Microsoft today announced that they're changing the pricing model for community games. I both like and dislike this, and in some ways it does actually hurt me in the long term, but I'll get to that. The only thing I like about the new changes is that they've pushed the minimum price point down to $1. I know there are games and applications out there that wanted to charge less, so pushing things down seemed smart.
But there are many things I don't like about the changes.
First, I'm unhappy that they moved the $2.50 price point to $3.00. No one actually keeps track of the conversions, and 200 points was a nice round number that people understood. It meshed with XBLA's round number schemes. 240 points, even though it actually translates to slightly more money, won't have people buying because it's a psychologically weird number. 40 points translates to 50 cents, but psychologically it translates into something completely different. Seeing this weird number, potential buyers might actually do the conversion and think about the price. As a person developing a game that will rely on the impulse buy, I'm not happy about that. In addition, people buying community games will now be left with a weird 60 point remainder, which they won't really be able to do anything with, unless we see XBLA games selling for 460 points ($5.50) or single downloads for 60 points. It's just odd, and it will turn more people away than it will attract.
Second, I'm unhappy that they moved the 50 meg cap to $1, instead of keeping it at $2.50. I'd rather have a 25 meg cap on $1, and a 50 meg cap at $2.50, or a 50 meg cap on both. I've actually been working hard to keep our sizes down to below 50 meg because I wanted to hit the $2.50 price point. Now that it doesn't matter, maybe I won't bother, but it'll just make me more lazy about things like asset optimization, not improve the quality of the game in any way.
Third, why did they feel the need to get rid of the $10 price point? I know very few games are good enough currently to warrant the price, but that doesn't mean it will never happen! Why are 3 price points the magic number here? Why can't it be 4? Why why why?!
Anyway, this all hurts me because my Community Game is getting close to finished, and I'd planned to release it at the $2.50 price point to grab some people doing impulse buys. I feel the game is worth more than $1, but I'm not sure others will feel that way, which is where the predicament comes in. With $2.50 being the lowest price point, anyone playing the game could easily just dismiss the set price as the lowest available. Now they'll actually think about whether or not it should have been priced at $1 over $3, coupled with the fact that it will leave them with that 60 point remainder. All in all, I think if the game I'm working on had been released before this pricing structure change, it would have done better than after the change, and that's just a damn shame.
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