How to price your independent game
Pricing your game is a serious part of your marketing strategy. You need to constantly straddle staying cheap enough to remain competitive in an oversaturated market while still making a profit and not undervaluing your work. A lot of small developers will have success with games they put on the market for free or very cheap, but begin to struggle as soon as they begin charging a few dollars for their games. So how do you break into monetization without loosing your audience? There is no set formula, but there’s some guidelines to follow when choosing your price.
Look at similar games on your marketplace
This seems a bit obvious, I’m aware. But a great place to start is to look at games that are in the same genre, are similar lengths and have a similar quality of gameplay in the marketplace you are trying to sell on. Steam has very public data on how much revenue a game makes, which makes this process easier, but gathering data on any platform is possible with a bit of work and varying degrees of speculation.
Find games with the right audience and see what they are charging — but also account for any sort of following the developer may have, as well as when they published their game. Maybe another developer in the same genre is able to charge $20 for their game that is comparable to yours, but they also have a huge following or published the game a few years ago when the genre was booming. Recency and other marketing factors will also need to be taken into account.
Keep sale pricing in mind
Sale pricing is extremely important in the games industry. The market has come to expect it, so in order to stay competitive, you’ll likely have to drop your prices here and there for limited time sales. This is a tricky game to play, as you don’t want people to put off purchasing your game because they expect it might go on sale soon, but it’s just the name of the game. Staying competitive during sales periods can be difficult when you also have sustainability in mind.
Remember the price of your game communicates something
The price of your game comes with certain notions about what your game should include in terms of quality and length. Generally, very cheap games (like $1-$10) are either perceived to be hyper casual to the point of redundancy, or very short experiences. Once you hit the $15+ threshold, expectations for your game quickly rise, and you need to make sure you’re game is up to par with that pricing. However, if you underprice your game, outside of contributing to an unsustainable economy, you may also send the wrong message about the quality of your game to potential players who figure it must be subpar gameplay considering the price.
Consider alternate monetization strategies
By this, I am mostly referring to free to play with in app purchases. This type of strategy tends to work on very casual platforms, such as mobile. Creating an in-game purchase system can be a bit involved, but can be profitable in the long run, as it gives the lowest barrier of entry while still making a profit for players invested in your game. There are some thoughts in the industry around the ethics of in-game purchases and it needs to be a part of your game design from the outset, but it could be something to consider, especially if you are aiming for a more casual market.
References and further reading
(Article) What should you charge for your indie game? — https://www.gamesindustry.biz/what-should-you-charge-for-your-indie-game
(Article) Pricing your video game — https://medium.com/game-marketing/pricing-your-video-game-269ad4962612
(Article) Pricing Strategy for Indie Game Developers — https://www.occasoftware.com/blog/pricing-strategy-for-indie-game-developers
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