[plugger]

Hi,

Regardless of peoples view of the game, good bad or indifferent (I like it and appreciate the amount of work that has gone into it), the price point is completely out of whack with the rest of gaming market.

From a potential customers point of view it's a game with minimalist graphics and one that looks tinnie tinny on a standard 23 or 24" monitor. Doesn't matter how good the game play is (and I personally think it's very good), 99% of potential customers are going to bounce of the game, even after playing the demo, at the current price point.

You can argue till the cows come home that it's a game that deserves it's $40 USD price point but that isn't going to change the hard reality that, in the current game market, it's an anomaly.

I'm certainly no expert on these matters, and this is purely my opinion, but I strongly suspect that if you halved the price, or more, you'd end up with more money in your pocket due to a higher volume of sales.

This is a game that sells on word of mouth. It's a tough recommendation to make to a friend, though, when it's a game with no screen resolution adjustments beyond 'tiny', has limited activation DRM and costs way, way more than just about every other near equivalent game.

I've mentioned it, in very positive terms, to 3 friends. I couldn't get traction with any of them for the reasons mentioned.

As things stand you'll get a steady trickle of customers 'cause it is, at the end of the day, a very good game, but it'll only ever be a trickle 'cause of the 99% of potential customers that bounce off at first contact.

There are so many new games coming out all the time that once somebody bounces off they are unlikely to come back even if you do drop the price. Once you lose 'em, they're gone.

The arguments put forward to favour the current price appear to be the need to have it that high to provide support and the replayability.

I can't answer the support issue but an observation would be that every other game that sells for less still has to provide support of some form and they all manage one way or another.

The replayability argument is a good one but it only works after you've been sold on the idea of the game. It's a non-argument for a potential customer as what game out there doesn't promote itself as having 'unlimited replayability'?

I'd love to see the game succeed and get a wider audience. I'm not the oracle in any of these matters and if you've got advice from the experts that contradicts my stated opinions I'd ignore me and go with those that know what they are doing.

Cheers,
Plugger