Re:Show HN: Mazelit - My wife and I released our first game
by xanderlewis on Saturday April 13, 2024 @06:30AM
(#40022016)
> But you can't raise the price on a low-quality product and expect a great sales response.
Well… obviously.
My point wasn’t that raising the price is always a good idea; it was that it sometimes is. It’s worth mentioning because even the idea that it’s sometimes sensible is surprising to many.
Re:Show HN: Mazelit - My wife and I released our first game
by bschmidt1 on Saturday April 13, 2024 @01:02PM
(#40024397)
Of course there are good reasons to raise prices, but low or no sales is not one of them.
Re:Show HN: Mazelit - My wife and I released our first game
by xanderlewis on Sunday April 14, 2024 @01:20PM
(#40032660)
Well, you’re wrong. It’s been done before. It’s unconventional and perhaps rare, but it has been observed to work sometimes.
But I’m talking about products you’d buy regularly rather than one-time purchases like games or music.
As somebody who has released several games and apps where some did well and others were crickets it seems like a combination of randomness/timing, visibility (related to the previous), and simply - is it good or not? If your game is amazing people will jump through hoops to try to play it. You can sell a great game for $40 or $60, and a very great game for $60 then $15/month to keep playing.
But you can't raise the price on a low-quality product and expect a great sales response. A lot of investor types say this out of hopes, or because they want that racehorse to run faster, but IME it's: Is it good? Charge market. Otherwise, free or freemium, you might even have to give away the code to get developer interest to help.