Thoughts on Pro Pricing
sparkzilla
Member Posts: 152
I would like to expand on my earlier point re Pro Pricing (in the GS 9.3 thread).
It seems to me that there are three levels of developers using Game Salad: Levels 1 and 3 are clear...
Level 1: They are probably a few thousand would-be developers trying GS out for free. Maybe they make a prototype, mess with a template but in the end they don't make a final published game. Many will give up. Some of these will graduate to level 2.
Level 3: The handful of developers with multiple moderately successful games or a well-paying successful game. They have no problem buying Pro because they are already making money.
Level 2: Hundreds of developers who have made one or two games that are not (yet) successful. It is important to note that their lack of success may not just be due to making a "bad game" whatever that actually means. It could be do with promotion (an issue I am having a lot of difficulty with) or with lack of a particular feature (For example TSB said he would not release one of his games until Game Center was released. I am also considering marketing my game using a competition based on Game Center hi-scores).
These in-between developers would like to buy Pro but it's a big risk because they've already invested in their Mac and $99 on the Apple license and while GS is free they have spent a lot of time and energy for little reward (so far).
It is these people, like me, who think that $500 is too much for Pro. In economic terms the marginal cost is too high. For the extra $500 they cannot be assured that the extra features will make them any more money. But they would like to have some access to better features to continue to work with Game Salas in the hope of improving their chances. I believe they should be given a reasonable upgrade path. Otherwise only the successful developers get the benefits.
If Pro was $199 a lot of these in-between developers would
1) take the financial risk
2) their games would have better features, improving the GS brand
3) they would continue to make more new games because they would have "bought-in" and will want to get more value for their investment and
4) GS would make more money.
Consider the math: A handful of already successful people paying $500, or hundreds of wannabe successful people paying $199.
I suggest making the first year of Pro $199 and then to increase it to $399 after a year - If you're not making enough money by then then you should reconsider your options ;-)
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Sweepr: Not Pro but Simple. Fun. Addictive!
It seems to me that there are three levels of developers using Game Salad: Levels 1 and 3 are clear...
Level 1: They are probably a few thousand would-be developers trying GS out for free. Maybe they make a prototype, mess with a template but in the end they don't make a final published game. Many will give up. Some of these will graduate to level 2.
Level 3: The handful of developers with multiple moderately successful games or a well-paying successful game. They have no problem buying Pro because they are already making money.
Level 2: Hundreds of developers who have made one or two games that are not (yet) successful. It is important to note that their lack of success may not just be due to making a "bad game" whatever that actually means. It could be do with promotion (an issue I am having a lot of difficulty with) or with lack of a particular feature (For example TSB said he would not release one of his games until Game Center was released. I am also considering marketing my game using a competition based on Game Center hi-scores).
These in-between developers would like to buy Pro but it's a big risk because they've already invested in their Mac and $99 on the Apple license and while GS is free they have spent a lot of time and energy for little reward (so far).
It is these people, like me, who think that $500 is too much for Pro. In economic terms the marginal cost is too high. For the extra $500 they cannot be assured that the extra features will make them any more money. But they would like to have some access to better features to continue to work with Game Salas in the hope of improving their chances. I believe they should be given a reasonable upgrade path. Otherwise only the successful developers get the benefits.
If Pro was $199 a lot of these in-between developers would
1) take the financial risk
2) their games would have better features, improving the GS brand
3) they would continue to make more new games because they would have "bought-in" and will want to get more value for their investment and
4) GS would make more money.
Consider the math: A handful of already successful people paying $500, or hundreds of wannabe successful people paying $199.
I suggest making the first year of Pro $199 and then to increase it to $399 after a year - If you're not making enough money by then then you should reconsider your options ;-)
-----
Sweepr: Not Pro but Simple. Fun. Addictive!
Comments
They then lowered express to $99 but kept pro at $2000
Last fall they made express free and pro $500
I think the price point for pro is perfect. If anything they should put a price on express to weed out the crapp makers.
I'm level 2. Mainly because im not an artist, and dont advertise well.
But thinking from GS's point of view. They need to make money, to keep things going.
I dont know, maybe there would be alot more people switching to pro. thus more money for them.
But they already are giving us the chance to publish to the appstore, and I dont think someone NEEDS pro to make a successful game.
I think they've made a pretty decent path for you to buy pro as it is...
You can make a game completely for free, publish to apple once you have an apple devoloper account and start making money....once you've made $500 certainly 100% achievable with 1 half decent game made with Express. Over a year if you wanted to you could make a few decent games and get the money... or save up some cash slowly doing your day job over a few months.
If you can't make $500 over a year to pay for yourself to buy Pro then I'd consider maybe its not worth you spending money on pro until your games are good enough to warrant the expense anyway.
I also agree with what JonMulcahy says about charging something for free Gamesalad to stop the utter crap being made e.g. the template based apps that pop up on the app store with no changes to then templates at all....but then as you say, alot of people get to try out GS and see what they think, alot probably never compete a game but a few would eventually reach your level 3.
The whole point of GS is that you don't have to hire a coder so that's irrelevant too.
If it wasn't free to try I wouldn't even have started it I would have used another development system. Any free system is going to create a certain amount of crap games. The point is to nurture not-so-great GS developers into paying, higher quality GS developers -- to give a reasonable upgrade path to unsuccessful developers who would like to work with GS long term.
For those who think $500 is "spot on", why do you think that's the right price? Why not $450 or another price? I'm interested to find out your logic.
$500 for the first year.
Then $200 for each year after, or something like that.
Isn't that what most software companies do? Sort of a yearly
upgrade fee?
Steve
So make it FREE to try, but then $99 to actually publish something.
And then $500 for the PRO. This might limit some of the garbage apps.
Steve
The issue of the $99 dollars to Apple was slight given I am a professional, and the availability of GS in its free form was for me much like a a download of any trial version. It gives me time to learn and evaluate it and also to see if what I am capable of producing (from a technical and ethic point of view) is marketable. I have clients who are in the dark about development, and tools mean nothing to them. How something is produced in itself has no value. The result is all, so I try to learn and produce something I can sell. This is skills and products.
There is no way I think any of my bigger clients would accept another company splash screen, so I will go pro once I have something worth selling. For myself I am making what I would regard as software toys, rather than games. I have no issues with crediting GS but will want to promote myself up front, so another reason to go pro.
This leads me to thoughts on a 3 level structure that is slightly different-
Free or something like $99, or possibly even time limited as the tryout and for those who cannot afford it/ or educators.
The mid priced that drops the splash screen, has the all facilitates etc. for those who are producing for themselves.
And a highest one that allows one to sell on apps developed in GS to those who wish to publish under their own store/account. No big publisher wants to have me doing the accounting for a product they own, or will probably go through a setting up a GS account just to put out something I make, but it is likely that if they are serious they will have an Apple dev account.
This last option I raise as I had a conversation today with a longer time member of the forum who mentioned issues about Pro member publishing for others. I am not sure if currently it is allowed for Pro members to get a game complied for another user who has not got a Pro account? If this is the case- are you allowed to compile things for others if you are a Pro and pass them on if they are a commercial client who is in the same position of not having an Pro account? I would think this would be sorted by the third level where you had a clear license to pass on compiled apps.
If anyone knows the policy for making apps for others to publish I would love to know.
Thanks Kipper
This thread is a joke!!!
I thought 2k was a little extreme however I have no problem with 500 since if I can't produce a game that will at least pay for the pro license then I might as well just use the free version to play around with it.
Keep the pricing right where it is.
My thoughts as someone who has not yet published a game, is that GameSalad has no cost of entry to make some thing you can put on the App Store, they just want a little advert at the start. Your first $500 you make should go to GameSalad for giving you such powerful tools, and to get some additional features. If you can't make $500 from what you made for free to go purchase pro, you need more practice, because you probably aren't a Pro yet. Pro stands for Professional, meaning you make money from your work... You have the free ability to figure out if you can be a Pro, which is more than anyone else offers.
As far as the OP level 2. there are a lot of bad games. I don't know how you can not know what a "bad game" means.
Some seem to be saying that we should have to wait until we make the magical figure of $500 from games before we go pro. I am open to hearing any good argument about why $500 is the magic figure. Why would selling 500 games make you more pro than selling 200?
I am pretty sure that the number of GS developers actually making money out of their games is very, very low and there is little doubt that the vast majority of GS developers have made nowhere near $500.
Metronome says how much should you take before you give back? But there's another side to that too - how much do we have to give to become a customer? I wish him the best of luck making that first $500, and spending it all on his Pro upgrade ;-) But rather than make him wait all that time, I think it makes sense, if he likes the GS environment, to let him pay for those extra features now.
I like Game Salad. It's an excellent system and will only get better. But I'd also like access to pro features at a reasonable price. I am sure many other not-so-successful-but-hoping-to-be game developers would also pay too if the price was right. But $500 is too much for them because they are not making money right now. Why exclude them if they want to pay something?
I am not saying that Pro will make all the difference to my games - the issue is really one of buy-in. Rather than getting a large amount from a handful of developers it would be far better to get a smaller amount from hundreds - it's basic business sense. A let's-all-buy-in strategy can only help Game Salad. By creating a large user base that has bought in to GS, more funds will flow into GS which in the end will benefit all developers.
Anyway, considering the prices of the competition, I think that market forces will drop the price pretty soon.
It seems that you are one of the only ones complaining. Just deal with it. I'm tired of you guys crying over something so simple. Just deal with it. What good reason does GS have to make the price lower?
There not excluded at all. Gamesalad requires no code, so it brings them it and lets them do something they would otherwise be excluded to so that points bs.
And Its not that 500 makes you pro, its that if your a professional then 500 is a extremloy cheap investment in a business compared to other things like scitunes said.
If you cant afford it, you have no reason to have pro, and its not our problem. End of story
If the free version had no "change attribute behavior" or no "animate behavior" or no "move behavior" okey then you can complain. Because it would be really hard to make games without those type of key behaviors. Heck the free version even has a particle system, that is awesome.
But GS is kind enough to give you this amazing software (where in my opinion they should charge $99 to publish if you are not a pro) for free with almost EVERY behavior there is out there.
People said it before and I'll say it again. If you cant make $500 bucks out of your games in a year, You can't call yourself a pro. If you are not a pro then you probably are doing this as a hobby. If you are doing this as a hobby means you don't need pro. And round and round it goes.
They would have to sell even more than that. Because alot of that money goes to new equipment, probabaly more servers or upgrades in both. New employees.. employee salarys.... etc etc. So yeah it would take even more sales.
I didn't have the luxury of having the ability to publish to the app store for *free* to see if any of my games would take. I had to pay $500 up front. How much do we have to give to become a customer? Right now, NOTHING. If you want the extra features, then $500 please. You not making $500 is not GameSalad's problem. They provide the tools. The rest is up to you. I've seen so many people make thousands using this software. They use the same tool you do. If there's a problem then it's not with the software, believe me! Tshirt has eloquently responded to this. I'll leave it there. I sincerely doubt that.
Let's look at the competition:
Unity is free. But requires a licence that costs $400, with a splash screen, for iOS games.
They have an iOS PRO license too. I imagine that removes the splash screen and does some other magic. That costs $1500
Unity is very powerful, and I tried it a couple of years ago but just didn't get on with it. Feel free to give it a go though.
Corona. Ah, dear, dear Corona. $200 for iOS. I doubt they make Mac store games though (could be wrong) and you have to learn lua (which is not impossible, but not as intuitive as drag and drop).
I tried it back in December last year. Got pretty far with it. But I got frustrated with it and felt unproductive while learning it. You mentioned the main reason you started with GameSalad was because it was free. Well Corona has a trial version that's free too! There's no reason you couldn't have/can't download that, make a game, then pay the magic number of $200 to publish it.
And there's the crux of the matter really. GameSalad let's you make a game and publish it for free. What if you'd made your game with Corona and it didn't do well? You've paid $200 for the privilege of finding that out. GameSalad lets you do that for free
I've said it a million times. It's not the SDK you use, but your own skill, and what you do with it.
I've stayed away from personal attacks. It's really not called for. However, I will say this:
Your arguments would be fine if they were coming from a kid (and we have enough youngsters amongst us).
But from a 44 year old man, it just seems kinda crazy.
Sorry.
Good luck with what you want to do!
QS
The limited user base is not the problem, I see the problem being GS itself, slow to get out simple code into GS such as Game Center. Tons of things you have too tweak or trick the system to work properly, lets not talk about real performance issues.
But seems GS maybe moving in the right direction, I am very excited to see so many fixes and additions to the software.
I do think the Free version is great. It is helping weed out the kids and the people that really try to make a good game or for a living.
Without the free version id still be knocking out games with corona.
If I was asked how to handle the pricing I would do the following.
Have a free version, fully featured but no ability to publish games. (let people use and work with the GS software and see if its for them)
Have a standard version for $99 Fully featured, the kick is there is no tech support. (make templates not available and or limit access to forums)
Have a Pro version at $299 Fully featured, full access too tech and forum support. including beta features pre-released for pro.
Its not just about the pricing with GS, have to look at the competitors and steal there customer base from them. and at 500 its just to high imo.
For the record I have enjoyed using GS and saved alot of time, and simply for that reason its worth the upgrade as my time is valuable to me.
Thanks,
Krogothic
TSB: Your logic is incorrect because 1) GS's recent investment has nothing to do with any pricing strategy and 2) demand is not infinitely elastic. You say "If GS was $250 then it would have to convert twice as many members" but that's not the issue. The issue, as you know for your T-shirt business, is to find the price point where you can sell the most items for the most price - too high and you'll make more money per item, but sell less items; too low and you'll sell a lot of items but you wont make enough money from them. It's great that you successful developers can afford highly-priced pro, but that small number isn't going to keep GS afloat long term.
Anyway, thank you for your input.
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Sweepr: Simple. Fun. Addictive!
Since that is cheaper.
My argument is: The price is $500 for pro. Deal with it. Or it's free. With no strings/risk attached.
Your arguement seems to be: I don't want to risk $500 with no guaranteed return, so GameSalad should lower the price to one I'm more comfortable with.
Also, you're assuming that 'clearly there's a problem'. For you, perhaps. For others, not.
Like I said, Good luck 'n' all that!
QS
I feel it's important to say also, that just because you made a great game, that does NOT guarantee success. Just look at some of the examples: Mini Cannon from Tshirtbooth, Running Wild from Utopian Games, etc... The list goes on.