It’s one of those things I’ve always wondered. How much would you personally pay for something such as an iPhone app game?
Ok, by this I mean, a high quality indie game. Maybe not AAA title quality, but let’s say B+ quality. Like something most people here could create if they put a lot of effort into it.
Main reason I ask is I’ve been working on the RTS thing in my spare time while here in the UK, and I’d be nice to know if I went ahead and worked in depth on it, and brought it up to a good standard of quality, would people pay something like $10-$15 or more for something like an iPhone app as long as the quality is good?
Personally $10 is fair. But that is because I know how much work it requires to do. You go to the average iPhone user and the max they will say is $2.99, that is at AAA quality. Iphone users are cheap.
$10 is the top range, even EA by now went to $7.
For $15 you better have an iphone - ipad universal binary.
Thats at least my personal point of view.
Also the amount of content must be right. Don’t attempt to go the lame way as EA with Command Conquer, basically selling an “in app store shell” on the iphone.
I would never pay $15 for a game on my phone. I doubt I’d pay $10. I’d pay $5 if it was a pretty good game, but that’s about it. Not because of the quality of the game or the amount of work, but simply because anything which is on my phone is going to be too fiddly to spend too much time on.
I’d pay $15 for an I-Pad game easily, but you did specifically say IPhone. I’d happily pay $20 or even $25 for a really good I-Pad game.
But yeah, people don’t pay a lot for games. You can see in the top grossing games list are either $800 that were bought on accident, or 99C to 2.99 games that are rather fun.
The market speaks for itself. Just look at the games in the iTunes App Store. You’ll see that most of the bestsellers are priced between 99 cents and $2.99, or so. … People on the App Store are used to getting things for free or 99 cents. Anything else and they start to complain.
Make something worthy, sell it for 1.99 and have 200,000 people download over 12 months. how do you fail. I would think cheaper means more sells.
By the way what is Apples cut%?
I made something addicting and fun (so people have told me anyways) and sell it for $0.99, and a grand total of close to 30 people have bought it. And that is over the course of 4 months. The App Store is hard to break into, and its really hard to get exposure. The lower your price the better.
That gives me a good basis. I don’t think many people would probably buy an RTS for the iPhone anyway, unless it was extremely polished. Then again, XD I’m not doing this as a primary job, so I can take all the time I want to polish it. (I test the crap out of things XD)
Anyway, thanks again, I’d probably only try and sell it for a max of $5.
O-o In something like an RTS game, would it actually be worth it to make it cross platform compatible? Like possibly down the line, allow iPhone vs PC vs PS3 vs xBox360 vs Mac (after unity3 game out of course) in multiplayer of course. I suppose it’s less likely people would want to play a game like that over cell networks, especially now since at&t got rid of unlimited data. (most iPhone users at the moment, being that iPhone4 is the first unlocked iPhone in the US)
From a networking standpoint I don’t see why not, but (big but) I don’t think Sony and MS like the idea of their users playing with people on their competitor’s hardware/network. That and designAgamemnon RTS game for iPhone where the player can remain competitive against a keybaord/mouse or even a controller probably wouldn’t be easy, maybe better for the iPad and the new android tablet thingies.
So assuming no budget and manpower issues:
Networking: yes
Legal/contract stuff: doubtful
Design: pull that off and you win a Nobel Prize but probably doable.
Edit: Misread your post, I thought you asked if it was possible. So given your actual question (would it be worth it?) probably not unless you were EA or Activision or some such. But even they would run into thesame Sony/MS and design issues.
I’ll immediately pay $.99 for something I’m interested in and it has >decent reviews<.
$1.99, it better be an app that I really need / want and the >reviews are good to excellent<.
$2.99 to $4.99 - see above with excellent reviews / no bugs mentioned.
The only app I spent more on I believe was Pocket Money, the only other expensive app I’ve considered is a Guitar Chord app - I think it’s $9.99 or something…
I doubt I’d spend $10 to $15 on a game, admittedly, however, I have yet to really play games on my iPhone stranglely enough.
Question is, if say a Wing Commander Privateer like game came out for the iPhone, would I buy it AND would I pay $9.99+ for it?
Those are the top paid, not the top grossing apps. There is only one 99-cent app in the top 10 grossing (and 2 free ones, not sure what that’s about). The other apps are prices at $3, $5, and higher.
For the most part I stay in the range of the apps that are under 5.99, unless of course it’s a AAA title (which normally comes back to bite me because the price will usually go down later that week). The current problem I have relating to the app store is the price of the Ipad apps. I don’t see how developers can justify tacking on 10 dollars just for an hi res version of the app. I could perhaps see an extra two or three dollars however.
I would think cheaper means more sells.