Vault Dweller: Age of Decadence needs to sell 45,000 copies to be successful

[Tigranes]

around when it was released, i convinced some people on gamefaqs and my friend list. no sale, but they added the game to the wishlist.

i see they don't even budge even on 40%

:<

anyway what is the completion rate of the game? i see games sell for hundreds of thousand but heard only like half or even less completed it.

Most games these days have completion rates of under 20%, at best.

 

[Telengard]

Sales probably boost people talking about it among their friends/in online communities, and then price-insensitive people that hadn't heard much about it want to get in on it too.

This is a truth. On average - and i will stress average - an item gets 1.5 weeks of increased sales after a big sale period. The sale gets people talking.

I'm sure many of you have done this one before - you see a new game, and think, 'hey, that looks interesting, maybe I'll get it after I finish my 150 hours in Fallout 4'. But during the 100 or so additional hours you were playing Fallout 4, you happened to forget about the new game, cause 100 hours is, of course, a lot of time to keep something in mind for. But now, come the sale, your friends start talking about that new game, and you're like, 'Oh yeah, I was into that game. Plus, I'm done with Fallout 4 now, and Skyrim II isn't coming out for a couple years yet' And so, now you're thinking about the game again, but with your friends also now offering bias confirmation that you should pull the trigger. With that confirmation bias building into your desire to acquire and possess. So you pull the acquisition trigger, even though the game's not on sale.

As long as what the public are saying is generally positive (or super-negative), significant post-sale purchases is standard behavior.

Even better, though, when you've got a stable of products, and you can do a loss-leader sale. Because, the hardest part is to get people to open their wallets. Once it's open, though, the money just flows out.

 

[FUDU]

As long as what the public are saying is generally positive (or super-negative), significant post-sale purchases is standard behavior.

AOD seems to have both these traits.

 

[Johannes]

around when it was released, i convinced some people on gamefaqs and my friend list. no sale, but they added the game to the wishlist.

i see they don't even budge even on 40%

:<

anyway what is the completion rate of the game? i see games sell for hundreds of thousand but heard only like half or even less completed it.

Most games these days have completion rates of under 20%, at best.

I don't think it's a recent advancement that people don't finish most games. Though games were much harder and longer on average, in the past.

 

[Goral]

On reddit someone posted a comment like this:

Wait a moment... I perfectly recall one of the devs saying there wouldn't be any sales for this game, since they didn't like the system Anyone knows if they changed their minds? Are they going easy with the "constant price" policy? And most important, is this going to happen again? I guess a 40% discount could lead to bigger sales in the future...

That would be my reasoning as well, whenever I see a game on sale I will never pay full price for it and will be expecting another sale at least as big. So I suggest to not go any lower. If I would see a 50% discount next time, I would expect 75% discount next time.

 

[Vault Dweller]

No discounts during early access, not 'no discounts ever'. Discounts are an important tool and while a discount encourages some (but not all) people to wait for the next deal, it does boost sales and attract more attention, thus boosting sales again. Balance is always important, so we aren't planning to run any promotion in the next 2 months (unless there's an official Steam sale, in which case we'll definitely participate) and we aren't planning to go with a bigger discount in the near future.

 

[Goral]

I'm not saying no discounts and I'm glad you've decreased the price and sold so many copies. I'm only saying that

Balance is always important

and to not go into extremes either way.

 

[HoboForEternity]

yeah, it went from 32k to 42k. 180.000 dollars!

think of how much cocaine VD can afford now!

 

[Irenaeus III]

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm not saying no discounts and I'm glad you've decreased the price and sold so many copies. I'm only saying that

Balance is always important

and to not go into extremes either way.

I don't believe we did. We had a 10% launch discount, then 15% off during the next 3 sale events: autumn (Nov 25), Christmas (Dec 22), lunar (Feb 5), then 40% off on March 26. I don't think that offering 20-25% would have had the same effect. We went from selling about 30-40 copies a day to 7,500 in 2 days, which is huge and well worth the trade off. Looking back, I think we should have gone with a bigger discount on Christmas.

I guess the main question is when to do discounts and how far you should go. That's one area where indie developers suffer because these things are kept secret and each developer learns on his own mistakes, which is costly and not very effective. It's easy to get focused on the discount figure alone because 5% difference between, say, 25 and 30% sounds like a lot when in reality it may only be a dollar or two. Is it better to run a strong discount when there is a strong interest and everyone's talking about your game or when everyone moved on and don't really care anymore. How long does the period of 'strong interest' last? What's the actual effect on post-sale revenues? Etc.

 

[Bastion]

I think we should have gone with a bigger discount on Christmas.

I have an issue with the price after all.
GOG sale - from €19.99 to €16.09
Steam sale - from €27.99 to €16.79

I haven't bought the game because I found it strange that the price for SR Hong Kong was $9.99 (which I bought at the Isomnia sale) and for AoD $17.99.
I have time and I will probably wait for the game to hit $13/€13 or 10 even. You've made a small discount and results are visible, so I hope to see a bigger one in a 6 months period.

 

[Irenaeus III]

What a cheap basterd, throw this villain out of here!

 

[Bastion]

^ Brofist hunter?

 

[Excidium II]

Gonna have to wait for summer sale.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Gonna have to wait for summer sale.

Didn't I gift you this game already, Zacarias?

^ Brofist hunter?

Cuck hunter extraordinaire. Brofists are a consequence

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Glad I purchased the game at full price without giving a fuck about possible discounts and Steam sales. ITS deserves every buck.
And I'm not even an AoD fanboy.

 

[a bear named spigot]

I haven't bought the game because I found it strange that the price for SR Hong Kong was $9.99 (which I bought at the Isomnia sale) and for AoD $17.99.

what does one have to do with the other

 

[HoboForEternity]

I got it last summer i think. Just after they raise the price after last location update, there was a small discount, and i bought it. Didnt touch it until october because i dont wanna spoil myself

 

[Excidium II]

Gonna have to wait for summer sale.

Didn't I gift you this game already, Zacarias?

No I passed to TBS because I was busy playing other stuff iirc. Won't have time to play it any soon anyway.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Drop everything and play this game, nigga

 

[Excidium II]

Can I put AoD achievements on my CV?

 

[Irenaeus III]

Well, I put Aggressive Negotiations in my CV.

 

[mindx2]

Well I bought my copy sometime last decade I believe* when VD opened up his pre-pre-pre sale.

*

Spoiler

Can't remember for sure as it was so long ago and the ol' memory isn't what it used to be.

 

[Goral]

Can I put AoD achievements on my CV?

Works every time.

 

[Trashos]

No I passed to TBS because I was busy playing other stuff iirc. Won't have time to play it any soon anyway.

You have mentioned before that you are the type of gamer who plays one game at a time. I remember it, because I am like that too.

This suggests that you like games with meaty content, a lot to think about etc. If that's the case, I suggest you play AoD ASAP.