But it will allow you to make more money on the ones that are supported by ads only and everyone likes more money.
Sure, but It’s been so long since we were banned and we’ve appealed several times, so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it because…it’s not going to happen.
Why were you banned ? And can’t people file a community petition, I am sure people here would love to help.
@DUNGEON_MASTER I appreciate your interest, but if a community petition were going to help, we would have done it sometime in the last eight years.
And we don’t know why we were banned. Google doesn’t tell you. Feel free to read the blog posts that Joel linked to.
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I’ve been thinking recently of something like CoG credits. You buy a game you get a set number of credits, you beta test a game and provide good feedback you earn a set number of credits, submit a finished game you get credits etc then people can use the credits to either go towards a game or get one outright.
Would something like that work?
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No microtransactions, please.
Maybe, and I know this might sound dumb, but while reviews on steam etc are nice and dandy, they don’t really tell someone that much.
Maybe if someone would establish a genuine review blog (that’d include the total wordcount and words per playthrough) to show if something is worth the purchase.
If you have a game with 100k words, but a playthrough has about 50k already there’s not much branching.
Take Broadsides for example. It’s a nice game, but it’s very plain, not many branches, get’s boring rather fast.
pirate is short, too, but it has more branches as such, so there’s a bigger replay value.
Also, again, more activity on twitter etc, more interaction with the fandom might help too. (and though it’s not official, maybe pin the link to the discord chat? Updated link an all is in there)
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You’re a bit late on microtransactions as they technically already have that in certain games. Heroes Rise and Choice it Zombies both offer things you can pay money for help.
Yeah, and that suuucks. We really don’t need to make that standard. It’s bad enough in other IF, where you are forced to flipping PAY to let a character show common sense. the companies that do that usually have additional sources of income…
so, no, no microtransactions on all games.
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I didn’t understand this 2.5 years ago, and I still don’t understand it.
These games, at least in the USA, are still really cheap! I mean, we are talking about purchases of between $3.00 and $5.00 for most of them. Good lord, how much does someone have to gnash their teeth over a freakin’ $4.00 purchase? Even a mediocre CoG/HG is likely going to give you a few hours of escapism. You know what, if that’s all it does, it’s still worth a few bucks!
I spent $3 on a burger today. It wasn’t great. Oh well, it was $3 and it was gone in like 45 seconds. I didn’t dwell on it. (Well, I guess I’m dwelling on it now, but just to give an example).
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- good gracious you eat fast O_o
- In europe the games are between 2,50 and 6,50 euro. (exchange rate and taxes and stuff are to blame for it), but yeah, they are totally worth the money. Usually.
And hecks, even with the games you play upfront compared to unlocking them, you can play a demo on the website.
Again, it might be to a degree that people don’t really know what they’re getting. The wordcount can be a good indicator, but not all games have that (at least on GPS). And sometimes it feels as if th pricing (at least in GPS) is a bit all over the place.
I think a lot of users are younger, and as a consequence, perhaps less financially stable, and many want to buy all of our games. In a given recent year for COG titles that would be something like … $40-60 USD. There’s also the expectation that games in general are free! But our business model doesn’t support free games. It just doesn’t. People gnash their teeth over a lot of things.
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I really don’t get why so many people are suggesting adverts.
I actually like that I don’t have to put up with those annoying things as I have to while playing other games: adverts in every two minutes, paying for certain choices or whatever other little things they can think off to force the player pay for if they want to do a half decent playthrough… etc.
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Have you considered an annual subscription model?
I envision something like $49.99 / year USD for any COG titles that come out in that time frame of one year.
It will probably be more expensive to buy the games individually, thus encouraging people to subscribe.
You could have a similar subscription model for Hosted Games as well.
45 seconds?? 
oh my
How would you know if it’s worth it? I’m sure I’m not the only one who likes a lot of COG/HG games, but not all of them. And the upcoming games list hardly gives enough information about what the games will be about.
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Food is a bare necessity that people are willing to pay whatever it takes to get it, a videogame is just a hobby and therefore the price one is willing to spend to acquire it varies. It’s a poor comparison. The minimum wage in America is somewhere around 1250$ per month, so I can see why you think those 3-5 dollars are next to insignificant but inflation and taxes vary.
In my country the minimum wage per month is 550€, give or take, some CoG games costs over 5€ (the price of 4-6 coffees), monthly subs for MMOs are usually around 14€ and AAA releases costs as high as 60€. Videogames are an expensive hobby here that not everyone can afford, specially if they have kids, are in debt or renting a house.
You also have to take into consideration that CYOAs are a niche market. You can increase the prices to compensate for the lack of sales but then you’d be pissing off the few people that are interested in the genre. Quality aside, CoG games are just text novels. They have no pictures aside from the thumbnail so you have minimal expenses in art, it doesn’t have sound so you have no expenses when it comes to hiring a composer or musician, it has no voice-acting so you don’t have to worry about paying actors for it and, since everything is sold digitally, that means less material and less expenses.
CoG/Hosted average word count is around 100-350k per game, that includes coding and path branching. I dunno, I think anything over 5 euros is a bit too much for this sort of game here where I live. I have good remedy though - not buying them. Its what people do when they can’t afford something. shrug
PS: I’m probably going to insult a lot of people by saying this but… writing is considered a hobby, at best, and a precarious job, at worst. You may think these games aren’t selling enough to compensate the amount of work you put into it but what else did you expect? Pursuing an artistic craft with the intention of making money is a pipe dream in our day and age. Unless you end up in a big company that pays well, you’ll need a second job to make do. Raising the price of your books ain’t gonna cut it on a society that treats you and your work like trash.
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First of all, it was just a 
! No fries! No sundae! It was like nom nom nom nom and done. How long should it take??
Second of all, much as @Cari-san said, I can’t imagine being bombarded with ads while trying to read what is, in essence, a story. It would be similar to me curling up at night with a good book and every 10 pages being bombarded with flashing lights or distracting images. That sounds like hell! Screw that! And talk about breaking immersion! That will definitely do it! Plus the ads are annoying click bait to begin with.
Third of all, to @IvoryOwl, it was not a poor comparison. My burger was not a necessity. It was an indulgence/discretionary purchase that I purchased on a whim, with cash in my wallet. Now if I had talked about buying a bag of potatoes to feed my family, then we’d be talking poor comparison. And I limited my statement to the USA because I’m not aware of the economic specifics of different countries. I understand that situations differ, but that’s about it.
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It’s just dependent on individual finances. I looked in the Apple app store and it seems like the few CoGs I don’t have are around $6. To me it’s not a sticker shock because I’m used to paying $9-15 for books I’ll probably read once. So $6 for Heart of the House (for a recent example) is a great deal since I’ve worn that thing out.
Harsh but true. I keep trying to push these games on my friends and the biggest turn off isn’t the price, it’s the reading.
Did you chew twenty times after each bite? 
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We’re not a big company, we’re a small company. We pay our authors, and the games take a year each (or more) to create. So, we’re making the pipe dream a reality 
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My basic answer would be because you have faith that the company will continue to put out quality material.