Price Tag and Steam Release

[Jack_the_Eagleheart]

I want to urge developers to adjust price of the game according to the countries in the Siletherine Website ! Becouse it makes me wait for the Steam release.(Becouse steam adjusts prices of games according to countries).

I m waiting for the adjustment since the game's release. In this price, in my country, its imposible to buy it. Its cost is nearly as much as half of my monthly salary (Its 710 TRY, think of it like 710 dolar in USA) which ofcourse i cant pay for. Why developers does not change the price according to the country as steam does it ? I would love to buy this game from Siletherines website !!

[:-]Important Note: I dont want someone buy the game for me and thank you for the kind people that is asking that. There is no reason for me to play this game if none of my friends are able to buy it !

[erikbengtsson]

This is an expensive game, indeed. But if your monthly salary is 710 USD, it would cost about 1/10 of your salary (the price in USD is 79).

Still a lot, but not as much as half.

Edit: If TRY is Turkish lira (Google tells me so), then 710 TRY would be 85 USD. Way too expensive then, of course.

[malyhin1517]

Once upon a time, I bought this game for 3 players! Because for us this is also quite an expensive game!

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: erikbengtsson

This is an expensive game, indeed. But if your monthly salary is 710 USD, it would cost about 1/10 of your salary (the price in USD is 79).

Still a lot, but not as much as half.

Edit: If TRY is Turkish lira (Google tells me so), then 710 TRY would be 85 USD. Way too expensive then, of course.

I think the point that Jack is making is that the average annual household income per capita in Turkey is c.3000 USD. So 250 monthly - the game would be about a 1/3 of the monthly salary - or if you convert across the equivalent of 825USD to somebody buying in the USA.

[beamslam]

Don't know about global price calculations for games, but as an example, when looking on the success of the McDonald restaurants they surely have price tags matching the countries they are operating in, or else they wouldn't been such a success.
Thinking it would be a good idea to have prices matching the various countries or parts of the world. Would probably also increase the revenue for the developers and publishers.

[kahta]

Didn't we already have this conversation a few months ago?

[Fraggo5]

Yes Kahta this subject was brought up a couple of months ago, [>:]

[Bamilus]

Yes and people seem to not understand if they price it to be relatively affordable in countries with weak currencies then the developers are getting paid like 1/10th what they actually deserve. The fact is it's a crappy situation but it's not fair to the devs to take less money for their work. Blame your government for bad policies, not the devs.

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: Bamilus

Yes and people seem to not understand if they price it to be relatively affordable in countries with weak currencies then the developers are getting paid like 1/10th what they actually deserve. The fact is it's a crappy situation but it's not fair to the devs to take less money for their work. Blame your government for bad policies, not the devs.

That's just a bunch of nonsense. If they don't price it accordingly, then they don't get paid at all since no one is going to buy the game. The truth is that Matrix Games simply doesn't care, or they don't have any knowledge, know-how, or resources to do anything about it.

Or, what happens in most cases, people just buy it from other parties, such as Steam or GOG who do offer different pricing, or wait for sales. Or, get this, they just pirate the games.

[Joel Billings]

To all, please keep the discussion civil. We don't want to start discussing government policy here. I don't know what Matrix's position is regarding country pricing, but will mention this thread to Erik in case he wants to comment. We expect WitE2 to eventually come out on Steam, but I can't give you a time frame on that, and it's not imminent. I can say it will be significantly quicker than the almost 4 years between the original WitE release at Matrix and the WitE release on Steam. Picking up the game during sales is also eventually an option, although maybe still not enough for some countries. We hope that as with WitE, WitE2 will have a long life and an active community of users. So although some may have to wait, hopefully there will be a time when the game is within reach for more players.

[Jack_the_Eagleheart]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

To all, please keep the discussion civil. We don't want to start discussing government policy here. I don't know what Matrix's position is regarding country pricing, but will mention this thread to Erik in case he wants to comment. We expect WitE2 to eventually come out on Steam, but I can't give you a time frame on that, and it's not imminent. I can say it will be significantly quicker than the almost 4 years between the original WitE release at Matrix and the WitE release on Steam. Picking up the game during sales is also eventually an option, although maybe still not enough for some countries. We hope that as with WitE, WitE2 will have a long life and an active community of users. So although some may have to wait, hopefully there will be a time when the game is within reach for more players.

Please mention this threat to developers. Additionally i really dont like the fact that steam cuts a huge amount of percentage from sales and becouse of that i want to buy the game from the offical website to help developers a bit more but in this price its nearly imposible for a normal university student like me to buy this game.

Additionaly one person said "blame the government not the developers" but other than voting and protesting what can i do to change the fact that me and my friends are unable to buy this game becouse of the unbelievable currency difference and crisis of my country goes ? 1 Dolar equals 8.36 TRY [:(]

[Jack_the_Eagleheart]

After posting email to matrix support and opening two threads here i understand that no one cares.

So when will be the steam release ? and When will be a possible sale for Wite2 ? (Even 20% will mean soo much (200TRY))

[Denniss]

I remember they once said "not before the end of the year"
Sales are multiple times per year at different discount levels. I believe October/November was a sale last year, then around christmas

[Hardradi]

ORIGINAL: Jack_the_Eagleheart
There is no reason for me to play this game if none of my friends are able to buy it !

Based on this seem sentence you seem to be indicating that you can afford it but your friends cant. Buy it and play with other people.

[Zovs]

You can always save up for it. Put 10turk a month away and in 7 months there you go.

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

You can always save up for it. Put 10turk a month away and in 7 months there you go.

You mean 70 months? Save 5 years to buy a single game? Would you do that? Have you done that?

[cristianwj]

Sorry for the complainment by Jack, he pointed out some problem in reality but it's not easy to find a suitable solutions for everyone.
Actually, in developing countrys, 50 USD means a lot of money, depends which country do you live in. I spend on my breakfast equivalent 1 USD everyday, and average monthly income in my place is no more than 1000 USD. 50 USD is not cheap indeed, but I think it's worth for the price. Compare to other games on PC or mobile phone, you need to continuous paid for it, and will be a lot money in it's lifetime. WITE had released 10 years ago, and it's still in update before WITE2 released. When WITE have released, I was a student in college and saved money for nearly six-month to bought it. I think it's depends on the way of your life if you want to buy a game.
But in another point of view, it's hard for Matrix/Slitherine to conduct a differencial price policy in different countries like Steam. M/S haven't start it's real bussiness all around the world despite it's a well known company in the world.If someday Matrix or Slitherine decide to extend it's bussiness into my country. I will definitely welcome this decision.

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: cristianwj

Sorry for the complainment by Jack, he pointed out some problem in reality but it's not easy to find a suitable solutions for everyone.
Actually, in developing countrys, 50 USD means a lot of money, depends which country do you live in. I spend on my breakfast equivalent 1 USD everyday, and average monthly income in my place is no more than 1000 USD. 50 USD is not cheap indeed, but I think it's worth for the price. Compare to other games on PC or mobile phone, you need to continuous paid for it, and will be a lot money in it's lifetime. WITE had released 10 years ago, and it's still in update before WITE2 released. When WITE have released, I was a student in college and saved money for nearly six-month to bought it. I think it's depends on the way of your life if you want to buy a game.
But in another point of view, it's hard for Matrix/Slitherine to conduct a differencial price policy in different countries like Steam. M/S haven't start it's real bussiness all around the world despite it's a well known company in the world.If someday Matrix or Slitherine decide to extend it's bussiness into my country. I will definitely welcome this decision.

The main problem is that the Matrix target demographic is very niche. Basically middle-aged well-to-do westerners, especially Americans who grew up with board wargames. They can easily dish out this kind of money. There are plenty of people in the west who can do the same, but obviously, they are not really interested in these sorts of games. And given that the starting price to get acquainted with anything is so steep, they understandably opt for games they know. Also, those games can go for sale for 10 USD because a million people are going to buy them. And if you don't have a million customers, how are you going to pay the whole production chain with that sort of prize? I already get the image that most of the titles published by the company are done on some sort of half-voluntary basis.

Still, if one were to think about the future...

[malyhin1517]

I'll be honest! The high price of the game in the official store leads to the fact that in poor countries only fans of the game buy it, and the rest download the hacked game from the torrent. I myself once played a hacked game for a long time, but then I bought it for myself on Steam! Not sure if I could buy it for $ 79! If the price of the game in poor countries were lower, then this would greatly reduce the number of illegal players and possibly give additional profit to the campaign! On the other side of the campaign, it seems easier to start selling the game through Steam after a while! From a financial point of view, this is about the same.

[Joel Billings]

We do care, but there are technical considerations and business considerations around the timing of a Steam release. We expect WitE2 will eventually go on steam. The exact timing is not yet determined, but I can say with confidence that it won't be later than sometime in 2022 (which would be 2-4x faster than how long it took to get WitE1 on Steam after its release at Matrix). I realize that doesn't help you now, but at least you can be sure that we will continue to work on the game and improve it during that time. The product should continue to improve up until (and after) the Steam release. The community and the community resources should only continue to grow during this time, whether they be mods, AARs or other threads with helpful tips. I realize that's not as good as saying it's coming out very soon, but like with WitE1, we hope WitE2 will have an active and growing community for many years.