Sell More Games

Creating games is not easy and it’s always great to read some afterthoughts. I thought that I’ll share our experience with development of Soccer Cup Solitaire.

Let me say few words about the game. Soccer Cup Solitaire is a card game with soccer theme. Some say it’s not solitaire, because you just match similar cards like two Jacks or two 8’s. The mechanics are similar to Heartwild Solitaire and some bonus features are inspired by Fairway Solitaire (thanks to Orchid Games and Big Fish Games for creating those two great games).

We knew Soccer Cup Solitaire won’t be a top seller game, but we wanted to develop it anyway, to take a break from GabCab development. GabCab has been in development for second year and we had iddle moments from time to time that we wanted to spend creatively.

What went right:

• short development time – the game from start to finish took 4 months – it could be shorter, but we haven’t been pleased with the art assets from the first art team.
• smooth integration of soccer theme into solitaire game.
• great music – it was a tough decision – we knew that the theme will probably kill interest of female audience, so we at least wanted to please male audience as much as possible. Rock songs from Saint of Silence did awesome job when it comes to adding tension to the game.
• not wasting time on prototyping and place holder art – we had natural deadline (World Cup 2010) so we decided that there’s no time to prototype things. We also had top priority project in development (GabCab), so we decided that we will work on SCS only when we get final art. It shortened development time very much.
• constant passion for the project – working with final art during short period of time kept motivation and efficiency of development on very high levels.
• we signed deals with new portals – Alawar and GameHouse. RealArcade was very picky about games they launch and I thought that after the merge with GameHouse it will be the same at GameHouse, so I was pleased that the game was accepted for distribution.
• development of SCS prevented possible burnout for GabCab.
• SCS has great CR (but that’s probably because of low download ratio)

What went wrong:

• not enough time to play test the game – Sport events and Holidays are strict deadlines, if you release the game after them you lose a lot of possible interest in your game.
• we missed the deadline by few days, but at least World Cup lasts 30 days, not one day like xmas or Halloween.
• we had to cut some nice features to be able to release “on time”.
• not enough downloads, which leads to…
• though it wasn’t expected to be a top seller, it sells below expectations.

Overall I was happy with the project. It proved to us (again) that short development times are necessary to keep high motivation and passion for the project and that switching between projects increases development efficiency while “delaying” release of each project just a bit.

(3 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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Price wars dropped the price of casual games from $19.99 to $6.99. It happened fast and didn’t leave us much time to accommodate. Now new problem arises. Prices are still low, but development budgets are getting bigger and bigger. Folks at Big Fish Games have realized that $6.99 games can not support development budgets of games like Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove and introduced Collectors Edition, packed with few extras and priced at $19.99. Great move. Especially that Dire Grove is not the only game that was released as CE.

Recently I found interesting post on BFG forums. Picman050967 tried to explain why BFG decided to have CE (picman is not just regular forum mod, he is most probably a man from BFG headquaters):

Why we offer Collector’s Editions

The nice thing is that this is totally optional, you have a trial version, it does not count as the New Game when it is released and you always get the normal game like before. Having a collector’s edition allows the budgets for future games to almost double. One of the big benefits is early access. The bonus features are there to reward folks who purchase for early access.

People complain a lot about how short games are lately. This is a way to allow the avid gamers to pay for early access and some extras to increase budgets without hurting those who are on tight budgets. These CE purchasers now help fund half the budget of future games so they can be longer and higher quality. Then in turn, the folks that wait for the regular game actually benefit from the larger game budgets paid for by the CE purchasers.

So if you wait for the regular version, that is fine for you, but realize that those buying the CE are allowing developers to increase their development budgets without going bankrupt! This game was developed with a budget that assumed the additional revenue from the Collector’s Edition…without it, the game would have been shorter or of lower quality to make it for less costs.

If we simply raised prices (like to $7.99), not only would there be a customer revolt, but we would sell proportionally fewer games and thus the developer makes no more money. Also higher prices would also hit those that are in tough economic times to be able to play less games. While some may not like to wait, this does solve a very real problem for both developers and economically hard hit customers.

So if you can’t afford it or do not like it you should not buy it, but you should also respect those who do, as it benefits you!

Just trying to share BFG’s and developers’ perspectives.

Picman

I highlighted most of the interesting sections. You can find the whole discussion at this link.

I’d also want to quote a post from govegirl, as she made very interesting points too:

I do not know Playponds financial status but I do know that Big Fish is not in danger of going bankrupt and 2 of 3 CE’s monies are for Big Fish.

What I wonder is this- those that pay $20 for a Collectors Edition- do they still buy the same amount of $6.99 games or do they forego those games to save up for 1 or 2 more expensive games a month? The importance people are putting on 3 punches indicates to me they buy fewer games for the same result of a free game. I can see smaller developers games getting even further ignored whilst the already large and successful developers charge extra for their games.

Unless all games launch with a $20 edition first then it cannot be equally fair for all developers. Those that only charge $6.99 are not getting the money for further development so does that mean they have to continue to develop short and inferior games? It sounds to me unless we pay $20 originally then those developers cannot make better games. It has to apply to everyone – not just the developers who suits them to cry poor.

Collectors Editions may be the first step on the road to increase average game price. Some portals sell games on premium price with success. Hopefully we can see the trend of falling game prices reversed.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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In one of my favorite newsletters I read an interview with Bob Cox. It was quite interesting reading and I found a nice bit I would like to quote here:

I read (I can’t remember where) that it’s as hard to sell a pair of shoes as it is to sell something more expensive. The work is the same, but the sales commission is much greater.

Unfortunately we developers have little influence on the price of our games (except for our own sites). Keep in mind that it is better to make a bit better game to sell it for a bit more than make it look cheap and sell it cheap. Your efforts to market the game will be as hard or harder to promote cheap looking game, but revenues will be much smaller.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I already know, do you? I asked BFG to add Runes of Avalon 2 to Daily Deals on Dec 18th 2009. I expected that it will take few days to launch it there as I didn’t thought so many developers wants their games at such low prices. So there are many. Runes of Avalon 2 has been launched today.

Just 31 days in the queue.

Feel free to buy it for a bargain price of $2.99 or post reviews and comments on BFG forums.

Just one more day to check out the effect of this deal. Some games seem to do very good, the others not. Just like with launching games for the first time.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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