I write this as someone without an apple device, so this is purely opinion and nothing else. I doubt that I would pay $40-50 for any audiogame, unless it was utterly spectacular (I'd pay substantially more than that if somebody wrote an accessible mass effect or halo, for example, but I didn't buy entombed, and that was purely based on price). It might be looking into the success of something like 3-d velocity. That was a really well done game, with a price of around $43 (originally $50). Once again quite a bit more than I was willing to pay, but I do know at least some folks did it, so perhaps it would be representative of the community's willingness to buy more expensive titles. I think though, that if you really want a product to sell, you're going to have to go beyond the current games we have - provide some new mechanic or concept that nobody else has come up with yet.
John -------------------------------------------------- From: <ma...@kidfriendlysoftware.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 10:50 To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do I didn't say they didn't like it; I just said that from the email I've received, I get far fewer requests for RPGs than other games (about 1 in 30 is a RPG request). Sports games abound, but when I push back and ask how the game would be played, I usually don't get a response. A classic suggestion is a basketball shooting game; I think it sounds pretty boring, after playing it for a few minutes. Building out an RPG would take months, and I can't see how to do any return on that investment. Assume that the game would sell for $20, of which apple keeps $7. Assume a programmer earns $40/hour. A game that takes a month to build (and I think an RPG would take far more than that) would need to generate 6,400 after apple's cut, or about $9100. At $20 per game, 500 people would have to purchase it just to break even. Given that 80% of the people never purchase, I would need 2,500 downloads to break even. I am working with the programmer who built park boss, and I will probably port that over to the iPhone. I've built a framework to mix my infrastructure with C++ code, so it might not be overly complex. Since park boss is in the direction of an RPG, or at least closer to a SIMS environment, I can see how that game goes to try to project how any RPG would go. Do you think this market could handle an RPG game for $40 to $50? --------- Original Message --------- Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do From: "dark" <d...@xgam.org> Date: 4/13/16 7:34 am To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org> @Marty, Blind people don't like rpgs? not true. Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who reply to rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask. I suspect the information you got from that statement was from a local focus group, ie, society or association for the blind. Unfortunately, such places tend to have a generally older population who are primarily interested in traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed those more likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and complex would appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames development is that there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so much that is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of blackjack over the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board game like Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game. I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games produced by companies like namco and squaresoft. dungeons and dragons do very well with basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can be represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one difference is that you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player progression over time. You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer fantasy themed card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse or talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite is an issue. These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, hearts or dice poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter a monster with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for combat, or a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether to take it with them or not. While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a little sorry none are games intended for longer or more complex play. There's nothing wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack etc or a quick arcade game, however unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing produced, indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well there are several versions of hearts for pc, why should I pay to have one on my Iphone?" this isn't meant as an attack, as I said I enjoy the games for what they are, it just saddens me to see developers now producing exactly the same sorts of games we were seeing in the community 10 years ago, especially with the greater distribution and easier development inherent on Ios, indeed it's a little ironic that with one exception all of the more complex games we've seen recently for Pc or Ios have been games produced by sighted developers who have accidently created accessible games, or have included access requests in games that are %80 accessible such as adventure to fate, where as games produced with the express intention of writing games for blind people have intended to be simpler. This isn't to say "where's audio final fantasy", only that some change and advancement would be nice, especially if kidfriendly software are doing so well as a company. All the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
