May 26th, 2010 @ BAFTA, London
ME presents the Monetising Mobile conference - putting the focus on how to make actual money from the apps revolution.
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Schiau Studios refuses to discount after complaints about $2.99 price point
Indie developer Schiau Studios has raised the price of its Alchemize iPhone game to $39.99 (£23.99 in the UK) after receiving complaints about its original $2.99 price point being too high.
"This price was set due to the fact that every developer who gets complains about price they tend to go only in one direction. And that is down with the price," announced the company.
"We wanted to get everybody's attention and therefore we did the opposite this time."
The price will come back down later today, but Schiau will have made its point. It's not the only developer to complain that the glut of 99-cent games on the App Store have led many users to think that ALL iPhone games should be that cheap.
Meanwhile, Schiau has announced that once the price returns to normal, it will donate 33% of its revenues from Alchemize to charity, in the form of a 19-year-old transplant patient who is fundraising online.
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The mobile games market, like the digital music market before it, is selling itself well below its market value, and the only people who are benefitting from this in the long-term are Apple.
Sure consumers get nice and cheap games now, but decent games (like decent music) costs money to create, and if developers don't make enough money back on their games, consumers will be left with a pile of low quality games, just like how TV has resorted to cheap-to-make reality TV shows. At least in the mobile games market.
I might agree if the game was worth £1.79. But if I 'only' had £1.79 to spend on a game it would not be this one!
No doubt I would buy 3 games at 59p which play as well if not better than this one.
