As app and game sellers have transitioned into a post-Big Box retailer's world, where download-only shops like the App Store, Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live reign supreme, they've had to contend with a race to the pricing bottom. The storefronts may be selling billions in software, but while they've made new room for upstart developers, they've also created expectations for flash sales, free-to-play offers, and subscription-fueled game giveaways.
Famed indie game maker Jonathan Blow made a substantial profit by selling his 2008 breakout Braid for $15, but his long-awaited followup, The Witness, launched at a much higher price last week: $40. On Tuesday, Blow took to his official blog to announce that a higher price point had done nothing to dampen its launch's sales, confirming over $5 million in first-week revenue.
"This is a good chunk more revenue in one week than Braid made in its entire first year," Blow wrote in the announcement, and he added other sales clarifications, including the fact that high launch sales haven't quite covered the costs of development. (During a Witness launch-day Twitch Q&A, Blow estimated a total development cost of $6 million. "Why isn't this [game] $15?" he told viewers. "This game is giant. It's got tons of stuff in it.")
In an interview with Ars Technica, Blow admitted noticing "a trend" of rapidly dropping prices on download-only storefronts. "I don't think it's good for people to undervalue their work, because then you teach the public that what you do isn't worth much," Blow said to Ars. "All things being equal, it is great to have a lower price, because it means more people can experience what you made. So it's just about finding the fine line between these two extremes." In The Witness' case, that balance came down to a "gut feeling," Blow said, along with a recognition that, while his team had made a big game, it lacked "multiple facets" that other AAA games often include, particularly multiplayer.
When asked about trends like flash sales and subscription-based giveaways, Blow was cautious not to speak about those sales tactics on a broad scale. However, his choice of words made it clear that fans shouldn't expect a deeply discounted Witness offer any time soon.
"It is very tempting to just put your game on sale for 75 percent off because you know that will be a big bump, and then to do that again and again, but eventually you teach people that your launch price was a fake price, because the game will inevitably be 75 percent off," Blow said to Ars. "I don't think launching at a fake price is a good idea! I think having sales is all right, but people currently overdo it by a lot."
Debunking piracy rhetoric
Blow didn't publicly confirm any stats about piracy of the higher-priced game, saying that his development team at Thekla, Inc. "didn't track piracy. One or two of us peeked at torrent sites and noticed it was the top game download at various times, but it is a bit of work to go from there to counting actual numbers, and we didn't do that." Last week, Blow commented at length about piracy issues with PC gaming, offering sympathy for players in poverty-stricken parts of the world and other understandable scenarios but ultimately not siding with torrent downloads of full games.
"There's this rhetoric that piracy is free publicity," Blow said during last week's Twitch Q&A session. "That's not really true. There's always a little bit of truth to anything, but if you think about it, piracy rates for PC games are often 85-90 percent. That's true. If 10 percent of people who pirate games would buy the games, that would double profits. Double! That's insane. That's the difference between starving to death and being comfortable enough to make the next game."
As it stands, Blow tells fans that The Witness' current sales trends "will allow us to make more nice games in the future," though before any new game development proceeds, Thekla, Inc. will focus on "supporting users who have technical problems" and "investigating" whether or not to port The Witness to platforms such as iOS, Android, OS X, and Xbox One.
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