So, our webstore is up and running. It works. The problem is the reporting mechanism. There’s no efficient way to see how much we’ve collected for a given game.
What that means is that until Stripe improves their reporting functions, only WFH games will be available on the webstore (since we don’t want to sell games on which we can’t calculate a royalty).
We’ve filed a support ticket, and they’ve said that they’ll implement the new functionality at some point in the future, but there is no timeline for completion.
Yes, that’s what the webstore is. But you don’t have to wait until the end of the demo, you can buy it from the first page. cf http://www.choiceofgames.com/slammed/
I’m wondering if COG has ever thought of having one-day sales? Something like the Steam summer/winter sales, or just randomly announcing that for the whole of tomorrow, a certain game will be sold at a discounted price.
Since some are reluctant to buy COG’s games because of the ‘high’ price, maybe having a sale will entice them to buy.
Or you all could put out a selection of games on the web store and say that if anyone buys more than one title at the same time, they’ll get a discount. The more games they buy, the less they pay for each game. Like buy two at 20% off, three at 30% off
@Xt1000305: Or, @Nocturnal_Stillness, did you mean: pay $30 (or some other price that reflects a reasonable discount on the total number of games being released that year) and you can download all the games when they come out. It would add complexity to the accounting, but some ebook publishers have tried that model.
Telltale sell each episode of The Walking Dead/The Wolf Among us separately but also offer a season pass for a set price which gives you Episode one then lets you download the rest when they are released. Their Season pass is about £15 which gets you all six episodes at a discounted price (against buying them bit by bit).
What if CoG for example had a game “Choice of the Gamer” which will have five parts each has a free trial and cost £2 per part. You can get them all when they come out for a total of £10 or get a season pass for lets say £7 saving £3 which gets them part 1 then parts 2-5 can be downloaded at no additional cost when released.
The problem with comparing something like The Walking Dead to CoG is that video games often require huge up front costs. A season pass type system infuses the company with some quick cash to meet those expenses (without using other financing options) before they have finished every chapter. I see no benefit to having a pricing system like that on CoG.
I see the problem being the current royalties system as @Samuel_H_Young pointed out. I am offering a little different perspective though. Royalties are a variable cost to CoG. I believe it is somewhere around .53 cents for every game book sold (correct me if I’m wrong). By offering a season pass, CoG is taking on too much risk. Without going into too much detail, if CoG makes a bad estimate or an influx of games gets released that were unexpected, the variable cost of royalties only has a chance of increasing, which would cut into their margins. This is all under the assumption that the royalty system remains the same.
For a game selling for £1.99 the royalties are £0.35 (17.5% of total)
I know games cost more, I was just suggesting something that might get more sales. Sure in my example 17.5% of £7 is less than 17.5% of £10 but wouldn’t the potential increase in sales counter that?
I think you may be misunderstanding me. When I refer to a season pass I mean for each game like a season pass for Zombie Exodus would have got you all five parts for a price that works out slightly cheaper than if you got them one at a time. So CoG would still know how much it was selling.
@Nocturnal_Stillness: I misunderstood too, because I didn’t think of games like Zombie Exodus which have several parts. I was thinking you meant: 20 games will be released in 2014; you pay 30 money-units in January; each game receives 1.50 money-units whether or not you come back and download it when it’s released.
@Nocturnal_Stillness
Oh okay! I like that idea; it could work for Heroes Rise, Choice of the Vampire, Affairs of the Court, Zombie Exodus, and eventually, Sabres of Infinity and Demons Among Men.
I thought the same thing as Carolyne. I don’t see a problem with that kind of pricing method, but isn’t that more up to the author than CoG? I mean CoG would probably have to okay that type of pricing method, I imagine.
The option I would really like to see is being able to bulk buy something like COG points for the webstore. Maybe even at a small discount like 45 COG points for $40 or something.
Not to mention that such an arrangement helps me get rid of most of the costs for tiny transactions and helps with the monthly budgetting.
Seeing as how there’s a Palm app marketplace link on the front page, would it be possible to see Choice of Games on the Windows Store? Or would it be difficult to justify a Windows Phone option with its current market share?
