The thing about ZE, because of the way it was released, is that it has an oddand somewhat confusing purchasing structure. The early FTP CoGs were more or less complete. They had ads and some goofy hobbling of replay functionality but you got the whole game. Later demos of pay to play games maybe had ad support on the demos (I honestly don’t remember) but the full version is definitely ad free.
With ZE parts one and two, they were released as a complete, FTP standalone product at the time with ad support. Like its contemporaries you could actually purchase the game to eliminate ads. And then each later chapter came out and you could purchase those, but you’d still have ads if you didn’t pay for the first chapters and, if you did purchase the first two chapters, that only got you the first two chapters.
If you were buying and playing the game in real time as Jim was releasing it, and following its development online, this probably seemed natural enough. And all told, $5 for the entire game is a pretty solid value proposition. But imagine you just stumble on it on the app store. It looks like a free game and, because its text only, it’s probably easy to imagine its an amateur hobbyist project when you first download it.
So you grab it, and it turns out there’s ads but whatever. You see an option to purchase the game and eliminate ads for $2. You’re enjoying it, so you figure why not. And then you get to what is sort of an ending (leaving on the boat) but also basically a cliffhanger. And the game asks for another 99 cents. Pony up and get to another cliffhanger and another demand for payment. I think its easy after a certain point to feel like the game’s been set up to slowly bleed money out of you. It’s not obviously, it’s just that Jim sold each piece as it was completed. But the cynicism is unsurprising given the way a lot of app publishers operate.
I’m not sure that a more straightforward “free demo, pay once for complete game” would earn quite the same levels of ire Jim’s had to deal with. But given that CoG switched briefly to app store demos a few months back and now seems to have done away with them, I guess Aube I’m wrong.
Yeah, I can agree with that! I don’t think they’ve really done away with the in-app demos, though. They had it for one of the most recent titles, Yeti’s Parole Officer.
I think it was also some bad luck in the way things happened for the ZE app. My original plan was to update the app with all free content. Right as ZE released, ad revenue plummeted due to issues with the ad companies. So to make any money, we had to charge for parts 3-5. I actually resisted charging for a short time but CoG had final say and ultimately they were right to charge. For the hours and hours of work, 1-2 dollars per part is fair.
But as Wonderboy eloquently stated, the consumer doesn’t know the history.
To be honest, most of the people who complain about 99 cents or $2 dollars are probably 14 year olds. Never worked a day in their lives and expect everything just handed to them for free.
On the other hand, is it possible to have released the chapters separately? for example, for @JimD Zombie Exodus, release chapter 1 and 2 together under that title.Then release chapter 3 to 5 as “Zombie Exodus: Aftermath Expansion” and charge the full pay up front fee. So these are 2 separate titles clearly stating the original game and the expansion pack. If it’s possible to set it up that way, it might eliminate the issue all together.
@Zanity I actually discussed many options for ZE including separate apps, but it’s considerable work for CoG. Even dropping advertising from the app required too much effort. Realize too, ZE is on the HG label, so CoG didn’t really want to spend their efforts there. As a biz, they have to balance labor with reward.
I see, thanks for the input, at least it’s a bit more clear now. Basically for us, the hosted choice authors, we don’t have much of a choice =) pun intended.
The other thing to consider is that the savegame function is difficult for many people to figure out.
You will get hatemail and bad reviews for having multiple apps, like Heroes Rise. That’s something that ZEX gets to avoid, since games don’t have to transfer between apps.
you mean the save game system is a different app ? i’ve never seen that before, but i can see that being a big hassle. I don’t see this becoming a problem with choice game though.
