Hey folks. Going forward, Sanguine 3 will be $4.99. In an effort to be transparent, I want to talk about why.
When I first put Sanguine 3 up on Steam, I priced the game at $11.99. I had no idea what to charge for the game. Prevailing wisdom said to estimate high because Steam is a discount economy and those on a budget would get the game on sale. Steam is designed to operate in this way, giving greater exposure to games that are heavily discounted.
It made sense at the time.
I got some pushback on the price and I reduced it to $9.99 after two months. It's a common price for smaller indie titles and I still feel it's a reasonable price tag for the game. But as i've learned, value isn't the only factor to consider.
Since that price decrease in November last year, i've had very few sales at full price while the bulk of my sales have been at deep discounts. An old Newgrounds friend told me that my price was still too high and the numbers seem to agree. I'm an unknown developer to most people and that is perceived as a risk. I don't have enough reviews to inspire confidence in potential buyers. According to Reddit, pixel platformers oversaturate the market and are less desirable on PC.
There could be any number of reasons a person decides not to buy my game, but no matter how hard I think about it, i'm never going to have a verifiable answer as to why that may be. If it comes down to it, i'd rather more people play my game than get my pay out. The only thing I have any control over is the price.
That is why i'm lowering the base cost to $4.99. Future discounts will have shallower percentages, which I think is pretty reasonable. I will never raise the base price of my game.
Thanks for the read.
~Ray