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Discontinuing Products and Pricing

DavidRM · 2001-10-27T13:16:07

I pulled this out of the Game Funding thread because it didn''t seem to fit that thread. quote: Original post by granat It says on your homepage (SamuGames) that Paintball.net was taken offline because the costs involved with keeping the game going was getting larger than the income (correct me if I''m wrong). That''s the long and short of it, yes. Not every business venture makes a profit...or, at least, not forever. quote: Original post by granat The reason for this must be that even if new people pay for the game there''s still all the "old" players to service. The have already paid a one-time payment and now they use up valuable bandwidth for years without paying anymore. That really didn''t come into it with Paintball NET. The rate of re-payment (via upgrades in access levels) was really good, and there were 14 levels of payment, each cost $10 US. The problem was that the game simply cost too much to maintain for what it was making, and it was draining resources needed for other projects. When we first rolled the game out, we expected it to last (maybe) 6-7 months and we *hoped* that it would recoup the $300 or so that we had invested in software to create it (this doesn''t account for our time, of course). Over 4 years later, the game had simply outgrown the original intent on all sides. Design flaws from it being a "quickie" game became evident all around, and it had been patched and re-patched to the point of absurdity in a number of places. There was simply no way to continue to support the game and maintain any forward progress. It was a losing proposition, so we did the only thing we could do: we pulled the plug. We announced the closing 3 months in advance, and stopped accepting payments 1 month in advance (in practice, very few payments arrived after the announcement, which was the point, and none in the last 2 months). We had always had a 30-day refund policy, so we honored that as we always had. Were there annoyed players? Of course there were. It''s hard to prevent that, no matter how much money you''re losing or much you try to explain things. quote: Original post by granat Have you ever considered that people should pay a small amount of money each year instead ? As an independent game developer, you don''t have the resources of a publisher like Sony. And your products inevitably reflect that. However, you are also inevitably competing with products that reflect the huge budgets, and this affects your pricing. EverQuest charges $9.95/month. They can because the perceived value is there. A low-budget game, though, by itself is not going to be able to charge that much, no matter how fun it may be or how rabid the fans are. Yearly fees aren''t significantly different from one-time payments, in player perception, at least. quote: Original post by granat Have you ever thought of lowering the price of playing Artifact say 50% ? Maybe that way you could more than double the number of players (and income) ? But who knows right ? Actually, I''m considering raising the price for the one-time payment levels on Artifact... But they''re doing OK at their current levels, and I prefer stability in the long run rather than knee-jerking in short run. We introduced a monthly payment option back in the spring, and that''s slowly coming into its own. Maybe they will someday completely replace the one-time payment options. We''ll see how it goes. It''s all a guessing game, ultimately. You see what other people are charging and you try to guage your own worth and perceived value. And of course, you try to spin those in your marketing stance and promotional materials. And you adjust your approach as you get experience (assuming you survive). We haven''t always guessed correctly, but we do try to learn from our mistakes. DavidRMSamu Games

Games Business and Law Business

Started by DavidRM October 25, 2001 01:35 PM

11 comments, last by DavidRM 22 years, 8 months ago

granat

122

October 27, 2001 05:24 AM

That was me.

-------------Ban KalvinB !

Darjk

124

October 27, 2001 06:27 AM

The server(s) were hosted elsewhere.
Not sure about when it was first made public though in 1996 have to wait for David to answer that, I would assume though during Development and testing that they just used their own computers..
*shrug*

DavidRM

270

Author

October 27, 2001 01:16 PM

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Yet another question. Did you have the servers at home or was it hosted by someone else ?

In the very early days we used any shell login (it ran on Unix/Linux) we could find to host the game. We used a shell account on someone''s personal computer during testing, and then used a shell account from my ISP when we first went live. We used that one for quite a while.

In late 1997 we leased our first dedicated server for the game. We''ve used dedicated servers ever since.

With both Paintball NET and Artifact, we''ve never actually seen the physical hardware where they are/were running. We started out with MudServices in Pennsylvania, but they began a slow deterioration. So we moved to MudGate in Atlanta, Georgia. They sold their server hosting business, so we had to move again and we ended up at WebServePro (AKA INetSolve) in Nashua, New Hampshire. We''re still with WebServePro, and we''ve been there nearly 2 years now.

DavidRM
Samu Games

DavidRMDavidRM Software The Indie Game Development Survival Guide JoeIndie.com

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