Game pricing can be a tough bit when it comes to indie gaming. Setting the bar too low will lead to potentially low income and induce low quality, while fixing an over evaluated price might generate negative reviews and refunds. Once again, I won’t give you any magic recipe here, rather some ingredients on how to price your game in a smart way, thanks to tips from neurosciences. And also tips from me, who’s got an A-level in sciences*, so it kinda blends in.
*I also have a masters degree in marketing, but some would not call that science.
Game pricing: Summary of previous articles
This article series is about the marketing mix. As said earlier, marketing is not just tweeting around and contacting press and content creators. 4 core things, also called the 4Ps, are composing marketing:
Price (part 2)
Placement (part 3)
Promotion (part 4, it’s what most people call marketing)
Editor’s note : I know some people consider 7 Ps in the marketing mix. I was taught with 4 and the others seemed not enough relevant to me. And who would read a 7 parts article, really?
Let’s dig into pricing techniques, or how to make people want to buy your game and not rant about it shortly after.
Note: doesn’t this image look like a Magritte painting? I chose it to picture absurdity and how you will feel when you have your price set.
~ 8 minutes read
Quick general advice
Before we dive in science-y stuff, let’s look at some things you should consider when setting your game pricing.
Cheaper game pricing can mean a lot of things
A cheap game might say a lot to your players:
- It’s a short game
- It doesn’t have much replayability
- It’s bad quality
- It’s a casual game you play for 5 to 60 minutes a day maximum
- …
Send your players the good signal. If it’s short (less than 5 hours*) or feels limited, say it in your description and price accordingly. If it’s not, you might be able to sell it a little more… But not too much.
Expensive game pricing only means one thing…
…That players will expect to have enough for their money. If your game is highly replayable, or has a long story and in both cases is very high quality, you might ask for what the big indies ask for (ie up to 30$). But if not and you still choose a high game pricing, be ready to face negative reviews by truckloads. Or rather, 5 or 6 negative reviews that will strongly reduce your chances of having positive ones.
Anyhow, if you’ve got a doubt, see how much similar games are asking for* and follow that. Also see who made the game: Supergiant (Hades), FrozenByte (Trine series) or Mega Crit (Slay the Spire) can charge more than indie first timers. And double check by asking your testers how much they would pay for your game (NEVER ask whether they’d buy it or not, but that’s another debate).
* Check https://howlongtobeat.com to find out how much replayability your competitors have, it often matches with pricetags.
Here comes the science-y stuff. Behold!
Reference price
In France, and elsewhere in Europe, we’ve got this hard discount supermarket brand: Lidl. Nothing exceptional about them except they’re the top tier of hard discount, with a broad array of products, mostly okay to more-than-okay quality, and they’re innovative on the marketing side.
One day, they launched limited editions of sneakers and high heels with the brand’s colors. It sold for less than 100 euros (maybe even less than 50), but it was sold on the second hand market for… Thousands of euros. THOUSANDS!
I won’t dive into a fashion and sociological analysis of this event (I’m neither a fashionista nor a sociologist and you probably don’t give a mouse bottom) but this short example is to remind you that price is relative, not absolute. Here’s another example:
Here’s a light saber. A real one. That cuts through sits and jedis alike. How much do you think it costs?
You don’t know? Imagine you do. Have a wild guess.
Whether you found a price tag or not, don’t worry about having a hard time finding out, this is normal. I might have also cheated beacause it’s something from out of our world. But our brains aren’t wired to find prices because well, prices are concrete numbers but they sometimes are kinda absurd. Especially in cultural industries.
I have a friend with which we’re having crazy laughters. Like rolling on the floor crazy. How much is worth an hour of that? It’s priceless. In both meanings of the term.
Yet, I’m ready to pay 50 € to see a guy I’ve never met do jokes on stage in a crowded room for one hour, potentially get laughed at in front of 5000 people if he picks me up and asks questions about my personal life, and I’d still feel it’s been money well spent. Even though I laugh harder with my friend.
When I smoke (because yes, I’m French), I create crazy stories in my mind, about myself saving the world one way or another. Mostly through promoting an indie game that went under the radar of everyone, full of inclusive values and that would open minds of many through an engaging and powerful message. How much is it worth? Priceless again. And I can do that whenever I want, for free.
Yet, I’m ready to pay 5 to 80 euros to play games that do exactly the same thing, but I’m playing alone, I’m probably gonna face narrative shortcomings, potential bugs and technical limitations and I can’t write the scenario myself. But still, once again, money well spent.
Prices are absurd, I tell you. And so is game pricing. But there are ways to find out what your price is.
Science says that to find out what price is a product worth, we use a beautiful thing named context :
Previous price: “What did the lightsaber cost last time?”
Announced price: “What price was announced in the ad?”
Estimated price: “What should the price be according to me?”
Adjacent price: “What are the prices of other lightsabers?”
Similar offers: “What is the price of a laser pistol?”
Our brain blends all of this to find the reference price. And these are ingredients on how you can set yours.
Perceived value
Percieved value is the subjective value people give to a product or service, often influenced by subtle and irrational signals.
A product perceived value only depends on the story you write around it
Hades is sold today at 24.50 €. Yet it’s got buckloads of 9s and 10s from professional reviewers and it’s been GOTY several times.
LEGO Star wars Skywalker saga (I will refer to it as LSW) is worth between 30 and 50 €, so the same price or more, got mostly 7s and 8s and won only one steam award, although being nominated several times.
Hold down. I’m not saying Hades rocks and LSW sucks here. They are both games that lots of people enjoyed and made their studios financially happy. I’m just using facts to prove my point: your price does not define your value, your players do. If you delete the price tag on these games, it’s impossible to tell which one is worth more. Hades might be underpriced, but maybe its price is part of its success, and the fact LSW did not earn as much awards doesn’t mean that it’s overpriced. Do you get my point? If not, tell me and I’ll find another example.
Hades tells a story about a game loved by many and critically acclaimed. LSW tells a story about Star Wars and Lego, two famous brands that make you go back into childhood through a space opera. Find your story, it can be anything. But make it fun and/or entertaining, because we’re not selling copying machines.
(And even if we were, why couldn’t copying machines be fun?)
So to sum it up, don’t ask yourself alone what you should charge. Make your testers and players part of the process.
Charm pricing (is 9,99 better than 10?)
You probably don’t know the term but you’ve certainly seen it around. Charm pricing is everywhere. Be it for a 9,99 game or a 1999 computer, they are the norm today. But what are they and why are they used? More importantly, what does science say about that trend? Let’s find out.
What are charm prices ?
Charm prices are prices that are not rounded : most often they look like 5.99, 99.99 or 1999. That’s it.
Why are charm prices used ?
Because our brain computes numbers from left to right. For an 8.99 price, the 8 is computed first: hence the price seems closer to 8 than to 9. Studies say numbers after the coma or the point don’t matter that much. That’s why most round prices are ending in .99.
Technical point: with different currencies come different prices. You can set them up using steam, but I won’t tell you how in this already-too-long article. You can use charm prices (or round prices) for each country. Be sure to do your research on how much you should charge for each currency on your game: since cost of living is not the same, you might have to reduce the price of your game in some countries.
When use charm prices ?
Charm prices work very well with discounts.
Here are two discounts :
9.00 -> 7.94
9.06 -> 8.00
Which one seems better ?
The first? Are you sure? Do your math, they are exactly the same discount (-1.06). It’s a small trick, but times 10000 sales, it might make the difference.
Also, a recent study debunked the idea among marketing professionals that charm prices induced low quality for products using this technique. Turns out, people only remember they had a good bargain. So on paper, there’s no reason not to use charm prices. Except…
When NOT to use charm prices ?
With products linked to emotions. So yes, according to another study, round prices work better when there are emotions involved. If say you’re developing a serious game, charm prices might work better. But for most games including emotions, studies say it’s better to use these beautiful zeros for your pricing.
Editor’s note: Studies are what they are, and sometimes they are closer to theory than practical use. Most prices on steam are charm prices, so a rounded price might seem offbeat at first for your players. Like all things in marketing, it takes some tests to find out if it works for you or not. So ask questions to your audience, test things and find out by yourself if this technique is actually useful or not.
Thanks to Clément Fromont from insight
Most of the principles presented in this paper are from Clément Fromont, a French bloke having a neuroscience newsletter. All of the examples are from me though. If you understand French, do subscribe to his letter. His advice is, like all good things, priceless. I tried as much as I could to fit in examples from the games industry, hopefully he won’t consider it as stealing (I asked, he didn’t).
Good luck have fun (with marketing),
Valentin
