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[PaulLFC]

In the past and up to now, there's been a variety of different approaches to the pricing of games that offer alpha and/or beta releases before the full game is released.

Some games choose to start off at a low price, and increase the price as the game becomes more complete and playable. Others decide to do the opposite, and price alpha access highly, then decreasing the price as the game gets more complete. Others may decide to have one set price, no matter what state the game is in.

Which approach do you think is best? The Minecraft-style "get in early for a lower price" approach, or that seen with the likes of Planetary Annihilation, which is currently charging $90 for the alpha, which will decrease to $60 for the beta, and (presumably) $30 when the final game releases? (They said these levels were set by their Kickstarter campaign, which is fair enough, however the same basic "charge more for earlier versions" idea still applies, and in fact seems to have been adopted by a lot of KS campaigns)

I prefer the first approach personally, as by buying the game early on in development you're supporting the developer and helping to keep the cash flowing for them to add more things to the game and get it to a more feature complete state. Some developers like to reward that by offering a lower price while the game doesn't contain its full feature set, and I think that's a fair approach if it provides enough income for the developers. I can see the arguments for the "high priced alpha" approach, I don't agree with it personally as I think it punishes people who are excited enough to want to play the game early, but it does keep there from being a huge amount of orders that could lead to complaints from anyone not familiar with how alphas and betas work.

There are pros and cons to each strategy really. Which approach do you prefer?

 

[Borman]

Price it lower the earlier it is. The developer cannot guarantee that the game will be completed or completed to what was promised, so it's a risk vs reward thing.

 

[StaSeb]

I do not like the idea of selling alphas and betas at all. Not because I find it immoral, but it more or less kills the wonder of the game, the surprise and freshness at release. Once in kind of easily (e.g. money buys it) accessible, I start to get exposed to it. I see lets-play-videos, read impressions on forums, see screenshots - if I want or not, because I like to be informed on games. And thus, the magic gets lost a little. I get to see the game too early and know too much of its structure and assets before launch. Worse even: I see all that in unoptimized alpha-state. At release of such games they do not have any more chance to surprise me. And that is just from my perspective as a passive user, just reading on games.

When buying into alphas and betas, you get to know the game too soon in a too bad state. Getting the final product does just feel like any other big patch. The game changes then, but you already know it. Meh. Do not want! For me a reason to stick to consoles mainly, just because there I get to see the (hopefully) final product.

 

[BadRNG]

I won't buy a game at a high price when I have no guarantee it will ever amount to anything, so obviously I'm going to go prefer the lower price model. This is part of the reason I have not bought Prison Architect yet despite it looking really interesting.

I really get why some developers go the higher price route, but ideally for me the best model would be a low price in addition to donate options that can give small rewards. This way early adopters are still incentivized to try early, while simultaneously people who want to take bigger risks/support the game also have options available.

 

[PaulLFC]

I won't buy a game at a high price when I have no guarantee it will ever amount to anything, so obviously I'm going to go prefer the lower price model. This is part of the reason I have not bought Prison Architect yet despite it looking really interesting.

I really get why some developers go the higher price route, but ideally for me the best model would be a low price in addition to donate options that can give small rewards. This way early adopters are still incentivized to try early, while simultaneously people who want to take bigger risks/support the game also have options available.

I bought Prison Architect when it was on sale (I was hesitant to buy it at full price too) and I'm actually really impressed with how much content there is and how well it works considering it's an alpha. I stayed up way too late last night playing it, there's a lot to do considering its apparently early status.

With what's already in the game, I'm really looking forward to where they go from here and what they add to it in the run up to release. It's not perfect yet, obviously, there are still some bugs, I liked this post in particular that I found on their forums:

one prisoner killed another then proceeded to punch a washing machine until it blew up and killed him too