Good Question.
that depends on how much information you have. If you actually have an overview of your development cost than you can use it as a baseline. Like how many units would I need to sell at what price to break even.
I think in the beginning lot of people just look at other games of similar scope and style.
You could ask random people how much they would pay for your game... but that will be heartbreaking.
Yeah its never easy. But it is also plattform specific and if you want to do any sales. A game on a iOSapp store or mobile in genreall will bem uch cheaper than its PC version. Xcom cost around 50 € at reales on PC and only 18 on the app store. (I think there was half a year between the releases, maybe more.) It's important to look at comparable games on YOUR release plattform.
If you want to use the momentum of sales for your game you should give you some wiggle room in your initial price.
I nearly forgot one of the most important rules of selling:
It' always easier to lower a price than to increase it.
Price reduction is one of your most important tools in selling your game. Use it wisley.Thanks again. I only have a Flash game and I've been keeping that in mind, but there's not as much to compare with. Good rule about price reduction. I also have one other factor to consider: If I put a price on it I have to allow it for downloads which increases the chances of pirating/reskinning etc. If I put it up as a freebie right away I can keep it as an embed and avoid that worry. Especially since I'm not finding much justification for more than a buck or two and I can't imagine any big download numbers.
Pirating is not something you should worry about as you can not fight it. Nobody can. You have to accept it as part of any market. Pritating and even more so reskinning is actually only a real thing after you have succsess. Only very very few games got into trouble through pirating (Freelancer comes to mind).
I personally think tha most of my games are not yet worth to be sold. So I went the freebie way.
I feel you, I am a graphic designer myself. I know of the ridiculuss situation. A friend of mine (a german illustrator) was notfiied some day that a few of her works where printed on pillow cases somewhere in china. Sold on the streets of shanghai.You can do nothing about it.
I dont know about fiverr.com but similar sites from germany. They have modular system with logo parts and put them together in 5- 10 mins. At least some of them. But they are sold mostly at 30 - 100 Euros not 5 dollar. :D
You can't fight piracy without a massive legal budget. Even then its futile if the pirat operates from somewhere remote and most artists I know don't even have the money to send a cease and desist letter.
If you see a copyright violation of your stuff you can inform websites like etsy and others to take the them down. But it is your obligation as copyright holder. Not that of the website owner(differs from country to country of course).
Glad I could be of help. I will follow you.
On "Your Time" is just that. Your time is precious, and costly. Developing a game in your time, is still taking away from hours of you doing other things. If you're looking to keep track of development cost, your time is definitely one of the most important factors to count. If you want your game to be free, that's dandy, but when you're looking at it from a break even angle, how long did it take you to make the game, and how much time you plan on spending on the game after development should be measured.
Thanks, Wasteland Dan. I understand your point and have kept that in mind during development. However, much of that time was learning as I went. I'm actually a graphic artist who gave this gaming a shot. It's hard to separate the student game developer from the professional when considering the total time spent. The graphics, music etc. was much less time than figuring out all the game logic. Lot of trial and error. In any case, if I charge what's reasonable to pay myself for the time spent it would be a ridiculously high price. I'm already in the hole either way. Just trying to cut my losses.
