Pricing Hurting Sales?

[piderman]

Is there any news on a price cut for Shadows or maybe another sale? It's still €80 (read: $100) over here in Europe and I too find this to be very (maybe too?) expensive. Quill18's recent video shows what looks like a fun game, but man...

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

Yes, there will be a sale on the previous DW releases in sync with the Shadows release, which will be happening in May.

Regards,

- Erik

[Modest]

Welcome to the forum piderman.
You have my word - if You like 4x games You will definietly love DW. And with sale going to take place in May the biggest problem standing in obtaining it will be out of Your way. BUT have this warming, and threat it seriously. This great game have VERY big learning curve.

[hfl13]

The Matrix price model is a very strange one and I bought games for 30 years. Without getting my test DW for only € 13 at amazon.de it would have never goten noticed and bought. When I saw the matrix prices for downloads I thought WTF - do they have a terrible inflation in the US or are these the original retail prices and where are the real prices. After a first look and reading the forum I realized I needed all three for the full experience. Therefore I ordered a german ROTS and an english Legends (most expensive part) for a total of € 53 - my most expensive game.

IMO the most recent gold edition should allways include DW + all three extensions for about € 40 - that would give matrix games always a full price but only a small minority of players will invest € 96 or > $100 that are requiered without the sale after the release of Shadows.

As a price comparing dude I would never have given € 60+ at once or the crazy prices from the matrix website.

I like DW but without a pricing more in touch with todays standard the programm will stay in its niche and DW2 will only repeat DWs meager success if following the same price model.

Of course there are other models that are more clever: DLCs and stand alones come to mind. My old favirite Heroes of Might & Magic got lots of my money high price without ever crossing the € 40 treshold.

With Shadows one will need more than $ 100 for a complete up-to-date game. If there is no offer for owners of the previos 3 parts than I will probable wait a few years till I have played DW enough before buying because at the moments Shadows is offering almost nothing for my taste.

My experience with Matrix prices was similar with GGs "War in the East" bought in germany for € 8 at amazon this April and I have to find a worse product (no DVD no manual) as download for € 64,99 - that game is more than two years old.

Fan of amazon & gamersgate but wont be a frequent buyer in the matrix store at prices like that.

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Yes, there will be a sale on the previous DW releases in sync with the Shadows release, which will be happening in May.

I noticed that your web-store is currently offering 20% off if you buy the entire package (Basegame and both expansions) - is this the sale you're referring to?

[Bingeling]

No, I don't think that is the sale, just the normal deal. And do also check the final sum, since for me, at least, local tax is added.

[Mansen]

Yeah I noticed the added taxes at the end - such a pleasant surprise [:'(]

Hopefully they'll make it a wee bit cheaper - Just the current games comes out to a total of 108$ for me. [:D]

[Bingeling]

Strange, it ends up around 108 for me too I would expect it to get cheaper, but not cheap. The current is approx 10% off on the total, a sale is hopefully more like 33%.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Mansen

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Yes, there will be a sale on the previous DW releases in sync with the Shadows release, which will be happening in May.

I noticed that your web-store is currently offering 20% off if you buy the entire package (Basegame and both expansions) - is this the sale you're referring to?

That bundle if you purchase all together is always available, regardless of a sale. There will be a better bundle when Shadows releases.

Regards,

- Erik

[Mansen]

Thanks for the clarification, Erik. [:)]

[lewdog64]

Why the heck does a new player have to shell over $100+us to buy a current game, that's ridiculous. $40us is allot for a 3 year old game if you just get the main exec. I would like to try this game, but not if i have to shell out $100+us to do so. Even with the sale to buy a current version (with the upcoming expansion) it will be $100+us. I don't know who approved this pricing model but they flunked marketing.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: lewdog64

Why the heck does a new player have to shell over $100+us to buy a current game, that's ridiculous. $40us is allot for a 3 year old game if you just get the main exec. I would like to try this game, but not if i have to shell out $100+us to do so. Even with the sale to buy a current version (with the upcoming expansion) it will be $100+us. I don't know who approved this pricing model but they flunked marketing.

I'm not sure your analysis is entirely reasonable.

• Hours of play per dollar. DW ranks quite high, as opposed to most mainstream games (with a few notable exceptions - Skyrim seems endless, for example). If you consider the price, you should as well consider the amount of time you are likely to spend playing it. I have far too many games which I grew bored of or were dismally disappointed with (regardless of their stellar demos), where the cost per hour played was atrocious.
• "3 year old game" - there have been 2 expansions and a third coming soon. To accept your argument that it's 3 years old, is to say that World of Warcraft is 8, nearly 9 years old and anyone who plays such an ancient game is clearly out of their mind.
• "flunked marketing" - it's a niche market with limited appeal. Higher prices apply to any product that appeals to a niche market. I don't think it's rational to assert that Matrix marketing bods "flunked marketing", as they're running a (ostensibly) profitable company with a solid reputation in their market niche. Seems like they're doing something right - for a company run by a bunch of marketing failures.

I'm not saying that Matrix is perfect. I have some pet peeves with how it markets and advertises its products. But they're turning a profit and surviving in an industry which is about as cut-throat as it gets. So I'll bow to the evidence and try to keep my whingeing to a dull roar.

[necaradan666]

Not really..

Most of the posts here are not comparing to new AAA games, they're compared to similar space sim/4x types of games. Personally I'd never again buy a game that doesn't play for many months. Bought Gears of War at midnight release finished the campaign by 8am, never looked at another Gears article.
Skyrim is however a good example, it's long enough to compare the play value equally but is available with expansions at a significantly lesser cost than when it came out. (if not already, soon)

Heh, I'd also say anyone that is still playing WoW is obviously ootm

and I'd believe it if you said one of Matrix Games war sims was niche, but I don't know.. everyone and their grandmother seems to be developing or selling a Space Sim/4x type of game recently.

I don't really care how much they are making, but I did have a concern about not buying a game that was never clearly awesome from available information because I couldn't justify their prices comparatively with all my other similar purchases. Even when I did purchase cause I felt the risk was better than wondering if it was great as some folks said, I still kinda felt sick for a moment when hitting 'proceed to checkout'

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: necaradan666
Skyrim is however a good example, it's long enough to compare the play value equally but is available with expansions at a significantly lesser cost than when it came out. (if not already, soon)

Skyrim is hardly a "niche product", and can't be fairly used as a point for price comparison. I only used it as an example to illustrate my point that the value of a game should include a consideration of the number of hours it will entertain. Compared to many gaming offerings on the market, DW is incredibly cheap per-hour-of-play.

They've released all the Skyrim expansions that they're going to. Aside from bug-fixing, Bethseda is closing the curtain on Skyrim and moving onto other things. (ref here)

ORIGINAL: necaradan666
and I'd believe it if you said one of Matrix Games war sims was niche, but I don't know.. everyone and their grandmother seems to be developing or selling a Space Sim/4x type of game recently.

The 4X genre has had more entrants to the market than is usual of late... but most of them are garbage. Perhaps you recall Legends of Pegasus? Or the extremely lukewarm reception of Star Drive? Yes, there are more 4X games out there than normal. But don't mistake quantity for quality.

Few publishers are willing to finance a 4X game, and when they do, most only provide the most anemic of funding. If I see a 4X game that's worth buying, I'll certainly pay for it. Unfortunately, however, few are living up to their promises.

ORIGINAL: necaradan666
I don't really care how much they are making

Unless you have shares in Matrix, I don't see why you would. I only used it to illustrate my point that the complaint that Matrix marketing bods are marketing failures does not bear up to economic examination. If they're so bad, then why are they still around, while the strategy game publisher battlefield is littered with the corpses of failed ventures?

Now, don't take this as fanatical devotion to the Matrix corporation. I'm in agreement that DW is quite pricey. My position is that if one wishes to criticize Matrix, one needs to bring more data to the discussion than a childish exhortation of "it's too expensive", or "they failed marketing". Thus far, I have seen few critics present any facts to support their arguments.

[Texashawk]

For what it's worth, while I distinctly do not agree with Matrix's pricing decisions on this series (owning all expansions) there is a school of thought about this that perhaps Matrix is following: Many consumers are now trained (by Steam and Gamersgate, mostly) to simply wait a few weeks for the big weekend/24 hour/3 day sale that will inevitably happen, thus blunting initial sales and also potentially angering people who just bought the game at full price. This causes a self-defeating cycle of discounting that has caused several promising games to perform well below expectations. To Matrix's credit, if you buy a Matrix game at launch you are almost assured of paying the same price as a customer who buys it a year later, thus negating a reason to wait.

That being said... I really think Matrix has a huge opportunity to capitalize on the free publicity garnered by Quill's YT channel. At last count, there were 20,000(!) views of his video, and if I were Eliot reading the pages and pages of comments on the video that think the game is the second coming of 4X nirvana.... BUT OH GAWD THE PRICE!! I'd honestly not sure how I'd react. But frustration would be in there somewhere. I know there's a bundle discount planned, and I hope it's significant. I want to see this game series succeed in a huge way.

Matrix, indie games dream of this kind of pub - this is like an one-time event card drawn while playing a video game publisher simulation... USE IT!!! Publicity, excitement, and momentum are not dirty scary concepts!!

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Texashawk
At last count, there were 20,000(!) views of his video...

20k views isn't meaningful. How many were unique views? What's the conversion rate of those views into sales?

Call me skeptical, but unless there's some analysis of the views, the number is meaningless.

Besides, 20k isn't a big deal. Katie Sunshine's Goldfish video has nearly a million - and yet she isn't (according to interviews) rolling in the cash from it. Will Matrix see a spike in DW sales - or a blip?

[Mansen]

1. The game is pricey even for its long replayablity time when compared to other 4X titles who are also very niche. You don't have to compare it to mainstream games like Skyrim to realize that the pricing is horribly wrong. (No one is being forced but it hurts potential sales)

2. Meaningful or not, Paradox (Who are a developer and publisher of 4X and grand strategy) obviously found him interesting enough to ship him off to the other end of the earth for a weekend length press event where they play their new upcoming game, Europa Universalis 4.

The man does excellent videos - not only from an Amateurs "I play games for fun" point of view, but he goes to lengths to explains gameplay features, strategies and tactics.

3. To return to the sales - Matrix are obviously losing out on potential sales by sticking with their own webstore (and admittedly a (few?) niche vendors like Gamersgate - which only carries the game base as far as I can tell)

To compare to Paradox's sales - Their least complex and niche game, Crusader Kings 2 sold a staggering 98% of its copies through Steam in the release quarter. Their niche products are upwards of 70-80% as well.

If Matrix don't want the customers or money, then they don't have to adapt or change their philosophies - but they are hurting themselves with the way things are now (Half of the comments alone on Quill's intro video for the game are potential customers complaining about the steep intro price - make of that what you want)

Note : I personally don't care what the game costs - if I want it, I'll buy it.

[emptysands]

Personally I'm waiting for a sale or some form of Gold pack before I purchase. Although Distant Worlds looks very interesting, there a lots of other more cost effective games out there at the moment.

I'm hoping the new expansion pack has some reasonable sale option for the other 3 pieces - base + 2 expansions - maybe in a gold pack. Even then if the price is not right, I might still wait for some seasonal sale.

[lewdog64]

emptysands, earlier in this forumn post (page 5) the admin mentioned a sale this month

[necaradan666]

@Kayoz

I know they aren't making any more expansions for Skyrim, what's that got to do with anything. I wasn't comparing the games themselves. I was, like you, showing a comparison of a quality playtime-to-dollar value that I feel is equally as good as DW only that... Skyrim now sells with expansions at a fraction of the launch costs, and DW doesn't because it's niche?
I already said above I didn't think DW is quite as niche as the other war sims around here.

The quality of all these recent lesser 4x games is beside the point, they are still competition, they are options for similar gameplay that are cheaper and fairly well advertised. All these games count as niche too even though they are not as good as DW right? But they don't seem to require such high prices?

I only mentioned that I don't care about how many moneybags matrix makes because of the comments in this thread that are disparaging of the price and their reason being that they want more sales numbers and advertising for Matrix. That's not my concern, my point of view is that of a consumer who, in 4x terms, must make decisions based on weighted values. Right now DW would cost me more than another purchase which I'd value equally. It feels like a rip off in comparison to everything else, and that sucks because it's an awesome game.

It's not really fair to ask for data on a subject that is by it's nature relative to each person and his wallet, there are no facts other than the undisclosed numbers Matrix has, that and the opinions of potential buyers.

It's not the views or any sort of video analysis that is important on that youtube vid either.. it's the many, many comments that say "Looks awesome, too expensive though." That's a weird situation isn't it? Those commenters... many did mention they played endless space, stardrive etc. That means they're making purchases of mediocre games rather than a great one because it's not competitively priced. That sucks for everyone involved. (except stardrive devs I guess heh)

Anyway don't want to seem argumentative, in your words, I just wasn't sure your analysis was entirely reasonable.