this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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This game gets universal praise and I'd love to play it but as a PC gamer I refuse to as I wouldn't want to support a dev who not only never does sales but raises the price because of "inflation"
Me, I wish more games respected my time like that, instead of costing 40$ and going on 20% sale every few weeks, leaving me to hunt bargain bins to be able to get it at its "efficient" price.
For me the major red flag is the price going up for inflation. The game went up in price when it left Early Access already and that was 3 years ago. But now the game is being sold as a full game sure it might get updates but one can expect a finished product to at least stay the same price, not go up.
As for sales, at least on PC games are pretty much always on sale either through steam directly or from sites like humble or greenmangaming. You can pretty much pickup any not recent game for 20% off at anytime if you search gg.deals or a similar service.
Well, inflation is real. And they are using sales income to fund current development. That's as fair as it gets.
Would you be happy if they released it at 60$ and had periodic 60% sales?
If wages are stagnant like they have been for a while (at least in USA), money has less purchasing power and people have less savings/spending money. So I wouldn't call that fair, or at least not the in the sense that "we're just adjusting it". Raising the price in economic situations like this is squeezing the customers (whether it's intended or not), and I doubt most prices hikes with successful things are just to keep the lights on.
I think this was my main problem with the reasoning being inflation. Everyone focusing on the value of the game itself. My problem is when someone blames something on inflation I think everything goes up in price except my wages lol.
But that's not the factorio developers problem, that's your governments problem. So it's a bit unfair IMO to assign the 'blame' to them.
He didn't assign the blame for his wages not increasing to Factorio, though.
That's not quite what I meant, I meant blame assigned for them increasing their price.
The devs aren't exactly billionaires either, I'm sure their groceries went up as well.
Well yes, if you do the math it would be cheaper then the $30 price point it's been for years. Actually it adds up to the same as a 20% sale of the $30 price.
I get the point you make. I can accept a game that never goes on sale. The main problem I have is it increasing price after 3 years out of early access.
The game has gotten continuous updates increasing the scope, mod-ability, stability (to an absurd degree, even cross play between Switch and PC), target new platforms (it runs on Apple silicon natively now and they did a whole bunch of work to make it work well on steam deck), etc. of the game for those same 3 years. Yes, they did come out of early access, but their approach to the game hasn't changed significantly and it continued to get better with time.
They could have called this game done way earlier and released the work they've done since as DLC, but they didn't. Instead they have massively increased the value in the game over nearly 7 years since initial early access release at $20 and have since raised the price a total of 75% to reflect this. They even gave advance notice of the both price increases.
Wube is still working on the next release of the base game, and are also working on an expansion they say will be as big as the base game. Perhaps your argument against price increases holds sway as the expansion isn't being added to the base game, instead it will be $30 (or maybe $35 given the base game increase).
I have played this game far longer than any other, and keep coming back to it when it updates or for new modpacks which completely change the experience. I would gladly pay $35 for what is in the game right now. I can understand if the game isn't for you or the price increase turns you off, you don't have buy it. In fact, unless you can afford to not sleep for the next 3 days you shouldn't, as the factory must grow and you are running low on iron.
While we disagree severely, I am grateful to hear the "other side" in a civil discussion. I suspect the no-downvote policy of Beehaw enables this discussion and hope to find more of it.
Afaik it's not done being developed. Wube is working on another update for it still, while at the same time ironing out remaining bugs. Of course it's not as fast is it was before 1.0, but they're still chugging away at it.
Your red flag is a green flag for me. It tells me the dev set a realistic and fair price in the first place, and i don't mind the increase in price specifically because it's so cheap per gameplay/hour compared to any AAA title.
If the price was $100 it would still be the best value game i've every purchased... and i think i've spent at least that much buying copies as gifts
Not to mention the mods essentially infinitely expand the base game.
Everything about how the dev has done this has been a green flag in my book, as a consumer.
I'll support any company who makes an incredible game and charges a fair price without implement IAP and such.
I dunno, I don't really see it as "respecting my time." Historically, games like this have been hit or miss for me, so I never wanted to blow over $20 on it, and I certainly don't feel like $35. I would much rather just play something else I already own or can get for cheaper until I can buy the game on a whim instead of having to commit and play "check every nook and cranny for deal-breakers during the refund window."
I would also far prefer something like what BattleBit Remastered is doing. Game came out for $15, it's one of the best shooters I've played in years, so I bought the $20 supporter pack for some in-game cosmetics. Low entry price and rewards for further support. I fundamentally disagree with raising prices on existing products and hate this idea of price FOMO that has extended past early access.
Factorio is one of the very few games that has a demo though.
The free demo allows you to figure out if you enjoy the mechanics of the game, and if you don't, you do not end up with more bloat in your library.
I don’t really understand your take. They sold the game cheap after 7 years of development and it’s still a really good value after the increases in price. I couldn’t praise the developers and how they run this game / business enough.
Factorio returns an ever increasing value for the money due to the continuous effort the developers have put in especially on modding, and on the ever expanding quality and amount of mods that gives you a whole new game many times over.
I cannot think of a game that has better value for money than Factorio.
The only downside is that you will spend an indeterminate amount of time playing the game and when you think your finally done, there is another game changing mod that will give you another full and even longer gameplay, for free.
Rimworld. It's the only other one I can think of that people play for insane hours, it's still my most played game and I've barely touched it in a long while, I think I have 1400ish, my boyfriend has over 3.5k hours
I agree big time. Rimworld is so replayable and totally worth the price of admission. Strangely enough, it's another indie game that never goes on any significant discount.
Why did you put inflation in quotes like it isn't real?
https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/usa-inflation-rate/
At $35 right now the game is reasonably priced for the amount of value you will get out of it. I believe there is an expansion on the way as well...
$35 being reasonable is an understatement. Most people take 50h to get through their first "full playthrough" and the replayability is limitless. Then there's free workshop content that'll take abase game and add another 200h onto it (Space Exploration, Krastorio, Sea Block, Bob's, Angels, etc)
Plus: They still have a free demo with no time limit too. You get exposed to the core loop within five minutes of playing and you'll know if it clicks or not for you before you even have to buy.
I bought the game at $25 but I'd buy it again at $35 and not regret anything...
I have like 400 hours and have never launched a rocket, used logistic bots, or made a train, lmao fml but I adore this game
Lol. I basically only do rail worlds now or heavy mods (I'm like 75h into a space exploration run and just started going to other planets).
But no logistics bots? You mad man
Logistic bots are a game changer. For real.
Nah, logistic bots are just a matter of convenience. While it helps with compact builds, most of the time they simply are a substitute for belts.
Construction bots are where its at.
Right you are, apologies, construction bots are a game changer. Logistic bots can be convenient though.
The quotations was due to the fact that no other digital only game increases it price after release because of inflation. I get the devs are updating the game still, but the price of the base game shouldn't go up with time. But that's just my opinion.
Off the top of my head, Rain World did it too.
Is it that different than adding expansions? The only difference is they aren't charging current owners for all the new content.
There is not really much in terms of new content. Just minor bugfixes, some optimization and modding improvements. The announced expansion will also be payed content.
They probably used quotes because it's only one part of the equation. If wages are stagnant like they have been for a while (at least in USA), money has less purchasing power and people have less savings/spending money.
Raising the price in economic situations like this is squeezing the customers (whether it's intended or not), and I doubt most prices hikes with successful things are just to keep the lights on. Which is the big issue now with rising inflation and record profits.
Wube is Czech, located in Prague, it's not like their grocery bills got smaller. Inflation figures actually don't make up for that the Crown is quite stable against the USD, both are dropping against the Euro, and Eurozone countries are Czechia's main trading partners, by, like, an enormous lot. Me buying some Czech beer doesn't really make up for importing Spanish and Italian tomatoes.
If you want to complain about rising prices blame Nestle et al as well as real estate speculation.
I mean it seems like it's been a household name for a while (I say as someone who does not closely follow pop-culture). Has their food/beer/housing money run dry? By all data that I can see, there is something wrong if they're not a multi-millionaire. That's putting it mildly as I'm sure they reached the "can live off this for the rest of my life if I don't blow it" point many times over very quickly even if you pretend early sales don't count.
Also low-cost gamedev is a lot more viable now thanks to gratis tools+internet help+modern funding options etc. Mindustry comes to mind. Price hikes aren't(/shouldn't be) needed to buy a dev a coffee/beer.
Though honestly my main reply was about the inflation claim in general that people like to use (common AAA conversation). But this is pretty silly too, inflation doesn't have much effect on an already-made digital product (and if the product is already fun, I don't see the point in upselling like the hired-an-orchestra type stuff).
It's not just the three original devs any more they actually have a payroll to worry about and are easily burning through a million a year.
Raw yearly sales (assuming 500K at $30) is $15M though. This seems far from struggling territory or even breaking even, and their current costs are probably diminishing returns/unnecessary.
Even if you think the increasing investment is worth it, that's a different argument than inflation. To me it sounds like a lie for continuously growing profits just like any other company.
5M easily go to taxes, steam takes another 2M and with the 33 people that are listed on their site they probably loose 2M on salary alone. Then there is another 0.5M for license, real estate and infrastructure. While it still leaves 5.5M per year average, that's an extremely tight budget for the development of a new game.
Did... you watch the video?
Ok, I've watched the video. I will admit I had not known about the g2a thing. While I get the sale thing a little more. I still don't see the inflation point. I get it's to continue development and such but it's only affecting new users and in a way making it harder to buy the game at the best time. Imagine if I hadn't heard of this game until it went up to 35 bucks. Sure they say the best time is now, but now this fomo is also into play as a result of the price increases this game will possibly get.
It went 30 USD in March 2018. It went 35 USD in January 2023. FOMO really hardly seems like an issue, especially if you compare it to the usual time-limited event sales.
You can price your game for what it's truly worth when you've got such a quality product. The value of the dollar went down, but the value of Factorio hasn't changed.
Truly worth is subjective. The devs are welcome to raise the price for inflation. I know you can get thousands of hours in this game, but I personally don't agree that a game should go up price even if the dollar drops in value.
Would you feel differently if no updates were released for the original game, and all development post release was bundled into a paid expansion? What if, after that, the game was only made available with expansion?
IMO, that’s all this is, with the nice bonus that people who bought in early get the expansion for free.
I am a bit confused by what you mean. Are you saying something like Base game launches at 20 DLC brings it to current state with a 15 purchase
Later down the line they merge and the game becomes 35?
If that's the case then yes, it's pretty much the same concept and in fact I would actually see that as a bigger red flag.
Other way around - base launches at $20, dlc comes out at $5, game and dlc get bundled down the line in a $25 pack, discontinuing the separate purchases.