I think more people have been finding the forums, but tbh, google has been saying 5k downloads or fewer for most (not all – the bigger named ones have far more downloads) for ages. Could just be my Play Store glitching, tho.
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What game costs $6.99 for 100,000 words?
I actually must have misremembered – it was 200k for $5.99 (at least as listed on the website); my mistake. That does make a rather large difference, doesn’t it 
Sorry about that, @Mary_Duffy.
That being said, most of the rest of my points are still valid. Sorry again for misspeaking.
The market seems to bear the prices well enough. Like y’all said, purchases have not gone down. I even see pretenders over in the free game area, some cheap-looking visual choice games that are apparently doing well with freemium chicanery. I’d rather high prices than that any day of the week.
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I just want to make sure you realize how much I respect that. Having written and published non-fiction stuff before, I can guarantee that CoG treats its writers incredibly well, and that’s one of the reasons I like this company. Still, as @IvoryOwl said (quite well, may I add), there is a really big salary gap between US and EU, especially when we come from the poorest european countries. With 7€ I can have a very good meal in a regular restaurant (or 14 regular coffees if I know the cheapest places), and food is a necessity.
Maybe it all comes down to the difference between America, where everything os brutally expensive and a 1200€ salary is low (oh boy, that’s quite the good salary out here, our average is 700€), and Europe. I was just commenting that while I have been glad to buy CoG’s releases even with the past price increases (which were totally justified, people need to get paid), with the latest games CoG has actually lost money from my end of the table, because I would usually buy most of your 4-5€ games, and now I almost never buy them for the listed 6-8€. That’s just too much for my pocket. But hey, if you lose a regular client to win two different regulars for more money, that’s a good business decision.
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I have zero inside knowledge on this; no one discussed with me the ideal price point for Rebels (and I didn’t expect them to) or the criteria CoG use to make that call. But looking at the examples you guys are discussing – Slammed vs Hero Unmasked, for example, or the variation in the HR books – I’d make a wild guess that CoG is setting prices according to demand. The games that are most popular get a price bump. That’s also consistent with Choice of Robots costing $9.99 or whatever it costs these days.
Moral of the story? Buy your copy of Rebels now. 
it’s interesting to read over this old thread again, especially Jason’s explanation of CoG’s thinking way back at their second ever face-to-face company meeting. It reminds me how much inflation there’s been not just in prices but in expectations of game length (“Similarly, when you start to get into the neighborhood of 100k words, we think that’s worth $3… Heroes Rise is a very long 110k words,” and yes, I remember just how long it felt to me when I first read it one hot night in Ed Daein).
Jason links to another forum member’s analysis of CoG’s payment terms, which is worth reading in full. It’s basically all still valid, and ends with, “What this is all leading up to, is to point out that one of the main reasons CoG needs to charge for games is specifically so they can pay their writers well. It isn’t there so Jason can drive limousines into swimming pools and do Scrooge McDuck style dives into large piles of cash.”
Anyway, Jason’s posts on that old thread testify to how much thought CoG puts into the pricing of their games. While they’re more close-mouthed about it these days than they were back when they first incorporated, I’m sure they’re looking at things like the impact on sales rates and piracy.
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What are you going to do with your “coffee money” build a swimming pool to fill it with that vile black stuff? 
Anyway I’m good, bought mine as soon as I could.
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Please keep this thread civil guys. If you guys want to escalate this in a personal level, kindly pm each other instead.
Edit: Tagging mods
@Eiwynn @Havenstone
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Thx, that’s exactly what I meant.
Agreed, this does not need to get personal on either side of the discussion.
Please keep the conversation family-friendly orientated.
Discussion is encouraged but turning an argument personal does no one good. It puts the other person on the defensive and the purpose of the thread becomes overwhelmed by such attacks.
Please be considerate of the community, each other and the administrative staff that runs this community.
If something in a post bothers you, for any reason related to forum rules or behavior, then you should flag it. Disliking a particular post and flagging it for that reason is different then flagging a post (or every post) of someone you dislike just because you dislike them.
Each moderator I’ve ever dealt with has been willing to listen to my concern, consider it and to reasonably keep me in the loop of any action taken as a result. Sometimes, a moderator may disagree with me but if that is the case, then I found them to be respectful of both me and my reasons for flagging a post in the first place.
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I really fail to see how I wasn’t civil in my comments.
Ok, the negativity wasn’t my intention when I posted my comment.
If this strategy works for CoG and its authors, I’m totally fine with it. I was just sharing my highly subjective reaction to the latest price increase and the reduction of the amount of money I spend with CoG (my wallet certainly appreciates it 
). I’ll still buy CoG’s product, but only occasionally (like Choice of Rebels, which is great, congrats to @Havenstone for it), but that is my decision and my own circumstances. I’m not entitled to demand that CoG changes its policies because of me and of my own decisions. I was just putting it out there that maybe CoG is going to lose the regularity of some customers, which will certainly keep buying the games, but a reduced amount of them. Nothing wrong with it as long as the company is aware of that reality (if it is a reality, I may be an isolated case) and doesn’t get damaged by it.
As long as the money keeps entering and fueling the amazing list of games CoG and HG has been creating, and increasing the gains of all those involved (from the authors to the great team behind the company), great!
@ruhenri out. 
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You just have to buy the games at release to take advantage of the sale that’s usually going on.
Price increase? What price increase? I don’t see no price increase.
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This is true. We all know when they come out, so no reason to get any new ones at full price.
Just a suggestion, I know they’re always looking for beta testers for upcoming games. I’ve tested some in the past and those ones at least have been very close to what comes out in the stores and you can get them for “free” that way (although you need to put in the time to read them and makes some comments, but if you were planning on buying it anyway and have enough time to test it, it’s a good deal in my opinion and an alternative to buying them in the stores.) I know it’s nice to have them bought and on your phone to read when ever you like, but as a student myself, I get that budgeting needs to happen for things like game purchases. At least this way, if you’ve had a chance to read it in beta, you can tell if it’s something you want to buy and read over again in the future when the store version comes out.
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Like someone else in this thread (too hard to find now…) I’ve produced a huge amount of writing this year (around 500,000 words) while writing full-time, and what I’ve been paid amounts to far, far less than minimum wage. I’m 35 and constantly borrowing money from my parents (which is just as humiliating as you’d imagine)—and I’m one of the lucky ones, with (mostly) understanding parents and partner.
So on the side of “artists should be paid” there is a LOT of work going into these games (much of which is hidden due to their interactive nature). Most full-time book authors take a year to write a book, and it’s probably similar for IF authors. So what you’re paying for is literally a year’s worth of work. Most books average $20 in price, so games are a bargain.
I also know (due to being around the traps for a while now) that COG is actively increasing their quality control in several ways. Official games get several different professional editors AND crowd-sourced beta testing. That, again, adds up to a lot of man-hours. It’s incredibly rare for a COG game to crash (in fact I’ve never heard of it happening even once) for precisely that reason. Games are also getting longer and longer on average which means they’re objectively worth more these days.
The simple fact is, the games are selling. That in itself indicates the prices are fair. (The rich/poor divide and fair wages is a whole other story.)
I do know what it’s like to be too poor to buy a cup of coffee (or tea, or to ever venture inside a cafe for any reason), or medicine, or a bus ticket. I have literally been there. When you’re poor, however, you still have some choices. When it comes to COG games, beta testing is a great way to go. Yes, you have to take the time and thought to actually provide comments on the game—but if you have time to play a game you have time to talk about it. Plus if you’re super poor you won’t be able to go to dinner or a movie with friends… but there are lots of cool people here on the forum who don’t cost anything to talk to. It’s not the same as meatspace, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing.
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Not to BUMP the thread but I just had a (or at least, what seems after 2 seconds of planning) to be a good idea!
Simply, we allow people to ‘pre-order’ the games, but instead of going through all the hassle of uh… however pre-ordering works you just use the beta-test link.
I was thinking like on Patreon, where it’s like: pay £20 a month and get this, but with one-off purchases.
I’m not sure, morally, how good it is because effectively their just paying to be a beta- tester without the testing (and maybe pay money to add specific suggestions in (not like grammar errors to be fixed or a whole new character, but maybe they could ask for more choices?)
Now I think about it, although I can see some kinda gaping problems (as in, can’t people already provide feedback and ask questions for free, and is paying your way into the beta testing (although I assume they wouldn’t take up a space for an actual tester) okay?
But it could also give a bit of revenue pre-release to take time off work to push the last chapters, spend money on some artwork/ professional testing etc, or even advertisements.
Although I realise it might not decrease the price for everyone else, it might be a way to keep prices low because if the author expects (obviously, this is whole price, he could/ will receive less as actual profit) £40,000 (completely making these up), and there might be 10,000 downloads, he would charge around £4 for the game, but if 20 (I also realise I’m not going to subtract these 20 from original 10,000 since I’m lazy) decide they want ‘early access’ and the author already has (£20/25 each, maybe?) £400 / £500.
…Okay now doing the maths I can already tell it’s only going to have a small effect (from £4 for the game to £3.95, which is a tiny amount, so maybe this idea sucks 
) But what do you guys feel about ideas like this
Random Maths to justify ^^
Assume want £10,000
Assume [NEED TO RESEARCH MONEY MADE, AMOUNT OF DOWNLOADS, WILL BE BACK]
Let’s say as a random base price, the game costs $5 USD, and we’re also assuming the contract is for 25% royalty.
That right there is $1.25 per sale.
If you have 20,000 purchases, the gross is $100,000 and the author’s cut is $25,000.
Is that right?
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