Jason Rohrer, creator of the home defense title The Castle Doctrine, criticised Valve’s popular flash sales in a post on his blog, calling them a “kick in the teeth” for fans.
His concern is that flash sales create a ”culture of waiting”, where rather than buying a title at full price when it releases, customers will instead wait until it’s discounted in a sale.
“To put it bluntly: sales screw your fans,” said Rohrer. “Your fans love your games and eagerly await your next release. They want to get your game as soon as it comes out, at full price. But they are foolish to do that, because a sale is right around the corner.”
Other developers have welcomed the increased sales their games receive during these special offer periods, but Rohrer isn’t convinced. ”Finally, there’s the possibility that the culture of sales actually reduces developer revenue over the long term. If just half of the players who buy the game during a 50%-off sale would have bought the game at full price if that was their only option, we’d already have a wash. What fraction of sale-waiting players fall into this category? I suspect way more than half. The picture gets even worse for 75%-off sales.”
In light of his concerns, Rohrer also explained his intentions regarding the release of The Castle Doctrine. “The final price of the game will be $16. During alpha testing, up through launch, the game has a 50% discount for $8. During launch week, the game will have a 25% discount for $12. After launch week, the game will rise to full price.” This method of rewarding early buyers instead of those who wait has been used in the past by the developers of Minecraft, among others.
You can read the full post here. What do you think of Rohrer’s argument?
