Colony Ship Early Access Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Hellraiser]

Games also are a weird market where niche products are expected to be priced solely based on the budget the developer blew (mostly) on art assets, rather than according to basic laws of supply and demand

If that were true, digital-only games should cost 1 euro.

You got me here, definitely a poor attempt on my side at explaining my point as indeed supply is infinite and one could think that it would indeed result in the 1 euro scenario, but that's under a very very basic (if not naive) understanding of the price-demand-supply relationship.

The price, supply and demand relationship is not a linear function, and in the particular case of easily "reproducible" (unit-wise) goods like games (technically there might be a variable per unit cost in the form of steam key fees) I would simplify the case to one of constant supply rather then infinite supply for modeling purposes and finding the market price equilibrium point. This is because again supply is non-factor and we don't really face any material differences from a cost perspective due to variable cost (per unit cost) being almost non-existent in a software development business, so it does not make sense to evaluate if we should produce 100 units or 50 units. Our concern is only how many units at what price the customers will buy to find the optimum. So not really supply and demand, just demand (and price).

Therefore what we get is a simplified function of just the price-demand relationship, and as a (hypothetical) business we need to decide a pricing where the revenue is optimal based on the price-demand function.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I mean even if they don't plan on including it in the game proper, making a trailer devoted to fucking large robots/mutants mocking BG3 and releasing it to youtube could bring a lot of publicity and attention

 

[JarlFrank]

Games also are a weird market where niche products are expected to be priced solely based on the budget the developer blew (mostly) on art assets, rather than according to basic laws of supply and demand

If that were true, digital-only games should cost 1 euro.

You got me here, definitely a poor attempt on my side at explaining my point as indeed supply is infinite and one could think that it would indeed result in the 1 euro scenario, but that's under a very very basic (if not naive) understanding of the price-demand-supply relationship.

The price, supply and demand relationship is not a linear function, and in the particular case of easily "reproducible" (unit-wise) goods like games (technically there might be a variable per unit cost in the form of steam key fees) I would simplify the case to one of constant supply rather then infinite supply for modeling purposes and finding the market price equilibrium point. This is because again supply is non-factor and we don't really face any material differences from a cost perspective due to variable cost (per unit cost) being almost non-existent in a software development business, so it does not make sense to evaluate if we should produce 100 units or 50 units. Our concern is only how many units at what price the customers will buy to find the optimum.

Therefore what we get is a simplified function of just the price-demand relationship, and as a (hypothetical) business we need to decide a pricing where the revenue is optimal based on the price-demand function.

There is supply and demand for games.

A certain genre has X amount of good games in it, that's the supply.
People want to play Y amount of games, that's the demand.

If I want to play a good RPG but nobody is making good RPGs, that means demand is higher than supply.

Therefore, serving an underserved niche means you're creating much-needed supply for an existing demand.

 

[Jaedar]

Is is an indie game charging 40 euro. Surely that is a scandal in itself.

Meh, still nothing compared to what Matrix Games is doing with pricing since forever.

Games also are a weird market where niche products are expected to be priced solely based on the budget the developer blew (mostly) on art assets, rather than according to basic laws of supply and demand. I remember someone making the same point in another thread about how absurd this is. Low-demand niche products that takes years of R&D to make are never cheap anywhere else.

Also for fucks sake, 40 euro is not that much after the last few years of inflation. And you could have bought it at half the price just after it went into EA.

I don't disagree. While the patreon model has its flaws, one really good thing about it is that it lets niche products get funded (although admittedly it is mostly/entirely porn so far) by basically letting people pay as much as they want.
But 40 euro is probably going to be a hard sell. I would likely think it was worth it, but I bought it way back in earliest access and paid at most 20 so it's easy to say.

 

[Hellraiser]

But 40 euro is probably going to be a hard sell. I would likely think it was worth it, but I bought it way back in earliest access and paid at most 20 so it's easy to say.

Pricing is always a gamble, I like to believe that the audience for this kind of game can afford 40 euro because they're old, Fallout is almost 26 years old, so anyone who wants more of that kind of thing should have a job by now. Furthermore the games Colony Ship is inspired by are a pleb filter, so the target audience is likely to have better paying jobs than the average joe playing COD or some NEET zoomer playing gatcha shit. Alternatively the target group for Colony Ship might be forever alone spergs with nothing better to spend money on, due to lack of wimmin, children, substances addictions (except junk food) or desires to leave the room where their PC is located.

I brought up Matrix Games for a reason, they basically assume the above and keep making niche hardcore titles priced way steeper than typical for indies, as they know there are enough customers to buy at those prices and this seems to work for them for at least 10 years if not longer.

 

[Jaedar]

I like to believe that the audience for this kind of game can afford 40 euro because they're old, Fallout is almost 26 years old, so anyone who wants more of that kind of thing should have a job by now.

It's not really about afford though, it's about feelz (why are these developers charging so much? must be greedy bastards) and opportunity cost (colony ship looks good, but do I think it looks as good as two 20$ indies together?).

I hope for the best, but I fear for the forst.

 

[Tyranicon]

I think pricing is fine.

Colony Ship is a highly niche product by a known and reputable developer. There's a demo. There's steam's refund policy. This is a classic-style cRPG with decent graphics and production value. Essentially a AA product, so it commands AA pricing.

I don't understand how people can complain over a passion project trying to keep their lights on, when fucking Starfield is 70 bucks and had a scam-level early access edition where you paid $100 to get into the beta.

Fucking conzoomers man.

 

[Efe]

what other similar 20$ games do you see around?

Let's ask a pro on advertisement.
Infinitron How would you go about shilling this game?

 

[Üstad]

Games also are a weird market where niche products are expected to be priced solely based on the budget the developer blew (mostly) on art assets, rather than according to basic laws of supply and demand

If that were true, digital-only games should cost 1 euro.

You got me here, definitely a poor attempt on my side at explaining my point as indeed supply is infinite and one could think that it would indeed result in the 1 euro scenario, but that's under a very very basic (if not naive) understanding of the price-demand-supply relationship.

The price, supply and demand relationship is not a linear function, and in the particular case of easily "reproducible" (unit-wise) goods like games (technically there might be a variable per unit cost in the form of steam key fees) I would simplify the case to one of constant supply rather then infinite supply for modeling purposes and finding the market price equilibrium point. This is because again supply is non-factor and we don't really face any material differences from a cost perspective due to variable cost (per unit cost) being almost non-existent in a software development business, so it does not make sense to evaluate if we should produce 100 units or 50 units. Our concern is only how many units at what price the customers will buy to find the optimum.

Therefore what we get is a simplified function of just the price-demand relationship, and as a (hypothetical) business we need to decide a pricing where the revenue is optimal based on the price-demand function.

There is supply and demand for games.

A certain genre has X amount of good games in it, that's the supply.
People want to play Y amount of games, that's the demand.

If I want to play a good RPG but nobody is making good RPGs, that means demand is higher than supply.

Therefore, serving an underserved niche means you're creating much-needed supply for an existing demand.

You assume good RPGs are in high demand, unfortunately you're wrong. AAA shit will mog good RPG sales by a large margin, something everyone on codex complain about, remember?

 

[Alienman]

I think pricing is fine.

Colony Ship is a highly niche product by a known and reputable developer. There's a demo. There's steam's refund policy. This is a classic-style cRPG with decent graphics and production value. Essentially a AA product, so it commands AA pricing.

I don't understand how people can complain over a passion project trying to keep their lights on, when fucking Starfield is 70 bucks and had a scam-level early access edition where you paid $100 to get into the beta.

Fucking conzoomers man.

It's not too bad, but with Steam, going with the whole indie thing, 40 bucks is a lot - talking about myself at least. Nowadays, I have a problem paying more than 20 for anything on Steam. I have been trained to wait for sales, and especially patches since most games are released in an abysmal state. 20 bucks might not seem to be a lot for dev (for a game like this, or whatever), but I think many more like me would be more willing to chance it for that price.

(I already got the game, don't kill me).

 

[JarlFrank]

There is high demand among the niche that wants them, and people within that niche are (or at least should be) willing to pay a good price for good games.

 

[Daedalos]

Honestly, we should all shill ultra hard when it releases, I know I am going to, so.

Invade reddit, youtube, steam, whereever the fuck popular games and places, and shill the FUCK out of this shit niggas, thats right.
This is where I kind of regret not having a big youtube channel to push games like this.

Maybe I should start one and grow it into something... then again, who the fuck wants to watch my ugly face and faggy voice on anything?

Vince gots to get dem moni and success

 

[Mauman]

Well....you'll get at least one zoomer to play this game. I got my Nephew to start playing these "older style" games like FO1/FO2 and a few others. He's enjoyed them so much he plans on getting this one as well.

Almost enough to forgive him for buying and liking Starbound

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Bribe Sseth to review it, I'm sure Infinitron can use his family connections to reach him and come to an agreement.

 

[Tyranicon]

Now that I thought about it, change your game tagline to "Baldur's Gate 3, but for straight men."

The gaming press that ignored you? Won't be ignoring you anymore.

Real talk, if you're not taking this tagline, I might.

Also you can add "... in SPACE" too.

 

[S.torch]

Hard truth: Colony Ship will fail commercially and will be Iron Tower's last game. Vault Dweller missed his window by not getting it out in 2022.

I'd love to be wrong.

It's not over till it's over.

You can do it, Vault Dweller.

 

[Andnjord]

$40 is but a meager amount for the MASSIVE INCLINE this game is going to bring us, my wallet is ready

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Pricing is always a gamble, I like to believe that the audience for this kind of game can afford 40 euro because they're old, Fallout is almost 26 years old, so anyone who wants more of that kind of thing should have a job by now. Furthermore the games Colony Ship is inspired by are a pleb filter, so the target audience is likely to have better paying jobs than the average joe playing COD or some NEET zoomer playing gatcha shit. Alternatively the target group for Colony Ship might be forever alone spergs with nothing better to spend money on, due to lack of wimmin, children, substances addictions (except junk food) or desires to leave the room where their PC is located.

I think that believing that because the audience prefers more complexity, therefore it's richer is fallacious wish fulfillment mixed with some meritocracy myth. I would expect the audience for more complex games/movies to not be noticeably richer than the rest of the population. And even if such connection existed I feel that it would have more to do with the fact that to pursue niche hobbies, you need to be more dedicated/less passive than the average person.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Bought it both on Steam and GoG.

 

[Hellraiser]

I think that believing that because the audience prefers more complexity, therefore it's richer is fallacious wish fulfillment mixed with some meritocracy myth. I would expect the audience for more complex games/movies to not be noticeably richer than the rest of the population. And even if such connection existed I feel that it would have more to do with the fact that to pursue niche hobbies, you need to be more dedicated/less passive than the average person.

There's more to it than just IQ, the showing initiative and dedication part you mentioned is one, but so is having an attention span long enough to bother to learn the game as well as a bunch of other things that make Fallout a pleb filter. All of these help with getting into better paid jobs than the average joe. Naturally I can't present non-anecdotal evidence for this actually resulting in better paid jobs for fans of complex games, as I doubt studies and hard data exist to prove or disprove of this hypothesis, so feel free to disagree as this is a "trust me bro" thing.

Having said that there is of course a luck factor and there is no such thing as real meritocracy in economy for various reasons, nevertheless on average at large scales these would be roughly the same for the population as a whole, and the market for games is nowadays global.

 

[0sacred]

I think that believing that because the audience prefers more complexity, therefore it's richer is fallacious wish fulfillment mixed with some meritocracy myth. I would expect the audience for more complex games/movies to not be noticeably richer than the rest of the population. And even if such connection existed I feel that it would have more to do with the fact that to pursue niche hobbies, you need to be more dedicated/less passive than the average person.

There's more to it than just IQ, the showing initiative and dedication part you mentioned is one, but so is having an attention span long enough to bother to learn the game as well as a bunch of other things that make Fallout a pleb filter. All of these help with getting into better paid jobs than the average joe. Naturally I can't present non-anecdotal evidence for this actually resulting in better paid jobs for fans of complex games, as I doubt studies and hard data exist to prove or disprove of this hypothesis, so feel free to disagree as this is a "trust me bro" thing.

Having said that there is of course a luck factor and there is no such thing as real meritocracy in economy for various reasons, nevertheless on average at large scales these would be roughly the same for the population as a whole, and the market for games is nowadays global.

so the question is, do autists have well paying jobs?

 

[lukaszek]

so the question is, do autists have well paying jobs?

they get pocket money from their gf doing only fans

 

[Hellraiser]

their gf

 

[Hobo Elf]

Games also are a weird market where niche products are expected to be priced solely based on the budget the developer blew (mostly) on art assets, rather than according to basic laws of supply and demand

If that were true, digital-only games should cost 1 euro.

You got me here, definitely a poor attempt on my side at explaining my point as indeed supply is infinite and one could think that it would indeed result in the 1 euro scenario, but that's under a very very basic (if not naive) understanding of the price-demand-supply relationship.

The price, supply and demand relationship is not a linear function, and in the particular case of easily "reproducible" (unit-wise) goods like games (technically there might be a variable per unit cost in the form of steam key fees) I would simplify the case to one of constant supply rather then infinite supply for modeling purposes and finding the market price equilibrium point. This is because again supply is non-factor and we don't really face any material differences from a cost perspective due to variable cost (per unit cost) being almost non-existent in a software development business, so it does not make sense to evaluate if we should produce 100 units or 50 units. Our concern is only how many units at what price the customers will buy to find the optimum.

Therefore what we get is a simplified function of just the price-demand relationship, and as a (hypothetical) business we need to decide a pricing where the revenue is optimal based on the price-demand function.

There is supply and demand for games.

A certain genre has X amount of good games in it, that's the supply.
People want to play Y amount of games, that's the demand.

If I want to play a good RPG but nobody is making good RPGs, that means demand is higher than supply.

Therefore, serving an underserved niche means you're creating much-needed supply for an existing demand.

This, although I think the current challenge in gaming is the logistics part. Connecting the demand with the supply is where the industry still struggles. Even now who knows how many great games there are buried somewhere within the depths of Steam with <100 reviews and thus limited storefront visibility.

 

[JarlFrank]

Even now who knows how many great games there are buried somewhere within the depths of Steam with <100 reviews and thus limited storefront visibility.

I regularly discover hidden gems like that and share them with my Romanian pal (who's a pirate so I'll just send him the game in a zip file lmao). We play the game together and discuss it, usually having a great time.

But discovering these games requires me to crawl through the depths of the Steam catalogue on my own, with nothing to guide me except for genre tags (and Steam users are notoriously terrible at using these properly).

This here is one game we immensely enjoyed:


And here's my personal favorite, a game that was even reviewed by the developer of Dusk, yet still it remains relatively obscure at 119 reviews (I also searched for it on Youtube and there is exactly ONE video that's not an official trailer or a speedrun attempt, nobody talks about this):


Discovering excellent indie games isn't easy because they're massively overshadowed by stuff with better marketing.