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Right way to handle people complaining about price?

Gian-Reto Alig · 2016-03-11T19:37:10

When glancing over Gamasutra today I found this: http://steamcommunity.com/app/274500/discussions/0/405691491102673468/?tscn=1456139312#c405692224242982114 For everyone that cannot view Steam, or doesn't want to read it, its basically a guy saying 20 bucks is too much for a game, 15 would be more appropriate, and then someone with a less nice comment saying somethin like 10£ being more appropriate, and questioning the quality of the game. Response by the dev is a longwinding answer about: How long it took them to develop the game (5 years) How many people invested how much time into it (4 guys, number-too-long-to-remember hours) That the game was built from scratch What else costs 20 bucks or more How big the game is (here it gets quite impressive actually, pretty big maps) and then one sentence indicating the dev getting weight and a drinking problem in the process of the development. All in all a mixed bag. Some useful information (the game is actually quite big), some I am indifferent about (we all know you can waste 20 bucks for 2 hours at the cinema... pears and apples), and some I would rather have left out (Who cares if the game is written from scratch? Its their mistake for not using an existing engine (given that this actually added a lot to the development time)! Who cares about the devs personal problems? Sad for him, but really, his decision to try and develop a big game with 4 guys in 5 years).... I think he stayed civil, and he was lucky, the original commenter actually came back, congratulated the dev team on their achievement and said that he sees the points made and now is willing to spend 20 bucks. But was this really the best way to handle this quite delicate question about perceived value? Personally, I see 2 ways of handling the situation: Compare to similar games: Make a list of games similar to yours. List their prices. If your game falls inside the range, you have made the only point really needed for a customer. Of course only compare features... I wouldn't want to try to gauge quality. Ask the commenter for more details: see exactly WHY he thinks your game is not worth it. If you have the balls, keep it public. But I personally don't think it would be too much to ask for a private conversation. See why the commenter thinks your game is not worth the asking price. Ask him if he actually bought and played it. If yes, he might have valuable input about your games quality and faults. If not, he might have valuable input about your games marketing and storefront. I would first go with option 2. I don't think as a small dev you can miss any opportunity of user feedback. And the naysayers, as long as they are legitimate and not trolls, are just as valuable as your fans. Ideally there will be a discussion and the commenter arguments sort themselves out ("game is too small" - "did we mention the 2 squaremile maps?")... if the commenter really has a point, and has not bought the game yet, maybe there is something wrong with your storepage? Maybe you do not communicate the value of your game well enough? How many people thought just as the one vocal naysayer, but didn't go the extra mile and complain about it in the comments? What do you think would be the best way to handle this?

Games Business and Law Business

Started by Gian-Reto February 24, 2016 04:07 PM

38 comments, last by Servant of the Lord 8 years, 4 months ago

Servant of the Lord

33,739

March 11, 2016 07:37 PM

As a project manager when I costed a project, I used the nice round figure of $200/manhour as the baseline. That covers the developer's salary, plus benefits employment taxes, plus non-developer staff, plus heating and lights and server time and licenses and capital depreciation and... well, you get the picture.

Ah thanks, I wasn't thinking beyond the take-home salary, and entirely forgot benefits like health insurance.

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