Afterfall: InSanity (preorder) for $1* (if 10 million people pre-order it)

G

GlassAgate

CAGiversary!
* If the game is pre-ordered 10 million times, it will only cost
you $1. Otherwise, it will cost $34.


http://www.afterfall-universe.com/en/index

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/10/afterfall-insanity-will-be-1-if-it-hits-10-million-pre-orders/

As of October 15, there are 16,826 pre-orders.

You can pre-order more than once, and for each one, will get
an access key. Pre-order it 10 times, and add 10 to the counter.


Um, is it okay to post about this kind of deal?

For the record, I am in no way connected to the dev's nor pub's. I don't have any sort of
friendship with them, either.
 
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[quote name='TctclMvPhase']You're right SSJ, there's no point in a back and forth as I am clearly talking over your head as evinced by your complete misunderstanding of the economic meaning for the term "substitutes". Coupled with your refusal to admit anf correct prior wrongdoing or see alternative points of view any further discussion (and arguably previous discussion) is beyond fruitless. Enjoy your opinion.[/QUOTE]

Complex words.
 
17k so far.. yeah.. they're gonna make it...


..maybe by 2048


Oh, and the charity is Amnesty International.

I do wish they'd clarify if you are locked into buying it if it doesn't sell 10mil.
 
I'm not sure their intention was to ever make this. I mean if this game for 10 Million Preorders it might be on track to outsell Modern Warfare 2. I think it was purely marketing and to give them some funding a bit early. I still put in my dollar on the first day just in case it turns out or they end up giving the game anyway.
 
Yeah I'm going to donate $1 too. I would've since day 1 and I think others here would have too if we had known for sure they wouldn't force us to pay the remaining amount when they don't reach their goal. The OP should update the first post to clarify this since it's partly what we were basing our info and thus our anger on

I stand by my statements earlier that they are still misleading people into thinking they're pre-ordering the game for $1. They really won't be getting much sales from the experiment at all.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']Yeah I'm going to donate $1 too. I would've since day 1 and I think others too if I had known for sure they wouldn't force us to pay the remaining amount when they don't match their goal.

The OP should update the first post to clarify this since it's partly what we were basing our info and thus our anger on[/QUOTE]

That was my concern the first day as well. I'm not sure if I read it somewhere or it was explained by the video but I know they explicitly stated they would send you a $1 off coupon for the full purchase. Also if you pay via paypal then there is no way they can make you pay the rest.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']There should be no strings attached here, no 10 million needed to get it for $1. It should be a dollar straight up. That would be a huge success and I guarantee they'd have a hell of a lot more pre-orders right now. And since they're making 2 more games, they could essentially get a loyal base of fans to buy those games at full price based on the merit they earned from the first, rather than the lot here who pre-ordered this thinking it would only cost them $1.[/QUOTE]

No game of that quality should ever cost a dollar straight up. The Apple App Store completely changed the way people think about games because of their $1 apps, imo for the worse. People expect a LOT more from games because if a $60 game can't give them the amount of hours of fun a $1 Angry Birds type game can, then why bother buying the $60 game at all? Or even further, 60 $1 games (even if half suck ass) will have much more value than one AAAA $60 title.

If they sold their game for $1, all that would do would feed consumer greed and increase their expectations of game companies, which ultimately makes it a LOT harder for us game companies to make any money. If we spend $250k on a big budget indie title, we'd need 250k in sales (more like 300k if there's profit sharing with Apple/Android/Steam/etc...) just to break even in game dev costs. Then there's tax, living expenses (mortgages, food, etc...), and home office overhead that would vastly increase their breakeven point. We are looking at probably something in the range of 400k in sales for a true breakeven. There is way too much risk in that. There's NO guarantee their game would be a "huge success" if they sold it for $1 and if they did release their second game at full price, they would lose a VAST number of their fan base due to them all expecting it to be a $1 game again.

So lets not be greedy or ignorant here. If you really think that a game of that quality should be $1, then you are part of the problem.

I commend these devs for creating such a unique and great marketing strategy. They have no chance in hell to get to 10 million pre-orders, but what they did do was successfully and exponentially increase their game's visibility, which will increase their sales considerably.
 
I'll meet you in the middle. This game would not benefit from a $1 price tag, but on the flip side $35 for a indie european title isn't exactly a good strategy either (I'd be curious to know if games get the same sorta tax breaks that movies do in some parts of europe). In regard to breaking even: somehow Shadowgun and Infinity Blade were able to be successes at $5-8, and like Afterfall they're not games that look like they were whipped up in an afternoon, even Hard Reset managed to start off with an MSRP that was $5 less than this and it looks about twice as good quality-wise. As far as risk in cheap games goes, that could be true, or it could be false, the idea is rather untested.

I commend these devs for creating such a unique and great marketing strategy. They have no chance in hell to get to 10 million pre-orders, but what they did do was successfully and exponentially increase their game's visibility, which will increase their sales considerably.
Click to expand...
Not me, I'm not a fan of the "any publicity is good publicity" approach... that's how we get babies named Turok, golden palace streakers, and "all I want for xmas is a psp." Personally the whole thing gives me a bad vibe: what charity does this go to exactly?
 
[quote name='VaultDweller']the human fund[/QUOTE]

Oh well if that's the case I'll pass, I already give to the human fund during festivus
 
[quote name='Darknuke']No game of that quality should ever cost a dollar straight up. The Apple App Store completely changed the way people think about games because of their $1 apps, imo for the worse. People expect a LOT more from games because if a $60 game can't give them the amount of hours of fun a $1 Angry Birds type game can, then why bother buying the $60 game at all? Or even further, 60 $1 games (even if half suck ass) will have much more value than one AAAA $60 title.

If they sold their game for $1, all that would do would feed consumer greed and increase their expectations of game companies, which ultimately makes it a LOT harder for us game companies to make any money. If we spend $250k on a big budget indie title, we'd need 250k in sales (more like 300k if there's profit sharing with Apple/Android/Steam/etc...) just to break even in game dev costs. Then there's tax, living expenses (mortgages, food, etc...), and home office overhead that would vastly increase their breakeven point. We are looking at probably something in the range of 400k in sales for a true breakeven. There is way too much risk in that. There's NO guarantee their game would be a "huge success" if they sold it for $1 and if they did release their second game at full price, they would lose a VAST number of their fan base due to them all expecting it to be a $1 game again.

So lets not be greedy or ignorant here. If you really think that a game of that quality should be $1, then you are part of the problem.

I commend these devs for creating such a unique and great marketing strategy. They have no chance in hell to get to 10 million pre-orders, but what they did do was successfully and exponentially increase their game's visibility, which will increase their sales considerably.[/QUOTE]

Have you seen their advertising? I guess they must think lowly of their own game if they're trying to get people to only pay a dollar for it. I'm not being ignorant or greedy here, I'm just basing my reasoning on their own claims. If they want people to get the game for $1 then don't make anyone go through hoops to do that. Unless...they never really expected to sell the game for $1. Pardon me while i pretend to look shocked.

And I think people like you fail to realize that if they sold the game for $1, there's a possibility they'd get even more revenue out of it than just selling the game for $33.90. Games on Steam do it quite often successfully, even polished AAA looking titles. I recall an article from a few years ago that provided evidence of the low price/high sales vs higher price/lower sales argument too but I'm not sure what terms to google to find it again (I read it on Kotaku, if anyone can assist I'd appreciate it)

It's not like this digital game is somehow going to expire. If it's a dollar, it's a dollar forever. Over the following months, assuming the game is even worth purchasing, there is a strong possibility it could bring in a greater stream of revenue at $1 than it would in the short term at full price. Would you disagree with that? In the short term this experiment is gaining them exposure. But it's not even all positive. They're deluding many into believing they're getting the game for a dollar and I'm sure most of those people won't buy the game at full price afterwards. So how many sales do you think they'll actually get out of this strategy?

Let's say they are lucky and 5,000 of the people who pre-ordered the game to buy it at full price. That's $169,500. Now let's say they did something radical, which they really seem game for doing and sold this high end game for $1. That would be "truly epic" no doubt and would also get their name spread around the internet even faster than this experiment is doing. Hundreds of thousands would probably end up buying it for $1 because why the hell not? If it's terrible it was only a dollar. Doing this in the long run I believe they could accumulate several hundred thousand downloads if not in the millions. In the long run, the game at $33.90 simply won't have legs. It won't get much exposure at all after this is done with and they'll probably discount the game significantly anyway but by then it wouldn't be fresh in anyone's mind and thus won't have the same impact as being low from the start.

This is all hypothetical though. We can't predict how many they truly will sell at full price, or how many they could sell at a dollar, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it doing better at a $1 than at full retail. And my original point wasn't even to single out this game to sell for a dollar. It was more about how misleading their website and advertising has been. If it wasn't for how obnoxious they were at throwing the $1 thing in my face I'd never suggest they sell it for that price no strings attached. But at the same time I think $33.90 is too much. Even if they just sold it for $10 it would probably bring in more money over the course of the game than right now.

Note that I also said that selling it for cheap would also do a lot to build loyalty for their future titles. They stated this is the start of a trilogy. If they build a firm base of fans, even by selling the game at a loss, it's possible they can gain a following of people who would buy the sequels at full price no questions asked.
 
[quote name='iamsmart']Oh well if that's the case I'll pass, I already give to the human fund during festivus[/QUOTE]

Lol, oh the irony.
 
I think this is the article I was alluding to above. I'm not saying it's a sure thing that the lower priced your game is the more money you bring in, but you can't ignore that possibility. For an indie developer where losing money is often a way of life, the risk may be worth it in the long-run.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/08/software-pricing-are-we-doing-it-wrong.html

Aug 5, 2009

Software Pricing: Are We Doing It Wrong?

One of the side effects of using the iPhone App store so much is that it's started to fundamentally alter my perception of software pricing. So many excellent iPhone applications are either free, or no more than a few bucks at most. That's below the threshold of impulse purchase and squarely in no-brainer territory for anything decent that I happen to be interested in.
But applications that cost $5 or more? Outrageous! Highway robbery!
This is all very strange, as a guy who is used to spending at least $30 for software of any consequence whatsoever. I love supporting my fellow software developers with my wallet, and the iPhone App Store has never made that easier.
While there's an odd aspect of race to the bottom that I'm not sure is entirely healthy for the iPhone app ecosystem, the idea that software should be priced low enough to pass the average user's "why not" threshold is a powerful one.
What I think isn't well understood here is that low prices can be a force multiplier all out of proportion to the absolute reduction in price. Valve software has been aggressively experimenting in this area; consider the example of the game Left 4 Dead:
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell announced during a DICE keynote today that last weekend's half-price sale of Left 4 Dead resulted in a 3000% increase in sales of the game, posting overall sales (in dollar amount) that beat the title's original launch performance.​
It's sobering to think that cutting the price in half, months later, made more money for Valve in total than launching the game at its original $49.95 price point. (And, incidentally, that's the price I paid for it. No worries, I got my fifty bucks worth of gameplay out of this excellent game months ago.)
The experiments didn't end there. Observe the utterly non-linear scale at work as the price of software is experimentally reduced even further on their Steam network:
The massive Steam holiday sale was also a big win for Valve and its partners. The following holiday sales data was released, showing the sales breakdown organized by price reduction:

  • 10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
  • 25% sale = 245% increase in sales
  • 50% sale = 320% increase in sales
  • 75% sale = 1470% increase in sales
Note that these are total dollar sale amounts! Let's use some fake numbers to illustrate how dramatic the difference really is. Let's say our hypothetical game costs $40, and we sold 100 copies of it at that price.


fafaz.jpg


If this pattern Valve documented holds true, and if my experience on the iPhone App store is any indication, we've been doing software pricing completely wrong. At least for digitally distributed software, anyway.
Click to expand...
 
You know what I just realized? They're charging a 0.17 fee for "cost of delivery and key generate". Since they're clearly not going to reach 10 million (and they know this) and no one is getting any keys generated this is all free money that they're getting from doing this charity.

So you say it's only 17 cents, but multiply that by 17,435 pre-orders and that's $2,963.95. None of that money goes to the charity (which is Amnesty International btw) but they're essentially getting paid that amount for this marketing campaign. You have to realize that they thought of this in advance and figured most people wouldn't really miss 0.17 and not think of the bigger picture here. I'm sure they expected more than 17K pre-orders too. I bet they were aiming to make at least $10,000 free and clear from this. And to top it off, they'll likely get to write off the money donated as a deductible since they're the one's donating it not you. You're just pre-ordering a game.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']You know what I just realized? They're charging a 0.17 fee for "cost of delivery and key generate". Since they're clearly not going to reach 10 million (and they know this) and no one is getting any keys generated this is all free money that they're getting from doing this charity.

So you say it's only 17 cents, but multiply that by 17,435 pre-orders and that's $2,963.95. None of that money goes to the charity (which is Amnesty International btw) but they're essentially getting paid that amount for this marketing campaign. You have to realize that they thought of this in advance and figured most people wouldn't really miss 0.17 and not think of the bigger picture here. I'm sure they expected more than 17K pre-orders too. I bet they were aiming to make at least $10,000 free and clear from this. And to top it off, they'll likely get to write off the money donated as a deductible since they're the one's donating it not you. You're just pre-ordering a game.[/QUOTE]

Reminds me of Office Space. I guess theyll siphon off what little they can and write off the rest on taxes(if they can). I would have picked this game up at ten dollars or less, but 35 is too high. This is CAG. So unless they get their game on steam during a sale they're not getting my money.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']I think this is the article I was alluding to above. I'm not saying it's a sure thing that the lower priced your game is the more money you bring in, but you can't ignore that possibility. For an indie developer where losing money is often a way of life, the risk may be worth it in the long-run.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/08/software-pricing-are-we-doing-it-wrong.html[/QUOTE]

Thats basically a restatement of the Laffer Curve, only with price on the X-Axis instead of tax rate. Your intuition is right though because its a parabolic relation, meaning that at some point the price will also be dropped too far and start to diminish profits.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']You know what I just realized? They're charging a 0.17 fee for "cost of delivery and key generate". Since they're clearly not going to reach 10 million (and they know this) and no one is getting any keys generated this is all free money that they're getting from doing this charity.

So you say it's only 17 cents, but multiply that by 17,435 pre-orders and that's $2,963.95. None of that money goes to the charity (which is Amnesty International btw) but they're essentially getting paid that amount for this marketing campaign. You have to realize that they thought of this in advance and figured most people wouldn't really miss 0.17 and not think of the bigger picture here. I'm sure they expected more than 17K pre-orders too. I bet they were aiming to make at least $10,000 free and clear from this. And to top it off, they'll likely get to write off the money donated as a deductible since they're the one's donating it not you. You're just pre-ordering a game.[/QUOTE]

If they're not delivering any keys then they shouldn't be charging this amount.
 
I have watched this, but will not pre-order. I am interested in the game itself, but I need demos, reviews, or general word of mouth for me really to jump into a pre-order gig.
 
[quote name='Guerrilla']Ten days to go and they only have 18,261 preorders. That's less than 1,500 people since October 15th. :lol:[/QUOTE]

I'll be honest.. I completely forgot this game existed until you posted, bringing this topic back to the first page LOL.
 
I think no one wants to preorder the game knowing that it will not get 10 million, so they do not want to pay the full $25 or $35. I do not really lame anyone for not preordering at such a ridiculous number.
 
[quote name='clonesniper666']I think no one wants to preorder the game knowing that it will not get 10 million, so they do not want to pay the full $25 or $35. I do not really lame anyone for not preordering at such a ridiculous number.[/QUOTE]

I think if they had done 1 million or even said the first 100,000 who preorder get the game for $1 and anyone thereafter 25% goes to charity they would have had better luck.
 
Ouch, this was released today. I feel bad for them as they did seem to mean well but they really did a piss-poor job of conveying the offer and even the charity rejected them :/ ... I'm positive Amnesty has accepted money from media that don't always portray "happy" subjects (e.g. a death metal band). The nerve of them to actually reject money being given to them because they don't agree with the company's work. I'll think twice about that next time. I'm sending this out to some media outlets as it needs to be publicized.
Amnesty International: Afterfall: InSanity is too brutal

Amnesty International terminated the agreement on cooperation in “Afterfall In:Sanity $1 pre-order” action. AI justify it’s decision with a fact that the game is shockingly brutal.
The decision to terminate the agreement reached us before the end of pre-order action. In a document explaining the reasons of breach of cooperation representative of Amnesty International in Poland commentates that the brutality of the game doesn’t go hand in hand with Amnesty International ideology.
The cooperation agreement between AI and Nicolas Games was a part of “Afterfall:InSanity $1 pre-order” action. The pre-orders campaign is based on a revolutionary offer – video games fans around the world are mobilizing to reach a goal number of ten million pre-orders. If the number of pre-ordered games reaches that goal then 10% of the income will be donated to charity organization (which was to AI). Also, anything above ten million will be shared 50/50 between our company and organization. If the number of pre-orders doesn't break 10 mln, then all of the money collected from pre-orders will be donated to charity, and also the game Afterfall: InSanity will be sold at the price of $33.90 (this price reflects a $1 discount for those who contributed to the pre-order effort).
In view of breaking the contract by AI, we have decided to change way of donating money that gamers have collected. In the last week of pre-orders the players who took part in the "Afterfall: Insanity $ 1 pre-order" will choose the charity organization by the particular poll sent them by e-mail.
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']Ouch, this was released today. I feel bad for them as they did seem to mean well but they really did a piss-poor job of conveying the offer and even the charity rejected them :/ ... I'm positive Amnesty has accepted money from media that don't always portray "happy" subjects. The nerve of them to actually reject charity., I'll think twice about that next time[/QUOTE]

I have 2 things to say about this: 1) What did Amnesty think a game called "Afterfall: Insanity" would be? Unicorns and rainbows? and 2) I find it funny that the developer put that on the front page of their website. Easy publicity stunt to show off their "brutal" game.
 
[quote name='fishphoenix']I have 2 things to say about this: 1) What did Amnesty think a game called "Afterfall: Insanity" would be? Unicorns and rainbows? and 2) I find it funny that the developer put that on the front page of their website. Easy publicity stunt to show off their "brutal" game.[/QUOTE]

He had to announce something or it would have been an even worse situation. My guess is the partnership was setup and then some big wig at AI saw the promotion and game and freaked out pulling support.

It will be interesting to see what they do next:

Thank you for participation in "Afterfall: InSanity $1pre-order" action!
We'd like to thank you all for your participation in "Afterfall: InSanity $1 pre-order". Next week everyone of you will receive the mail with a nice surprise and a official resume of the action. We will also choose together the charity organization that collected money will be donated to.
Click to expand...

I wonder what the surprise will be. Any short of free games for those that donated is probably not enough. So far Metacritic isn't being too kind to the game either:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/afterfall-insanity
 
meh less than thrilled with the "Surprise"

"We have two surprises for gamers who participated in "Afterfall: InSanity $1 pre-order"! The first one is a free soundtrack with a music inspired by Afterfall Universe. It contains Pablo Macedo Camacho track"

"And the second surprise is a 50% discount on Afterfall: InSanity! In next few days you will receive the email with a special code entitling to buy Afterfall: InSanity in a half price on the platform gamersgate.com :)"

Being as Gamer's Gate the game runs around $35 I will be passing.
 
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