Bard's Tale 4 Price Change

[Ocelot570]

inXile just posted to the steam community that the more wishlists The Bard's Tale 4 gets the cheaper it will be. It seems odd that this close to release they are trying to lower the price by getting 300k to 500k wishlists. What is everyone's opinion on it?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1687048656470227058

 

[Zombra]

inXile just posted to the steam community that the more wishlists The Bard's Tale 4 gets the cheaper it will be. It seems odd that this close to release they are trying to lower the price by getting 300k to 500k wishlists. What is everyone's opinion on it?

The prevailing theory is that they decided their initial asking price was too high and would hurt sales, so they're looking for some excuse to lower it.

Personally I don't care about any of that, I'm just irritated about this stupid cross-promotion with Darkest Dungeon. What's next, Batman drinking a Mountain Dew in the corner of the screen throughout the game as a cool new "feature"?

 

[Morality Games]

inXile just posted to the steam community that the more wishlists The Bard's Tale 4 gets the cheaper it will be. It seems odd that this close to release they are trying to lower the price by getting 300k to 500k wishlists. What is everyone's opinion on it?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1687048656470227058

It has become increasingly evident that high initial asking figures for AA games are a permanent drag on popular interest. Word of mouth is god for these games and people feel a lot more comfortable recommending something to their friends if it is a favorable value for dollar scenario.

 

[getter77]

An odd move, but I imagine they want to hit the ground running as best they can---somehow not even surprising after the fact(well, that and the character nod in BTR 1 for the lady hunter) given that reaching for unorthodox solutions seems to be something of a prevailing trend when it comes to this sort of game of late at least on the western side...like Starcrawler's recent hard pivot away from the contemporary DLC model in a bid to rouse things up again after their own launch quite some time ago.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What was the price before? $39.99?

 

[Ocelot570]

What was the price before? $39.99?

I thought it was $44.99

 

[Ocelot570]

inXile just posted to the steam community that the more wishlists The Bard's Tale 4 gets the cheaper it will be. It seems odd that this close to release they are trying to lower the price by getting 300k to 500k wishlists. What is everyone's opinion on it?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1687048656470227058

It has become increasingly evident that high initial asking figures for AA games are a permanent drag on popular interest. Word of mouth is god for these games and people feel a lot more comfortable recommending something to their friends if it is a favorable value for dollar scenario.

That makes sense to me, but it seems odd that they would lower the price that much by 15 or so dollars.

 

[Morality Games]

inXile just posted to the steam community that the more wishlists The Bard's Tale 4 gets the cheaper it will be. It seems odd that this close to release they are trying to lower the price by getting 300k to 500k wishlists. What is everyone's opinion on it?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1687048656470227058

It has become increasingly evident that high initial asking figures for AA games are a permanent drag on popular interest. Word of mouth is god for these games and people feel a lot more comfortable recommending something to their friends if it is a favorable value for dollar scenario.

That makes sense to me, but it seems odd that they would lower the price that much by 15 or so dollars.

Different price model for a different audience. $45 is fleecing the small blobber enthusiast niche into buying a somewhat innovative (if streamlined) specimen of their preferred genre that has above average production values. They'll be lucky to break even, but could keep working on some level since they aren't really investor-dependent.

$30 is trying to create a Shadowrun-trilogy esque freeding frenzy by tapping into people who are casually interested in blobbers and might be tempted by the better than average, Unreal-engine powered production values. Might actually come out ahead on that one.

 

[vonAchdorf]

500k sales seem to be

:fabulously optimistic:.

 

[Morality Games]

I doubt they believe they'll get 500k sales (certainly not until after years on the bargain bin -- wishlist to purchase is nowhere near a 100% conversion), but maybe get between 200k-300k in a year after 75% and 50% summer sales.

But that's more likely to happen if people notice it is on the sale while perusing their Wishlists a year down the line.

At 45$, they're going to be crawling toward 100,000 in a year and might be 200,000 in 2-3 years (probably not though).

 

[Zombra]

Any talk of sales also should bear in mind $1.5 million+ income from the kickstarter.

 

[Morality Games]

Any talk of sales also should bear in mind $1.5 million+ income from the kickstarter.

1.5 million vanishes in about 50 seconds in the game development industry, although I think Bard's Tale IV was "offshored" to New Orleans which probably helped a bit.

 

[Zombra]

Sure. I thought we were talking about how well the game sold/sells, not the state of inXile's bank account. Carry on.

 

[Infinitron]

Where'd you get $45? It's a $40 game right now, the price hasn't changed yet. With enough wishlistings it'll go down to $35 and then $30.

 

[Morality Games]

Where'd you get $45? It's a $40 game right now, the price hasn't changed yet. It'll go down to $35 and then $30.

From a thread, I think. I've never checked it.

 

[Invictus]

$30 is the sweet spot for AA games; it is low enough to merrit a “what the hell” impulse purchase and it also doesn’t scream “indie IOs game” that you can finish in an afternoon
Games like Hellblade are the perfect example of this; a AAA games sells for $60, a AA for $30 and an indie usually starts at $20

Looking at their last video on FB, I really want the game to succeed they included so many great things like puzzles for unlocking special abilities in weapons and although they look a bit too simple (like having them written straight out in a book you just find or literally the wall behind the puzzle) but still it just looks charming so they just want to get the word out anyway they can... that is why the included the Darkest Dungeon reference to see if that fanbase can get interested in the game, which is a bit of a reach but still if they managed to get at least 10% of the buyers of Darkest Dungeon we are talking around 150,000 sales

I truly like what I see so far; the game looks great, charming and the overall vibe I get from it is that it is trying to be similar to Grimrock by appealing to old school gamers but beign accesible enough to newer gamers too

 

[RatTower]

inXile just posted to the steam community that the more wishlists The Bard's Tale 4 gets the cheaper it will be. It seems odd that this close to release they are trying to lower the price by getting 300k to 500k wishlists. What is everyone's opinion on it?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/566090/announcements/detail/1687048656470227058

Since wishlisting doesn't hurt...