Let’s discuss the pricing of Steel Beasts. I don’t see the price of $125 itself as a problem, since I don’t think it’s too expensive. But I do have a problem with its lack of economic rationale. Others seem to view the price itself as a problem, given that they feel the need to defend it.
Marko is just not convincing
when he says thatAlso sales volume plays a part.
If your selling thousands of copies you can well afford to reduce the cost of the finished product.
Cover your development costs and still make a profit.
Unfortunately SB is a niche product.
Also some potential new customers who think SB is over priced do not realise there buying ten years of upgrades.
The problem with that is that Steel Beasts now, and games in general now, are primarily digitally distributed. In fact, right now there is no DVD option in the eSimGames store. Overhead for PC gaming is relatively low due to the lack of physical copies to make and store. They’re not buying “ten years of upgrades,” whatever those are. They’re paying upfront the rough cost of 1 year of an MMO subscription, plus $40 periodically for upgrades to maintain multiplayer capability. And upfront cost is an incredibly powerful psychological force. If you don’t believe me, just watch this CSB safety video about DuPont’s fatal phosgene accident in 2010:
Mirzayev makes an unconvincing argument
when he says thatHonestly, when compared to simulations of its caliber, Steel Beasts isn't that far off on pricing. For example, Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations retails for $80 (not including DLC, which is actually cheap at $2.99 a piece), Gary Grigsby's War in the East is $80, and all DLC pushed the price to $110. Both of these games are acknowledged as being top tier for their specific focal area, and both have relatively niche markets.
Also, the price is relative towards the market it is geared towards. Compare Pro PE's price of $125 to VBS2's civilian version price of $500 upon release of VBS3. I would say that Steel Beasts Pro PE is not overpriced for what it does, and for what it represents.
In addition to what I said above about digital distribution, the problem with that is that Steel Beasts is $125 even before the $40 upgrades, which are DLC on steroids that you either buy or get locked out of multiplayer. You can argue about how much more you get than conventional DLC for your $40, and you would have a valid case, but getting locked out of multiplayer if you don’t buy isn’t the best outcome. And the cost of the VBS2 civilian version likely reflects that the “civilian” version is meant for military personnel to work with in a more casual way, much as Steel Beasts Pro PE is also intended for. In that case, Bohemia Interactive charges that amount because the military market is willing to pay that amount, while the civilian market generally is not.
Rotar, I’ve got to disagree with you when
you say thatI seem to remember reading that SB Pro PE generates the largest portion of their tech support issues even though we're a significantly smaller portion of their income.
Yes, Ssnake has mentioned that before and now. But what both of you are implying doesn’t make sense. Back in 2006,
Ssnake said thatA standard classroom license for 10 PCs is $18,000.
I don’t know if their classroom license costs have changed, but $125 per Steel Beasts Pro PE copy sold + $40 upgrades doesn’t sound like much compared to $1,800 per Steel Beasts Pro copy sold + undoubtedly more expensive upgrades by military clients, and all of their military clients in total have a lot more people than the civilian enthusiast market currently provides. In short, it doesn’t sound like the current Steel Beasts Pro PE price model can compensate for increased tech support overhead in any meaningful way.
Neither can I think much of
Nate Lawrence or
RogueSnake in their statements using DCS and its DLC totaling over $800. Firstly, DCS DLC requires DCS World, which is free. Secondly, DCS DLC is so varied as to practically constitute whole new games. Buying DCS: Flaming Cliffs 3 and DCS: Combined Arms delivers similar, but not identical in detail, gaming experiences to buying Flaming Cliffs 3 and Steel Beasts. And Steel Beasts locks you into an armored warfare experience, whereas DCS allows you experiences ranging from WWII fighter aircraft to modern air combat to helicopters to basic ground warfare with air support. In short, the two of you are comparing apples and oranges.
Of course, all of you miss an
important point that Ssnake himself admittedI will also admit that the original pricing structure was designed to set up a warning sign against impulse buyers. This was done to protect them and us from a big misunderstanding, that SB Pro PE would be something like "Quake on tracks", some egoshooter/action game. Steel Beasts Pro PE first and foremost is a training tool with which one can incidentally also have a lot of fun - if you are willing to accept the premise that it wasn't designed to be a fun game in the first place, but as a tool to support instruction of soldiers.
The literally very next post from ht-57 shows the psychology of the Steel Beasts community:
You may want to up the price of admission. In the "world of tanks" For a one year premium account its $95usd, couple that with an upper tier tank for $53usd
The Steel Beasts community is rather dysfunctional. It upholds a price that has no economic rationale and was designed to deter people, and even asks for it to be increased based on a game with an actual economic model that is designed to get people to spend lots of money without thinking about it.
I really don’t get Ssnake’s reasoning, given the wealth of Steel Beasts content on YouTube. Steel Beasts may be immersive to play, but to the ordinary gamer, watching an unedited round must be like watching paint dry. No one’s going to get the wrong impression these days. Thus, the $125 entry price results in
Ssnake getting a wrong impressionSome gaming channel a while ago generated about 100,000 views in three weeks ... which resulted in approximately 14 copies of SB Pro PE sold above the average during that time. So, given that the conversion rate of video view-to-purchase decision is close to .0001, videos tailored to a very specific audience that are supposed to generate more interest are almost guaranteed to fail their purpose.
Maybe if more enthusiast sales were the goal, and if the price wasn’t so high to begin with, then the conversion rate would have been higher. And why is he even talking about the conversion rate, given that he’s not spending a cent on community-generated videos?
All of this brings us back to the subject of the indie military games market. Last year, Rock Paper Shotgun did
an article urging indie military game developers to cut prices on their old games. The
responses he got don’t help Ssnake at all. John Tiller’s normally valid response of actively supporting his titles doesn’t apply here, since he doesn’t have eSimGames’ military contracts as a primary source of income. Shrapnel Games’ response doesn’t apply here for the same reason, and adds a pointless tangent about how great it is that they can keep selling at these prices. Slitherine Group’s response looks the most impressive, but doesn’t hold up. They cite inelastic demand curves, thinking that this magically solves everything. It doesn’t, for the exact same reason that applies to the others: they don’t have eSimGames’ military contracts as a primary source of income.
The three developers that responded to Rock Paper Shotgun are part of the indie military games market, just like eSimGames. Which leads me to a side note about what these four developers do share in common. The indie military games market has a tiny audience, no interest in expanding its audience due to perceptions of the audience being tiny, and a tradition of supporting games over the long run. These create a high barrier to entry, and thus the indie military games market is what is known as an oligopoly. Oligopolies are subject to what are known as kinked demand curves, where the elasticity of demand can change sharply depending on price. This demonstrates that Slitherine Group doesn’t have a good grasp on economics. Furthermore, said oligopoly would erode if the market expanded its audience, since a larger audience would bring in more developers. With this, combined with the fact that oligopolies are more profitable than a relatively free market, they don’t have an economic interest in expanding the audience.
That’s before we even get into psychological motives, such as one of Slitherine Group’s own developers
being accused of having paranoid personality disorder; Ssnake’s already mentioned intention to keep out impulse buyers; or when all else fails the “this is the way we’ve always done it/not invented here” mentality.
In conclusion, don’t try to defend Steel Beasts’ price. It doesn’t need defending, since it isn’t intended to be defendable at all. Its rationale is psychological and has nothing to do with economics, roughly matching the rest of PC gaming, or growing the audience.
