Would you buy a game for $10?

PB · Post by PB » Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:30 pm

With all the talk about DRM for Spore, with regard to cracking and so on,
it got me thinking: would you pay $10 for a game if it had NO protection
and you could play it anywhere you liked?

For example, if Spore was $10 and had no DRM crap, would you buy it?

milan1612 · Post by **milan1612** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:55 pm

Of course - if the author allows me to test the game with a free demo version
and there's no annoying protection. 10 bucks is fair, we as developers should
know how much work and time is necessary to create such software.

berryoxide · Post by **berryoxide** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:16 pm

10$ would be an awesome price

I think new games should be around 15-25$ and "older" (like 2 months old) games that 10$. 25$ is still pretty cheap and a very good value if I can be given guarantee that there is no DRM/protection.

blueznl · Post by **blueznl** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 6:18 pm

I am willing to pay approx. 20 euro tops for games that I like. Not 21.95, not 20.99, simply 20.00 or 19.99 or lower... And for smaller games, not the high ups, I'd pay approx. 9.99.

Most of my games (except of course for Guild Wars and Red Alert 2 and perhaps a few others) I bought when discounted.

Just from the top of my head... some games from the discount bin:

- DTM3 (Toca 3)
- CC3
- Total Overdose
- Nox
- Starcraft
- The Longest Journey
- Nexus The Jupiter Incident

... and a few others, all below the 20.00 mark.

Oh yes. I bought Half Life 2 as well, not below the 20 but still at a discounted price, as part of a pack.

Of course, most my gaming time is spent on emulators and older stuff...

Foz · Post by **Foz** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:51 pm

If I liked it - sure! And that is the crux of the problem. How can people try something for free to see if they like it?

IMHO, the best and most reliable method without being ripped off I have seen tundles back to the days of DOS. Games were split up into episodes. The first "episode" was utterly free (the shareware bit) and then if you wanted the rest of the game, you could then buy the rest of the game.

The beauty of this method was that only the content of the first episode was available - it couldn't be unlocked, cracked or hacked for a full version - no DRM or anything like that.

LuCiFeR[SD] · Post by **LuCiFeR[SD]** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:53 pm

$10 seems a little cheap to me, maybe $15-20 would be a little better for the developer... but the only downside is the publisher will always see the lions share. Just like the music industry, software devs are getting ripped off just as badly. It's not like the old days where a person could write a game/song and retire on the earnings.

Tipperton · Post by **Tipperton** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:43 pm

If there was a demo to try first and I liked the game, yes I would buy it.

If there was no demo and the game sounded interesting, I might get it from a torrent to try, then buy it if I liked it.

But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't buy it or pirate it. For me it would simply not exist. (any downloaded demos or copies would be deleted)

PB · Post by PB » Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:39 am

> $10 seems a little cheap to me

That's the point: to make it so cheap that people would buy without a second
thought, thus eliminating any plans to download pirate copies and so on.

I like the episode concept. It's how Quake was released, and look how very
successful that franchise was for iD Software! A great piece of marketing.

Rook Zimbabwe · Post by **Rook Zimbabwe** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:39 am

I think up to 19.99 is fair for a game that had major bugs fixed... was fun to play... and could be played anywhere... BUT I also think that over $50.00 is too much even for Diablo 3...

I think that if the price is less than $8.00 no one will respect the game and give itr to friends and strangers etc. I would shoot for a less round number between $11.00 and $18.00 just to make them think!

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 2:04 am

If I liked it! Sure.

What happened to the days of simple shareware ro nagware

Moving in the realm of DRM and rootkits is just diminishing returns

Marco2007 · Post by **Marco2007** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:36 am

I would buy third-party tools from an official Third-Party-Team...
What about that?
I like the way we get cool codes for free, but I have no problems to buy it, if it would be good.
Team-Members: Srod, Sparkie, netmaestro, ...and and and...there are many very good guys...
Some guys should be connected and they should try it...

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:43 am

Yes, i would.

It's a reasonable price for a game.
For an application the max i will pay is $50, so i'm always on the look out for cut-off prices

DarkDragon · Post by **DarkDragon** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:44 am

15€ for a non protected game like >>Hover-Bots<<

... its fair enough.

I've waited for a topic like this.

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:45 am

DarkDragon wrote:15€ for a non protected game like >>Hover-Bots<< ... its fair enough.

I've waited for a topic like this.

LOL

I played the demo, good job

case · Post by **case** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 12:50 pm

for sure $10 maybe $20 if i like the game and there's no securom or starforce or whatever crap protection, i'll buy it without thinking

what i really wan't now is havin my computer without third party software that i don't wan't, copy protections are mallware these days i don't wan't anymore of them here

too much pissed off with spore, this time they crossed the borderline, no more money for them and everyone that use the same copy protection shemes