Matrix Games Forums

Thanks Marcus

I don't think its about what the amount of discount should or shouldn't be, that will always be the publisher's decision and us consumers then decide if we want to purchase. I think more of the question is whether offering a $5 discount is something that will attract customers to buy their games? On the surface, I scratch my head at it because if I really wanted to play a game, would paying $5 more really hold me back and make we wait months for the next sale before I would buy it? Nope, $5 is not a difference maker for me and I would either buy the game on the spot without a sale or not at all. $5 is not enough difference where I would hold off, I would be buying either way. On the flip side for some of the big titles that get released on Steam, I know they will eventually get to 50-75% off in many cases and that is a big enough difference where I may wait, especially if I don't have extreme interest.

As others have mentioned, we don't have the sales figures from the company and have no idea if this process is working for them....I can only assume enough people are taking advantage of the sale to try their games since they have been doing this for years and are still in business. For me, I still haven't bought one of their games, not because of the $5 sales but because I think in some cases their older games are priced too high to even consider for what I would get out of them.

As you said, worthless sales offered as if they mattered is indeed wasted effort.

I was glad Slitherine Group embraced Steam. Must have been a hard decision. And their sales are real discounts as well.

But your 'other business' is as you say wasting their breath trying to impress us with a no thrill sale.

I just said we can't begin to know what goes on with their business, so we can't make any intelligent statements as to whether they should be doing their sales some other way.

Not sure about that. We ARE their business, we are their market, so surely we have some insight into that market. It is the sellers job to understand the market, not the other way around. If a niche is declining, it is the product that is wrong, not the market ,surely?

Repeatedly you can find comments along the lines of "I'd buy it, but not at that price" or "not with that awful UI" or "not with those 20 year old graphics" or "not without a tutorial or demo". Yet still, wargames are released with terrible UI's, at sky high prices and with no tutorial, no demo, nothing to encourage a newcomer basically. And the excuse for dwindlng sales (and you can see forum interest in some series dwindling right here) is that "it's a niche so we need to charge even more for something almost identical to the last".

New customers are vital for business - as is retaining the repeat customers. Sales are a good way to persuade someone who may be sitting on the fence. I got Graviteam Tactics for a ridiculously cheap $5 in a sale, as opposed to the usual $30 or so at which I would never have bought it. I wonder if to some developers they would see that as $25 lost? Whatever, it's a terrible business attitude because soon I'd spent another $20 on DLC for it and then when Mius Front came out, got that too. All from a dirt-cheap sale!

Maybe there is too much short term thinking, just making a sale for as much as possible for today's survival, while neglecting the idea of nurturing and building a market for the long term.

....to be fair I try not to. It's so overrated and normally leads to disaster.