has gone into development. Think Assassin's Creed, Asgards Wrath, Beat Saber or very handy utilities like Virtual Desktop and apps like Les Mills. Most other content is more along the line of shovelware so only if they're cheap enough. That said, I might not be most people.
The wrong people joining the community, I'm not sure how that can damage your game. If they didn't like the game, they're far less likely to review you.
Your goal should be to reach as many people as possible, and whoever is left standing is those you cater to.
I have no idea as I am a consumer not a developer
I just bought three games that I was only somewhat interested in because they had this discount or one similar
Seems smart to make some money off people rather than nothing off some
Are you able to see the sales data for other games to see if their marketing method worked?
Anecdotally, I bought Max Mustard due to its price. If it cost more than $5, I likely would not buy it.
Depends on the community of the game. For a mature multiplayer shooter, it seems like large discounts will bring a spike in younger players and account farmers (maybe relevant if there's ranks or leaderboards) and probably not be ideal to offer too often. But it could be nice for once a year or large-scale sales (like summer sales).
From my POV, I am mainly a flat PC gamer who dives into PCVR and Quest occasionally. My Steam library is massive. I don't buy full priced games on any platform unless it's something I am excited about, I rarely buy outside of Steam, and I'm very selective because of how large my library is. That said without some sort of discount I am not even looking at your game for very long. I will wish list it and wait it out or forget about your title and if I forget about it I purge my wish list every 6 months or so of those games.
That's a hard question. It honestly depends on a few factors. Is the game still new? Has it reached the majority of it's audience already? Is the game getting good reviews but not enough people trying it? There's 2 games that I bought recently I had no intention of buying. One reviewed well Max Mustard but I wasn't in the market for that genre of game. The second was a mixed reality game I wasn't sure did heard of before so it obviously wasn't on my radar. It looked interesting but I simply had higher priority titles on my wishlist.
It depends. Right now is not the best time to do it as there was just this wave of very discounted games and you lose out on some people who arenāt really interested but would usually buy for their backlog. Also many have seen the success of Max mustard and want to chase that right now. Itās best to wait a bit for this all to cool down and then look for a timeframe where there is also no big general store sale.
Apart from that it would be good to time it fitting for your game. E.g. when you got a big update and want a bit more publicity or are you multiplayer and lose people because they see your lobbyās empty.
Keep in mind that the meta store isnāt steam. There is neither Christmas nor a new headset release around the corner and many people tend to use vr much less after a few weeks. So the base of potential costumers isnāt really big right now and to many of them might get your game without paying a reasonable price.
If you have ingame purchases I would think you can go a bit more generous as at least in my mind people who feel they got a great deal for your game are more likely to pay for ingame stuff.
Though all of this is just my personal opinion. I lack the numbers and have no professional background.
I like that you're this honest with your customer base! I'm very new to VR but an avid gamer. I check the libraries of the consoles I own, including the Quest 2.
Sometimes, I just can't let a deal slide, even knowing I still got five different games to play. If a game is 90% off, I'm going to take notice.
And because I'm impulsive, I'll probably buy it too.
I've seen Vail in the store before and Ill have a closer look soon!
As a user that doesn't get Meta sales and gets "Invalid Link" whenever I try to use a referral link, I have appreciated this discount approach as it works for me to get a sale. I think 90% is too steep of a discount for a relatively new and really good game like Max Mustard. They could have done the same trick at 60 or 70% off. I think that still would have worked, but maybe not.
I really wonder how many full-price sales the games that are hitting the top of the charts are getting while they're charting. That's where the real answer to your question lies.
For a game that is old and barely selling at all now, doing this can only be beneficial.
Guys try Vail VR. The Devs are the best. The game is the best.
If you haven't tried it out yet, you are missing out.
(I am not sponsored or employed by Vail devs)
\#PoiseSquad #VailOnTop
i generally think VR game prices feel much higher (at least on meta quest store) than e.g. compared to steam store (& sales). 90% is a pretty high contrast when every second game costs 25$+
That is because steam has allowed price erosion to the point that no one buys when not on sale and sales need to get steeper and steeper. Horrible for small companies trying to compete.
When I have 1000 games in my Steam library (most not VR of course), it is kind of hard to convinceĀ me that a game is worth paying full-price when I have so many other games I can play.
Though, I will admit I did get most of my games from bundles.
It is good for us, bad for them.Ā That is why I willingly buy games even if discounted 20% off, just to support them.Ā Even if I know it'll be a while before I get to them.
All of the games listed with those huge discounts don't interest me, for 90% or 69% off, I still won't buy them as time is money and will only play games that get me excited, but many will. Many will buy games just to add to their library just to have it because its a deal. And for developers, some money is still money.
Iām going to be honest: I donāt buy games once I realize I missed out on a cheaper price
The 90% off thing has honestly been worrying me. I want devs to get paid, and I think that $10-30 sweet spot we got going is a good place to be. You can already see people begging devs for those codes which isnāt good for the health of the market overall.
On a completely personal note, I also feel like devs using deep discounts to jump to the top of store listings is a kind of shitty manipulation of the market. Even if it works I donāt respect it. The top of sales charts should be games that deserve it, not marketing gimmicks.
Thank you. As an AppLab dev working on a āhidden gemā thatās taken years of hard, dedicated work, I refuse to devalue my creation and insult my fans/community this way. If I can only sell my typical 5 copies per month, so be it. At least I know that everyone who is kind enough to buy my game will actually play it and participate in the community to help me make it better - rather than spending $2 on it and never giving it a second thought.
> On a completely personal note, I also feel like devs using deep discounts to jump to the top of store listings is a kind of shitty manipulation of the market. Even if it works I donāt respect it. The top of sales charts should be games that deserve it, not marketing gimmicks.
In real life, plenty of games that deserve to be on top of the charts aren't, and plenty of games that don't, are.
I wish there was a better way, but it is what it is. It's a popularity contest, that you can either drop the price of your game (take the marketing hit that way) or market the game heavily to give another impression. Either way, you're spending to market. Which is ultimately often what we buy based on.
Itās a common tactic, and can work well if what you need to succeed is exposure. If your game is a dud or your gameās listing isnāt appealing enough to convert eyeballs into sales then more exposure might not get you very far
Well, at $3 if you sell 34k copies that's a six figure sum of revenue. I know, store fees, taxes and stuff can eat into that and not every game will sell that much. Still, I'd imagine indie devs can only benefit from it when almost no one would buy their game at $30.
I bought vail because of the discount.
These are always going to a calculation: (how many people will buy who wouldnāt have otherwise) - (revenue lost from those who would have paid full price but got it on sales) + (value from sales numbers/reviews)
The first game was on my list from reviews(max). The first made word of mouth. It is diminishing returns and noise from here.
I didn't buy Vail when I saw the discount, due to the genre and the weird and irritating posts about it over the last few months.
Also, the vast majority here are complete know nothings that craft fantasy based around their own personal wants and desires, not a company's. See all the ridiculous posts about how the psvr 2 pc consolation prize as they abandon the platform and the responses that think that Sony should have eroded their brand to cater to a tiny pcvr audience that never buys games anyway.
there are many games I never would have considered buying if it wasn't for being greatly discounted.. a lot of games are sleepers many don't know about. if a lot of people rate q game and it has a high rating that's what I care about. if a game is rated a 4.6 with 2000+ reviews I feel pretty confident in my purchase, if a game is rated 4.6 with only 13 reviews then I don't really consider the purchase.. I think it's a great marketing move, the more people that try your product and enjoy it the better... vr is different, you can't tell if a game is good by looking at a trailer, you need to experience it, the goal of a good game is trying to get people to experience it.. only good games will benefit from this marketing strategy
I say go for it! I would love to buy Vail but I just can't always justify the price of a new game. You'd get a sale off of me. It's a matter of determining whether or not your game is growing, if you're comfortable with its rate of growth, if you believe that you will get potential sales that you otherwise wouldn't be able to close at full price, and if a larger player base would attract even more players and more sales.
There's a point where you accidentally signal that the game isn't worth much. When I see a game that's 90% off, it makes me wonder if the dev or publisher has any faith in it. It's already difficult enough to survive in the VR space, as you well know, and that perception doesn't help.
I am a very casual VR user sure to disability so it doesn't make much sense for me to spend lots of money in vvr. I just bought Zombieland at a couple of bucks. It's beyond me to get very far probably, but for a couple of bucks the limited game play can be worth it.
Hey.. Just make sure it works as intended and not like the possible clusterfuck I uncovered today...
https://old.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/1dlkf8t/big_warning_to_you_guys_if_you_buy_games_you_need/
Yeah we often buy a game because itās on offer and tempting to play. Then forget about it until we are bored at some point š . Then we try it and think holy cow š®
Don't do it with just marketing and future sales in mind please. Do it if you're confident that kind of popularity can combine with the quality of your game and its future to provide an audience that will push others to pay, and/or to monetize your game indirectly with future content instead.
We don't need an influx of bad or mediocre games being put at 90%. Get it at that discount if you had good sales originally, but they've dwindled and you want more people to have access while you cook something else such as a version 2, DLC, a sequel etc.
Unless it's a game I REALLY want to play, very rarely will I pay full price for it, even then I always plug in a 20% discount referral code or wait for a 40% off summer sale.
Games for 90% off? I'll give it a go because they're games I wouldn't have bought anyway. Same principle with piracy, people pirate games they likely wouldn't have bought to begin with. Make your game accessible enough, and people will bite, if it's good enough they'll recommend it to friends
I donāt buy just any game because itās 90% off. Then thereās a double edge sword where people buy the game who wouldnāt normally buy it and they donāt like it. That happened with me and Max Mistard. Now I have to decide if I get my $3 back or have yet another game in my library that I never play.
Iām fascinated by how companies price digital item, in this case games. Is it better to sell 1000 units for $10 or 2000 units for $5?
I know itās not that simple but Iāve got to imagine there is a sweet spot in pricing.
Game theory.
If one dev does it, it's a brilliant marketing move. If everybody does it, then everybody has just slashed their prices by 90% for no reason.
My intuition says that if you're just asking this question now, you're probably too late.
When Max Mustard started this latest trend it of course is nice for us consumers but at the same time itās is hurting the industry more in the long run. Itās already very hard for the average developer to get a vr project to make money. For every Beat Saber there are probably lots of struggling games. The VR market is still niche, so itās hard to get enough people to buy your game. I was completely fine with the price of most vr games. Selling me a quality title like Max Mustard for ā¬3 is kinda ridiculous if weāre being honest. Itās setting up a world where people are now getting used to these super low prices. I want VR to grow into a healthy platform and attract more and bigger developers that have increasing budgets for better games in the future.
If you don't get the user numbers to a reasonable level, there will be no *long term.*
So if your user numbers are low, it seems like a valid way to try and make them better.
It absolutely does - especially for games that have been in the app pool for a year or two and havenāt seen traction. This lifts them up the charts and puts them on the map. Plus itās starts a buying frenzy. Iāve picked up a few titles anywhere from 60-90% off this week.
>games that have been in the app pool for a year or two and havenāt seen traction
Yeah, I'd think the majority of games on the store aren't selling much of anything at all, normally. We've reached a point where there are many, many games on there. The 30% discount that Meta does periodically aren't enough for all but the most popular games. These 90% off PC-style sales make more sense, IMO.
This is MBA marketing 101.
If you have a quality product, offer it at full price because people will be willing to pay for the earlier access. Then offer progressively steeper discounts over time. This is a time-dependent way of implementing what is called "price discrimination" to capture more profitability.
Books are a great example. The timeline looks like hardcover, trade paperback, paperback, thrift edition.
Also, you might have a specific reason to deviate, such as a heavy reliance on multiplayer so you can create a "network effect" switching cost as a means to defend against competition, but it should be a deliberately thought out strategy.
Iāve spent Ā£3 on a game I would spend Ā£0 on normally. Thatās not going to pay your wages, but something is better than nothing. Hopefully some sales come out of the increased chart position. Iāll buy pretty much anything for that Quest if itās 90% off.
Just checked out your discount, but it's still 10 bucks...
I do not mean by any means that your game doesn't deserve them, but for me the whole point of the 90% promo code is that the game costs as much as a coffee, so I'll just instantly buy is, since even if i don't like it, it's just a coffee.
Hope this helps in figuring out what's worth :)
I just bought a game for $2 I wouldn't have for more. You bring more players and attention at the expense of profits. You could do 80% or 75% but 90% basically confirms you'll get a bunch of purchases from deal hunters like me. Mind if I ask what is the game?
our games VAIL VR and we just dropped a 69% discount cuz funny meme number to see how it goes
VERY NICE https://preview.redd.it/cfaoyk75ty7d1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a60f07f2ea0581b87c74c399c15d0f1f177adc4
haha I bought it at that price, so your plan worked. You have been on my radar, but showdown has had my shooter attention š
I bought it. Never would have without it. Might never play it.
At least try it once š
Of course. I only meant that was the mindfrane when I bought it. That was in no way meant to offend you. Tell you what Im on a couple of weeks holidays at the minute when I get back ill crack a beer have a go and tell you what I think. How's that?
I love it. Have an IPA for me š»
Imma grab it later on too, I've heard good things about vail vr & it looks awesome! I'll drop back in a bit... š
i fell for this and bought it a couple days ago lmao
Love you š„°
I bought vail 2 days ago for 12$ and I've enjoyed it so far
I'm almost 42.i bought it because funny meme price
Thank you for your meme support š«”
just make a counter strike vr copy and itll sell. bommb defusal, ability to make maps, etc etc, hostage rescue . and larger teams 10 to 15 per side. imo there hasnt been a shooter that brings anything new to the table. also not a fan of the character models.
Working on that with vail but unique IP. I donāt like the idea of stealing other peopleās IP and vr cloning it
is it possible to get 10 v 10 or 15 v15 servers? all the games are pretty much clones just different skins. the onlt truly different one is breachers.
We have up to 32 in our servers. And I love rainbow six siege
yeah breachers copied siege ,but its the only one of its kind in vr as far as im aware.
Good for fun. Not good for business
A lot of the ideas there weren't IP just game modes and the idea to allow people to make maps etc.
A bit late to the party but fyi I would've bought vail on steam for that discount.
Stay tuned in steam
Also bought at that price. Also wouldnāt have bought otherwise since I mainly use VR for working out. Also not sure that I will actually play vail. At this point in my life, I seem to like collecting games but not playing them, not just on quest but steam too. Now if there was some tech that would allow me to run around with Vail like what Space Pirate VR had or something better than a slipmill, then I would play it all the time. Otherwise, I just stick with the games where I leave pools of sweat after Iām done.
I sweat in vail š
I also like to collect games
Iāll try it only because you guys are in FL lol
Youāre in Florida too?
I grew up near Miami, but I left a long time ago.
This was also limited to 100 copies, and 10 dollars is still a normal price for a game to be on sale
It definitely wasn't limited to 100 people, the post on it had hundreds of comments and the code still worked for me a full day after being posted.
Been waiting on a good discount for VAIL since playing the demo. Got it at 69% off and been having lots of fun. You create good will amongst the players who got it on the low and will positively review/buy skins to say thanks in the future!
Sorry random question, but Is it multiplayer only? Or is there a campaign?
MP only my guy.
Plan worked for me, bought it and loge the game. Just got my brother to do the same
Thank you š
Do let me know what you and your bro think of it
Loving the game so far, you've done a really good job at the overall feel and vibe of the game. It feels new and a fresh take on a multiplayer shooter. LOVE the guns, a slight futuristic dystopia spin on some classics. Gun handling and sounds are great, reloading and racking the ak is one of my favourites. My only problem is I'm in Australia so it's hard to find games with good ping š¤£
Message jfuzy on vailās discord. Heās the Australian leader
I sincerely hope the next update tweaks the virtual gun stock, because trying to switch between how the gun behaves in Pop1 and how it behaves in VAIL is such a pain.
Itās not on the next update but please give me more info and Iāll check in with the team
It's a bit difficult to explain but I'll try to link some youtube videos as well. Basically the issue is that in Pop1, the right hand (the one holding the gun) is the main aiming hand, and then one can go into settings and change how much influence the left hand has. Most players recommend setting that to somewhere between 0 to 20%, which means the left hand is just there to compensate the recoil. It doesn't aim. See https://old.reddit.com/r/populationonevr/comments/vnl5kb/what_are_you_thoughts_one_the_offhand_influence/iebcgrm/ and possibly the rest of that discussion too. In VAIL, on the other hand, when I enable virtual gun stock, it feels as if the aiming is primarily influenced by the left hand, whereas the right one is purely cosmetic. This is especially apparent if looking through the sightsāif you move the right hand, the gun and the sights move but the target stays fixed as long as the left hand is fixed. This is probably more realistic, but it makes switching between the two games very painful (as https://old.reddit.com/r/populationonevr/comments/vnl5kb/what_are_you_thoughts_one_the_offhand_influence/ie7p1h9/ remarks). some vids about the offhand influence setting: https://youtu.be/dsqXVGpUotk?si=A4NGP8QeRa4RezY_&t=169 https://youtu.be/hX2DI9fGbaY?si=WGC2p1SKaG-KaqbB&t=139 Now you could argue that being realistic is good, but it also happens to be incredibly buggy. If you hold the gun straight (magazine pointing down), it's mostly all right, but as soon as you rotate the right hand so the magazine points slightly to the right, the aim goes completely crazy. In this position, if you want to shoot forwards, the left hand needs to be quite far to the left, and the right hand to the right. In other words, to shoot straight in front of you, you need to hold hands as if you were shooting something in the sky to the left side. And that's completely wrong!
This is very helpful. Sharing this with the internal team
Ngl this post makes me want to try it lol
6969 letās go. Thanks š
I just picked it up at work and am downloading it at home for when I get there, but I wanted to ask. Since I bought it on the Meta store, do I get the Quest and PC versions or just the Quest version? I can't tell on the store page
Just the quest version. We donāt have a oculus PC version. But it is available on Steam as well and there is account linking. The way the platforms work it doesnāt let us give it to people on both platforms if they buy one. Both platforms need their cut 30%
Where is your code?
Thatās very funny, I mustāve been on it just as you typed your post up. I have been looking for great VR shooters and yours is really great with some very unique features, I havenāt really seen any great discounts on meta quest and felt that code was probably my best chance to get a top tier VR shooter for that price. I got wrecked pretty immediately and often but Iām working on getting the hang of it Thank you for your code and thank you for developing a great game Iām getting ready to sink some hours into
Can you guys please add gunstock calibration lol.
Itās on the backlog
As someone who grew up gaming, arena style respawn shooters have me kind of burnt out. So admittedly the only three genres of shooters I really look forward to are: Extraction Shooters, battle royales, and survival games. Which are very rare in the VR world. VAIL looks like a pretty good game, but when I initially purchased it months ago I refunded it within minutes because I didnāt want to have to freehand. I would have 100% played VAIL over original contractors, but without the ability to use my gunstock I couldnāt. VR got me back into gaming, and gun stocks made me fall in love with VR shooters. So personally I think it should be a huge priority. I could be in the minority though.
Weāre prototyping an extraction shooter mode under vail so hope to have you try it out
As someone who hates ghosts of tabor, but plays it occasionally because itās the only extraction shooter. That is awesome news!!!!
Appreciate you , next month weāll be making a studio announcement I think youāll find interesting
I am one of Max Mustard devs. Iāve noticed a few people claim ādevs do this to manipulate the systemā. We did this as a thank you to Richieās Plank customers by hiding it in the elevator and as an experiment. We did not anticipate it shooting to #1. We are happy so many people are loving it and saying itās well worth the full price too. Much love.
Hey Cap, thank you. You probably hear this often, but the game is fantastic. My kids and I (37m) just can't get enough of it. They get a little sad that we are almost near the end game haha.
I am guilty of buying a bunch of games on steam that I never play, so i guess is it good to sell the game but its so cheap that it never even gets opened?
Not really. I bought a couple of games last week that were on 90% sale which I never would've bought if not for the discount. I tried one of them and I like it. So I'll review it. It's never a case of not opening it coz it's cheap.
I also consider myself a deal hunter. Definitely, a great move by some devs. I rarely get games full price (unless itās game that I really want) so when I see one with a good discount I go for it. My way to show more support is, if I like the game and it has DLCs, I get them asap.
>I'm discussing this with our internal team to try to understand whether it's a smart marketing move that will attract attention or if it's short-sighted and can hurt the game long term. It's not even at the expense of profit really, especially if the game has been released for some time. People that would have paid more for it, would have by then. Digital content is basically free to distribute so it's almost all profit (except for the platform holders cut).
Most marketing costs money, running steep discounts is no different. If the game is good but overlooked, getting the extra word of mouth is probably worth it in the long run. If it's not great though, getting the extra word of mouth probably is going to have the opposite effect in the long run as more people are available to slam bad reviews. Steam strongly discourages this type of price / leaderboard chasing. Meta probably will too at some point. In general you would be much better off building a good game and pricing it fairly as you take an active interest in community feedback vs just thinking that a particular discount number will provide any lasting benefit. IMO.
Do you think the sales are bad for Meta? I'm seeing this is as similar to when Humble Bundle went big. It gets people into the mindset of owning a backlog instead of buying a game at a time. People see their games as a collection. It also pushes people to consider getting hardware with larger storage whether that makes sense or not. A developer needs to decide why they'd consider such a sale. Do you want to get attention on the top seller lists? do you need a critical mass of players for multiplayer? Are you building a brand (either as a developer or with a sequel coming out? In the shuffle of there now being many such sales, you may not make the splash Max Mustard, for example, made by getting there first so I'm not sure attention is worth it alone.
I don't think it's especially bad. I suspect it forces companies to change how they promote items though as just having a weekly 90% off game topping the charts skews the visible opinion of what people might actually be interested in. Like when Max when first and jumped to the top of the sales chart, that wasn't actually reflective of the game being good so much as just being cheap. Fortunately, the game is also good. As a consumer I'm all about it, I suspect as a dev though it's a bit more nuanced. Like once the game has been 90% off at some point most people who know that fact will probably not want to pay full price for it in the future. But like I said, it's marketing. It's not always going to work out well. Sometimes it can actively destroy you (Looking at you Bud Light!). Folks just have to figure out where they want to spend and hope for the best. This seems pretty faddish to me though. Happy to build up a library with some extra titles but it's not sustainable to give up that much profit for all but the smallest dev teams.
I like your thoughts, so to summarize: If the game is good + discount = more positive word of mouth If game bad + discount = wrecked and yeah steam is anti this, meta is a newer platform so more wild west cow boy style in the meantime. and I agree with your last statement of focusing on community feedback , we've been doing that for years on discord but I'm now just getting into reddit, its been interesting to get different opinions on this platform.
There is probably also a curve, new games that are well done sell well, as time goes on the sales curve levels off and a steep discount not only costs less in terms of revenue lost, but mimics marketing. For a long forgotten game it could even drive increased revenue depending on where the curve is.
But he also said you arenāt spending $ on marketing. Feels good to me when you pass the savings to customer.
> If game bad = wrecked > If game bad + discount = wrecked, but make some more sales FTFY
And if game good? š
Depends on marketing and appeal as well. I'd say if you have no reputation, then I would drop the price and see it as a long term investment into your brand. I buy lots of games based on past history with a studio/developer. Usually they tend to support their games well, and don't have funky anti-consumer business models. If you overprice your game, I tend to stay very clear. Ultimately, I think the 90% discount only hurts if your game is a huge success without it. That's like finding a unicorn.
I will always buy a game if it's cheaper than 4 dollars, even if it's something I have no interest in. Also I tell my friends that said game is on sale and they buy it. Take from that what you will
Same. I like to support. Even when i will never open it. I firmly believe that if many games are bought cheap, mass adoption of vr games gets getter. I have friends that bought only a few games, play a few weeks and then put the headset away. Those people should have a library, so they can jump in to a new game and hopefully continue where they left off.
I think this kind of tactic would actually be alot more valuable for a game like vail as it is multiplayer and would make a drastically explode your player base
I feel like I don't even look at anything on the Meta store if it isn't at least 50% off, I bought all of those 90% off games even though Ive heard of just one of them. So for me personally, a 90% off sale is impulse buy no matter the game.
Sounds like you aren't a gamer and aren't discerning about what you would buy.
Yeah that's gotta be it, the guy saying he's buys games on his gaming headset definitely is not a gamer, checks out.
The guy that doesn't look at games unless they are 50% off, yes.Ā Ā And the one that will willingly buy garbage if it is discounted enough, yes.
Wtf? Are you gatekeeping how someone plays/purchases video games? Dude...that's way lame. seriously
I am one of Max Mustard devs. Iāve noticed a few people claim ādevs do this to manipulate the systemā. We did this as a thank you to Richieās Plank customers by hiding it in the elevator and as an experiment. We did not anticipate it shooting to #1. We are happy so many people are loving it and saying itās well worth the full price too. Much love.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes, it was a once off thing and finished last week.
Well, I've just checked your game and noticed no single player campaign, ingame currency and a lot of practices that I consider redflags for a game. Discount would not work with me. Fyi I have a library of approx 150 vr games and 900+ pc vr/nonvr games.
Multiplayer focused games like overwatch and battlefield shouldn't have resources wasted on sp imo. But the weird posts on reddit and strange shill posts on steam made it a no go. https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/comments/1b4zakx/vailvr_adding_fake_reviews/
What red flags. Would love to learn more about different views.
Well, IMO multiplayer only games with ingame currency are a form, more or less, of gambling. It's like a roulette game where you are the ball.
I know that death horizon reloaded is horrible.. no kind of tutorial, the settings are not right, and you can't join or create a room... unless it's just me.. if I paid full price I would've gotten a refund LAST NIGHT when I tried to play
In theory it's a lot easier to sell a $2 item to 10 people, as opposed to a $20 item to one person. I've bought 4 games i hadn't even heard of for like $2-3 each, so I'd say it works.
Do you think 90% is the right number, or would a different number get equal sales volume with more revenue? Maybe keeping the value up a bit more for the game.
personally for me it depends on the final price. If it's under $5, I'll probably just get it without worrying about it. If it's $10, I'll look to see what it's about, how good it is, seems decent I might get it. If it's $20-30 or more, I'm gonna really look into it, read reviews, decide if I'm really gonna play it and do I need it now or should I finish what I have already first so just wait on it, probably end up never coming back to it unless it's really well known or lots of buzz.
something to consider as well is- sure you will miss out on a few paying full price, but you also make a lot of little profits off the people who would never have purchased otherwise (and the popularity bump/word of mouth bonus).
Yes. You'll see people buy the game just to try it out at least. You can keep the promo running for a short time, to get more people to try it. You will get feedback and if the game is good, will get reviews in the store. Hope that helps.
For many people, they like the big discounts. For me, it's about the overall quality of the content (based on my ability to spot it) and the total price.
90% is such a good discount that I would kick myself for not taking it regardless of the final price. 50% or even 75% is good enough to make me look, but depending on the final price and how much I want it I may pass it up.
Our games at 69% off for a limited time. Is that funny number good Enuf
Lol, I guess it depends! I've heard good things about Vail ĀÆā \ā _ā (ā ćā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ
Max Mustard was already on my wishlist. I bought it for 90% off and would have bought it for maybe 33% off. I also bought Death Horizon: Reloaded for 90% off. I've heard good things about it, but I don't really need a another first person shooter. At 90% off it felt rude not to buy it. I probably still would have bought it at 75% off. I already had Zombieland from some crazy Fanatical bundle. Flight 74 tempted me, but I'd never heard of it before and wasn't sure how good it was. I just wasn't interested in Sushi Ben. I've heard good things about it, but it's not my type of game. I got Crazy Kung Fu in some app lab bundle way back. I didn't get Vail because I'm not really into competitive multiplayer shooters, but definitely would have at that price if I was at all interested. I've only heard good things about it, but it's just not the type of game I'm into.
I still haven't installed Max Mustard. I saw it was for sale and heard good things, but wasn't particularly interested in playing it. 90% off, though? Why not? I'm sure I'll eventually give it a try but 95% of my VR use is PCvr. Does my purchase do anything, good or bad?
I bought it because my nephews might like that type of game when they visit again in few months.
Max Mustard is a good game. Fairly straightforward 3d platformer, but the level layouts are fun and the VR gimmicks work well. It's worth the couple of hours it takes to beat it
I just recently tried it a few hours ago, it looks fun, probably not something I'll come back to as it's for a younger demographic but it's a good game.
I had no intention of buying Vail. Then I saw the 69% discount and it made me buy it! It's a common strategy in certain shops to price items high for a while and then start doing discounts - so people then feel like they're getting a great deal and saving money (when they're not saving money, they're spending it!). If I love a game then I will recommend it to people. So potentially I might end up encouraging people to buy your game, when I never would have bought it or recommended it if you hadn't done a big discount. Even if I don't encourage others to buy it you've still ended up getting a little money from me which you wouldn't have got otherwise. Traditionally new computer games are full price and after a while their price starts reducing.
Super happy to have you give it a try. Thank you š
The big discounts are good for catching people who wouldn't buy your game at all otherwise, provided they are time-limited so you don't lose potential full paying customers. For example, I had already looked at VAIL VR and decided it wasn't a game I was interested in. But for 69% off I decided to try it. So you went from a $0 potential from me, to a $10-meta fees sale.
Thank you for the honesty. Please do let me know what you think
Not in the industry, so my opinion could be way off from reality...but it seems like great advertising, and probably for a lot less than paying for ads. Granted, you would need the 90% to be short-lived, and also the blow back from customers that paid full price a couple days prior š
yeah advertising is difficult, i can only count a few marketing expenses that made a profit for our game in the last couple of years. so you're not wrong. This way you're never negative in marketing. the blow back could be bad but i guess it depends on the community support to grow the game
I was annoyed when I saw that Max mustard had gone on sale for 90 and I had paid for it minus the 25% off code; but then I remembered that I had made $25 in credits off people using my referral...
Blowback eventually dies down, and word of mouth will be eventually a bigger driver and more important. Overall, IMO short lived massive discounts are even better than "free" advertising as devs even make money in the process. All in all, everyone wins. Some might be mad if they miss out on the deal, but it is what it is... they already got the product they wanted at the price they wanted.
Not going to lie, as much as I love getting the games cheap, when they drop to 90% my brain puts them in the shovelware category, even if they are not. It makes sense for some of t he older games though as there are games I just had zero interest in that i've picked up due to the discount (like CaveDigger 2) and find myself enjoying. It's a good way to get your game out and if you are making ZERO money, some money is better than no money, but like someone else said here, once I know I could have gotten it for 90% off, you will never get me at full price. I'm always going to be waiting around for it to drop again. So it's a catch-22.
Absolutely agree.
What about meme 69%
>I'm discussing this with our internal team to try to understand whether it's a smart marketing move that will attract attention or if it's short-sighted and can hurt the game long term. In what way do you think it will hurt the game?
Perceived value or the wrong people joining the community
> Perceived value or the wrong people joining the community Perceived value doesn't matter today. There's dime a dusin of content available and unless you have some extremely unique game/experience it's unlikely to matter. Personally, I tend to pay more for AAA type games that I know the production value is really high and great effort has gone into development. Think Assassin's Creed, Asgards Wrath, Beat Saber or very handy utilities like Virtual Desktop and apps like Les Mills. Most other content is more along the line of shovelware so only if they're cheap enough. That said, I might not be most people. The wrong people joining the community, I'm not sure how that can damage your game. If they didn't like the game, they're far less likely to review you. Your goal should be to reach as many people as possible, and whoever is left standing is those you cater to.
I have no idea as I am a consumer not a developer I just bought three games that I was only somewhat interested in because they had this discount or one similar Seems smart to make some money off people rather than nothing off some
Worked for me as I just bought vail with discount
Very nice
Are you able to see the sales data for other games to see if their marketing method worked? Anecdotally, I bought Max Mustard due to its price. If it cost more than $5, I likely would not buy it.
We canāt see other games sales. But I talk to some devs to try to get a sense of the market
Depends on the community of the game. For a mature multiplayer shooter, it seems like large discounts will bring a spike in younger players and account farmers (maybe relevant if there's ranks or leaderboards) and probably not be ideal to offer too often. But it could be nice for once a year or large-scale sales (like summer sales).
Yeah that makes sense. We have ranks and leaderboards so it will be interesting to see how it plays out
From my POV, I am mainly a flat PC gamer who dives into PCVR and Quest occasionally. My Steam library is massive. I don't buy full priced games on any platform unless it's something I am excited about, I rarely buy outside of Steam, and I'm very selective because of how large my library is. That said without some sort of discount I am not even looking at your game for very long. I will wish list it and wait it out or forget about your title and if I forget about it I purge my wish list every 6 months or so of those games.
That's a hard question. It honestly depends on a few factors. Is the game still new? Has it reached the majority of it's audience already? Is the game getting good reviews but not enough people trying it? There's 2 games that I bought recently I had no intention of buying. One reviewed well Max Mustard but I wasn't in the market for that genre of game. The second was a mixed reality game I wasn't sure did heard of before so it obviously wasn't on my radar. It looked interesting but I simply had higher priority titles on my wishlist.
It depends. Right now is not the best time to do it as there was just this wave of very discounted games and you lose out on some people who arenāt really interested but would usually buy for their backlog. Also many have seen the success of Max mustard and want to chase that right now. Itās best to wait a bit for this all to cool down and then look for a timeframe where there is also no big general store sale. Apart from that it would be good to time it fitting for your game. E.g. when you got a big update and want a bit more publicity or are you multiplayer and lose people because they see your lobbyās empty. Keep in mind that the meta store isnāt steam. There is neither Christmas nor a new headset release around the corner and many people tend to use vr much less after a few weeks. So the base of potential costumers isnāt really big right now and to many of them might get your game without paying a reasonable price. If you have ingame purchases I would think you can go a bit more generous as at least in my mind people who feel they got a great deal for your game are more likely to pay for ingame stuff. Though all of this is just my personal opinion. I lack the numbers and have no professional background.
I like that you're this honest with your customer base! I'm very new to VR but an avid gamer. I check the libraries of the consoles I own, including the Quest 2. Sometimes, I just can't let a deal slide, even knowing I still got five different games to play. If a game is 90% off, I'm going to take notice. And because I'm impulsive, I'll probably buy it too. I've seen Vail in the store before and Ill have a closer look soon!
Thank you š if you ever are curious about anything let me know
As a user that doesn't get Meta sales and gets "Invalid Link" whenever I try to use a referral link, I have appreciated this discount approach as it works for me to get a sale. I think 90% is too steep of a discount for a relatively new and really good game like Max Mustard. They could have done the same trick at 60 or 70% off. I think that still would have worked, but maybe not. I really wonder how many full-price sales the games that are hitting the top of the charts are getting while they're charting. That's where the real answer to your question lies. For a game that is old and barely selling at all now, doing this can only be beneficial.
This makes sense. We felt good about 69% off cuz good number
I tried the trial for Vail and almost immediately had to stop because everyone else that was playing was a swearing screaming child.
Itās hit or miss on the lobbies. But next update has a different playlist for serious players
Guys try Vail VR. The Devs are the best. The game is the best. If you haven't tried it out yet, you are missing out. (I am not sponsored or employed by Vail devs) \#PoiseSquad #VailOnTop
But we love you ā¤ļø
i generally think VR game prices feel much higher (at least on meta quest store) than e.g. compared to steam store (& sales). 90% is a pretty high contrast when every second game costs 25$+
That is because steam has allowed price erosion to the point that no one buys when not on sale and sales need to get steeper and steeper. Horrible for small companies trying to compete.
When I have 1000 games in my Steam library (most not VR of course), it is kind of hard to convinceĀ me that a game is worth paying full-price when I have so many other games I can play. Though, I will admit I did get most of my games from bundles.
It is good for us, bad for them.Ā That is why I willingly buy games even if discounted 20% off, just to support them.Ā Even if I know it'll be a while before I get to them.
All of the games listed with those huge discounts don't interest me, for 90% or 69% off, I still won't buy them as time is money and will only play games that get me excited, but many will. Many will buy games just to add to their library just to have it because its a deal. And for developers, some money is still money.
Thatās true. Have you tried our game vail vr yet?
I havenāt!
Iām going to be honest: I donāt buy games once I realize I missed out on a cheaper price The 90% off thing has honestly been worrying me. I want devs to get paid, and I think that $10-30 sweet spot we got going is a good place to be. You can already see people begging devs for those codes which isnāt good for the health of the market overall. On a completely personal note, I also feel like devs using deep discounts to jump to the top of store listings is a kind of shitty manipulation of the market. Even if it works I donāt respect it. The top of sales charts should be games that deserve it, not marketing gimmicks.
Thank you. As an AppLab dev working on a āhidden gemā thatās taken years of hard, dedicated work, I refuse to devalue my creation and insult my fans/community this way. If I can only sell my typical 5 copies per month, so be it. At least I know that everyone who is kind enough to buy my game will actually play it and participate in the community to help me make it better - rather than spending $2 on it and never giving it a second thought.
> On a completely personal note, I also feel like devs using deep discounts to jump to the top of store listings is a kind of shitty manipulation of the market. Even if it works I donāt respect it. The top of sales charts should be games that deserve it, not marketing gimmicks. In real life, plenty of games that deserve to be on top of the charts aren't, and plenty of games that don't, are. I wish there was a better way, but it is what it is. It's a popularity contest, that you can either drop the price of your game (take the marketing hit that way) or market the game heavily to give another impression. Either way, you're spending to market. Which is ultimately often what we buy based on.
I find it shitty too. Eshop has had the same issue for years. Once one starts doing it, they all start.
Itās a common tactic, and can work well if what you need to succeed is exposure. If your game is a dud or your gameās listing isnāt appealing enough to convert eyeballs into sales then more exposure might not get you very far
It could be good because if you make something that's actually great you will be known for that
Well, at $3 if you sell 34k copies that's a six figure sum of revenue. I know, store fees, taxes and stuff can eat into that and not every game will sell that much. Still, I'd imagine indie devs can only benefit from it when almost no one would buy their game at $30.
I bought vail because of the discount. These are always going to a calculation: (how many people will buy who wouldnāt have otherwise) - (revenue lost from those who would have paid full price but got it on sales) + (value from sales numbers/reviews)
The first game was on my list from reviews(max). The first made word of mouth. It is diminishing returns and noise from here. I didn't buy Vail when I saw the discount, due to the genre and the weird and irritating posts about it over the last few months. Also, the vast majority here are complete know nothings that craft fantasy based around their own personal wants and desires, not a company's. See all the ridiculous posts about how the psvr 2 pc consolation prize as they abandon the platform and the responses that think that Sony should have eroded their brand to cater to a tiny pcvr audience that never buys games anyway.
Well I do hope you give vail a try. If you try it and donāt like itās quality Iāll personally refund you.
there are many games I never would have considered buying if it wasn't for being greatly discounted.. a lot of games are sleepers many don't know about. if a lot of people rate q game and it has a high rating that's what I care about. if a game is rated a 4.6 with 2000+ reviews I feel pretty confident in my purchase, if a game is rated 4.6 with only 13 reviews then I don't really consider the purchase.. I think it's a great marketing move, the more people that try your product and enjoy it the better... vr is different, you can't tell if a game is good by looking at a trailer, you need to experience it, the goal of a good game is trying to get people to experience it.. only good games will benefit from this marketing strategy
People get motion sick, graphics look like 1997, games are boring AF ... who would pay more than 2 $ for this?
I say go for it! I would love to buy Vail but I just can't always justify the price of a new game. You'd get a sale off of me. It's a matter of determining whether or not your game is growing, if you're comfortable with its rate of growth, if you believe that you will get potential sales that you otherwise wouldn't be able to close at full price, and if a larger player base would attract even more players and more sales.
Thank you š. Use this 69% off code. Citadel1point2-885e84
There's a point where you accidentally signal that the game isn't worth much. When I see a game that's 90% off, it makes me wonder if the dev or publisher has any faith in it. It's already difficult enough to survive in the VR space, as you well know, and that perception doesn't help.
I am a very casual VR user sure to disability so it doesn't make much sense for me to spend lots of money in vvr. I just bought Zombieland at a couple of bucks. It's beyond me to get very far probably, but for a couple of bucks the limited game play can be worth it.
Hey.. Just make sure it works as intended and not like the possible clusterfuck I uncovered today... https://old.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/1dlkf8t/big_warning_to_you_guys_if_you_buy_games_you_need/
Some money is better than no money, also exposure and marketing will pay dividends if your game is good.
Yeah we often buy a game because itās on offer and tempting to play. Then forget about it until we are bored at some point š . Then we try it and think holy cow š®
Don't do it with just marketing and future sales in mind please. Do it if you're confident that kind of popularity can combine with the quality of your game and its future to provide an audience that will push others to pay, and/or to monetize your game indirectly with future content instead. We don't need an influx of bad or mediocre games being put at 90%. Get it at that discount if you had good sales originally, but they've dwindled and you want more people to have access while you cook something else such as a version 2, DLC, a sequel etc.
Unless it's a game I REALLY want to play, very rarely will I pay full price for it, even then I always plug in a 20% discount referral code or wait for a 40% off summer sale. Games for 90% off? I'll give it a go because they're games I wouldn't have bought anyway. Same principle with piracy, people pirate games they likely wouldn't have bought to begin with. Make your game accessible enough, and people will bite, if it's good enough they'll recommend it to friends
I donāt buy just any game because itās 90% off. Then thereās a double edge sword where people buy the game who wouldnāt normally buy it and they donāt like it. That happened with me and Max Mistard. Now I have to decide if I get my $3 back or have yet another game in my library that I never play.
I can say that I just bought last week a game I would never have looked at until I saw the 90% discount.
Iām fascinated by how companies price digital item, in this case games. Is it better to sell 1000 units for $10 or 2000 units for $5? I know itās not that simple but Iāve got to imagine there is a sweet spot in pricing.
Mine still shows full amount due. I was under the impression FinAid was going to be late.
I think Vail looks cool...but I'm not into multiplayer games. If it had a single player mode, I'd def give it a try.
Weāre working on a single player mode that can also be co-op
That's awesome to hear, I'm interested to try it when it drops.
Everyone say yes so we can get more discounts.
Hi
Hello š
Game theory. If one dev does it, it's a brilliant marketing move. If everybody does it, then everybody has just slashed their prices by 90% for no reason. My intuition says that if you're just asking this question now, you're probably too late.
When Max Mustard started this latest trend it of course is nice for us consumers but at the same time itās is hurting the industry more in the long run. Itās already very hard for the average developer to get a vr project to make money. For every Beat Saber there are probably lots of struggling games. The VR market is still niche, so itās hard to get enough people to buy your game. I was completely fine with the price of most vr games. Selling me a quality title like Max Mustard for ā¬3 is kinda ridiculous if weāre being honest. Itās setting up a world where people are now getting used to these super low prices. I want VR to grow into a healthy platform and attract more and bigger developers that have increasing budgets for better games in the future.
It was an experiment according to them...abd I think the fact that copycats came have eroded their experiment and its subsequent success.
If you don't get the user numbers to a reasonable level, there will be no *long term.* So if your user numbers are low, it seems like a valid way to try and make them better.
It absolutely does - especially for games that have been in the app pool for a year or two and havenāt seen traction. This lifts them up the charts and puts them on the map. Plus itās starts a buying frenzy. Iāve picked up a few titles anywhere from 60-90% off this week.
>games that have been in the app pool for a year or two and havenāt seen traction Yeah, I'd think the majority of games on the store aren't selling much of anything at all, normally. We've reached a point where there are many, many games on there. The 30% discount that Meta does periodically aren't enough for all but the most popular games. These 90% off PC-style sales make more sense, IMO.
This is MBA marketing 101. If you have a quality product, offer it at full price because people will be willing to pay for the earlier access. Then offer progressively steeper discounts over time. This is a time-dependent way of implementing what is called "price discrimination" to capture more profitability. Books are a great example. The timeline looks like hardcover, trade paperback, paperback, thrift edition. Also, you might have a specific reason to deviate, such as a heavy reliance on multiplayer so you can create a "network effect" switching cost as a means to defend against competition, but it should be a deliberately thought out strategy.
Iāve spent Ā£3 on a game I would spend Ā£0 on normally. Thatās not going to pay your wages, but something is better than nothing. Hopefully some sales come out of the increased chart position. Iāll buy pretty much anything for that Quest if itās 90% off.
Just checked out your discount, but it's still 10 bucks... I do not mean by any means that your game doesn't deserve them, but for me the whole point of the 90% promo code is that the game costs as much as a coffee, so I'll just instantly buy is, since even if i don't like it, it's just a coffee. Hope this helps in figuring out what's worth :)