Titan Attacks, Ultratron and Droid Assault updated

News

Just a quickie post to say that we’ve updated the three older games. In particular we’re hoping that the mysterious crash in Titan Attacks on some Macs has been fixed – if this has happened to you (it happens when the first mothership appears) can you let us know if it’s fixed the problem? (By the way, the version number hasn’t changed)

Also, a question to the masses:

What would you pay for all three games in a bundle? What price threshold would make you just buy the lot on a whimsy?

45 thoughts on 'Titan Attacks, Ultratron and Droid Assault updated'

  1. I’d pay £7.50 on a whimsy without a second thought!
    £15 would make me think twice…
    £10 seems the most realistic…

  3. Including VAT, £46.41.
    But I guess £20 is more appropriate for a bundle. £15 seems a bit too cheap for 3 games á £13.

  5. look at these replys… £10 for all the games when one costs £15

    I suppose you can do a sale at Christmas and then spam every news network to drum up some advertisement though, potential who haven’t bought those games by now probably either a) didn’t know about them or b) didn’t want to buy them at their full price c) tried the demo and the forgot about the game, so doing a sale would probably boost income (rather than lose potential profits)

    Or perhaps this survey was for just this reason?

    I think £25 would be the upper limit of an impulse buy..

  6. I would definitely buy a bundle! However, I don’t know the pounds to USD conversion rate; but I would say around $30.00-$40.00 would be reasonable.

  7. Mmmm, I don’t know exactly, I paid 20 USD for the humble indie bundle……I think I would pay 15USD for the three games? What about a pay what you want > 5USD :P?

    Best part, the 3 are made in java and run on linux, so I could play them without having to restart my machine on windows.

  8. Well, you know what… I think that $13.37 for all 3 games sounds pretty l33t. I want to turn nearly every visitor to Puppygames into someone who hands over cash 🙂 Even if it’s not very much cash!

  9. And the answer is, “People are cheap”. Duh.

    Personally, I need no bundle. I’ll buy at full price, as soon as I have cash.

    But being rational, it should be more expensive, than a single game, and less expensive, that all three. Perhaps “buy two, get third one for free”.

  10. it’s not that people are cheap, it’s that for a lower price i can buy games on GOG.com and many others on Steam.
    I’ll prolly buy the bundle even for 25-30EUR, but it will not an istabuy, as for 15 eur I can buy Left4Dead 2 or Lara Croft and the guardian of Light on steam or a lof of old games on gog

    1. You are missing the bigger picture here.

      GOG deals with the back-catalogues, and thus can be selling stuff for ridiculous amount of money, since it’s no main source of income for the publisher in question, and the games are rather old. Original developers have already survived through the main sales of their game or were bankrupted by their failure.

      Here, we have then “now” time. Unless developer earns enough money, there will be no next game. And they do not have luxury of main income being AAA titles like “Dragon Age” or “World of Warcraft” selling thousands of copies a day.

      1. No, he’s not missing the big picture, he has received the picture perfectly clear. Just as he stated, you could pick up a lot at GoG or Steam for the cost of a bundle, so unless the bundle price is very reasonable on all levels nobody will bother with it and will instead spend their money where they can pick up numerous full length full feature games. As for the whole, old game new game issue, GoG has games that are 6 years old. Ultratron and Titan attacks are what would be considered older games now. They may not have been made in the late 90’s but considering you can buy a 2 year old full length game on Steam for $2.99 – $4.99 (almost every single week!) you’d be crazy not to take these considerations seriously.

        You have to be fair when thinking about this stuff. These games aren’t exactly new that we’re talking about, they can still make money but with newer games coming out at affordable prices on other download portals the competition is fierce unless you fill a niche that very few others do. These games are not niche, they are very good, but they are not niche games. If you’ve ever tried Squid Yes Not So Octopus or one of the many sequels or variations of those freeware arena shmups then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

        This bundle should make money for the author still to this day, however, given the fact that the games are old and they have already made their money, a bundle at a more reasonable amount would be more acceptable and far easier to swallow for new customers and even old customers, given the current economic state and the fact that if you really wanted to get an arena shooter or space invaders clone, you could easily use google and find 2 dozen games of that type made absolutely free to the public and a decent portion of them now even include online scoreboards. There are more than two sides to the whole equation and though it might be difficult to swallow a lower price for something that is not so niche, more people are hungry for reasonably priced quality games. It’s simple in that sense really.

        1. Thanks for really well thought-out and meaningful reply :). Made me think about the whole issue a a whole lot than I initially did…

          2. As Butofcourse said, you need to think about “normal people” not about indie games entusiasts, your core audience is made by the average gamer, maybe even casuals.
            I’m an indie developer and I love to support indie games, I buy a lot of stuff online, mostly indie games, but sometimes even I, proud of being “indie” myself, find difficult to choose an indie game over a good sale on gog or steam.
            The average gamer doesn’t really care if buying Titan Attack will help a small indie game doing their job and Baldur’s Gate on gog not, Titan Attack is a space invaders clone (even if really pretty) sold at 17.69 €, Baldur’s Gate is one of the finest RPGs of all time for almost half the price. And Left 4 Dead 2 is currently being sold at 13.99 €.
            I think guys at Puppy Games should start to sell their older games on Steam and Impulse and drop the price on their site accordingly. I’m not saying the games aren’t worth their current price, they totally are, just saying that there are much, much cheaper and bigger games out there

  11. Yeah, you could think people are cheap, but nowadays that you could have customers from all parts of the world you have to face several social realities :D, and of course you have the Eclipse’s example of gog.com and steam.

    1. Yeah but that’s not “instabuy” territory. Even I wouldn’t buy something totally on a whimsy for £17. At what price would you simply buy them whether you thought you’d play them or not?

      1. I’ve bought things from a shop for a tenner just cos the box looked pretty

        Sales are good though for drumming up awareness of your newer titles, maybe send out discount codes to game news websites to encourage them to post about the sale (also give you a bit of analytic data on which codes are used the most if you send a different one to each site)

      2. without even thinking? 2.99 eur each game, 5.99 Eur for both games. I’m really FULL of games to play so I’ll buy them thinking “i’ll grab ’em and I’m going to play them in 5 months or so”

  13. Having played and enjoyed two of the three demos, if I saw a deal in the range £15-20 I would pick it up immediately.

    If were talking pure whimsy £10 max.

  14. On a whimsy, I’d pay $12 bucks! Do not add any change to the price, that deflates the “whimsy” pretty quickly. $12 is a nice flat price, more than 9, less than 15… it’s the sweet spot, trust me!

    1. Oh and just look at GoG.com’s model. Once you start breaking the 3 – 5 year old territory you seriously have to consider charging less for your game unless your game fills a niche of course. I’ll give you an example of what I mean, people are not going to pay full price for World of Goo anymore, they’ll just go straight to Plants vs. Zombies for there “puzzle/casual” gaming fix. It’s not about which game the public thinks is better, it’s about the game that is “in the now”. However, when dealing in older games there are niche games that can and cannot maintain an “original” price point, as an example for these I’d tell you to look at Jeff Vogels games (Spiderwebsoftware) vs. every other pay for RPG made using RPG Maker. By looking at what is being offered, how old the games are, the kind of games up for play and the quick and casual vs immersive and deep game types, you’ll quickly find that a lower price point is better, and $12 bucks for 3 older games is both low and fair. You make money, and people can live with the decision that they’ve spent $12 bucks on 3 older, more casual games.

  15. 25$-30$, Droid assault, anything below that I would instantly buy, no questions asked. Maximum amount I would probably pay would be around 45$. :C (Sorry, I am so cheap)

    1. I’m sorry but you’re kinda loopy. $45 dollars for all 3 games??? Ummm, no. As pointed out earlier, you could easily pick up 4 – 8 games on GoG.com for that much and since they have sales every single weekend, you could probably squeeze in a couple more great classics for that price. So I think it’s better to be reasonable, fair, and true to the actual selling point of the game. These games are made for quick fun. They’ll have lasting appeal over a decent amount of time, but they will only be played in casual amounts or in spurts. So, definitely under $20, but if I was to buy the lot all at once it would take a price below $15 to make me break out the credit card. $4 – $5 dollars per game is plenty for selling the lot as a bundle. Then, include an option to purchase 1 more bundle at the ridiculous price of another $5 dollars for a friend or family member (making the 2 bundles cost $20) and watch as the game sells even more. Inflate the price more than that and watch as the people do a complete bypass and go to steam or another download portal that hosts classics or other indie games for far lower prices. That’s the cost of this kind of business.

      1. Hmm except our ultra cool DRM means there’s no need for anyone to buy another “copy” of the bundle for friends and family 🙂 You get that included already.

        1. Yes, you’re right, and being able to share with friends is great. However, yet again someone must point out, GoG.com offers games with no DRM and at extremely reasonable prices. So, being able to share with a family member or friend is a great by product of your DRM, and it should reflect in the price. I think no more than $15 for all 3 is both fair and realistic. You could charge more, but I think the 3 or 4 people saying they’d pay more would make up about half of the consumer base that would actually end up buying the bundle of games. Not that they aren’t great games, but price wise people are more willing to part with there money when they believe they’re getting the value of their money and a bit more. Since you asked the question, how much would people be willing to spend on all 3 games as a bundle on a whimsy, I think it’s safe to say that only a small handful of people would drop $20 – $30 and even less people would drop $40 – $45 considering you could buy a whole stack of old games for that price, or buy one big brand new game for that price. So the whole whimsy option for most people is the $10 – $15 dollar range. That’s where the budget doesn’t get hurt quite as much and people will be far more responsive to the deal.

  16. Whimsy threshold is kind of tricky. But I would say probably about $10 each, or $30 for the bundle. That’s the same price as the bulk of most Xbox Live Arcade games, and I’ll buy those if they’ll give me an hour or two of enjoyment (doubly weighted if there’s decent multiplayer). The AAA titles that sell for $15-20 I tend to hold off on until there’s a sale or if it’s really a must-have.

    However, true whimsy territory is in the $5/pop range. I just bought the Galaga remake when it was on sale at that price point, and I haven’t played it more than 20 minutes or so, while I typically expect at least one or two hardcore sessions with a bigger game like Geometry Wars too. It’s kind of embarassing, but that’s why I haven’t gotten some of the newer titles like DeathSpank or Monday Night Combat.

  17. Fair price for me: Around 29.95€.

    Instabuy probably 20€. These games are ones that can be played over and over again and don’t get boring, so it’s really worth the price.

    Knowing that you are probably planning to make a bundle offer I’ll wait to buy Ultratron and Droid Assault which will then complete my collection 😀

    1. This bundle should probably be geared towards Europeans then, you won’t find many people in North America paying that price for the 3 games. Nothing against the games, I enjoy them, just being honest about the situation though. If you’re really looking to sell more, then lower it is. These aren’t RPG’s or anything, and they may have replay value, but as stated earlier, these games usually get play for about 15 – 20 minutes at a time and on random occasions. With places like Steam and GoG selling full feature, full length games for prices that can’t be beat, you’ll have to appeal to the niche (which is already flooded with clones and freeware), or sell for the most reasonable price that also makes you money while keeping the consumer receptive to the whole bundle idea of those 3 games. With all of that on the table I think the threshold has been mentioned a few times if you want a broad base appeal (attracting customers from around the world, not just Europe). So the $15 dollar mark jumps out at people and would detract people from those other sites and download portals. Charge more and people will pass on by to those other download portals that offer deals on games every single week. Those are the facts.

  18. I just played the demo of Ultratron after the update. What the fuck happened to the difficulty?

    Too many enemies. Too many bullets in the air. Too few powerups – Not fun. Fix it.

  19. If I was pricing these games I’d put them at:

    £6 each, or buy two and get the third for just £1 => £13 for all three.

  22. Out of the three Droid Assault interests me, so it’d be a low bundle rate, ~$10. I’m really enjoying what I played of revenge though, and would pick it up for 1337 if it wasn’t for niggling steam integration concerns.

    I’d like to second an earlier question http://www.puppygames.net/blog/?p=321#comment-42256 about whether you are still planning to / any news on getting revenge at least on steam? I know the codes issue is totally in their hands, but it’s a handy service (I have 3-4 indie mac games that I juggle when switching computers that I don’t feel like repurchasing on steam). This package idea of yours would do better there (exposure to compensate for less actual profit per sale) as well. 🙂

    1. Steam aren’t interested in the 3 older games, but they are interested in RotT. However, it won’t be out on Steam for quite some time after it’s been released here.

      1. Thanks for the heads up! I like how you actually engage with the community

        I suppose there aren’t many beta releases on steam. :p I could see you not wanting to take a cut on sales on an already discounted title from a middleman, but as you’ve posted earlier, they provide a genuine service as well as being a form of advertising. Though I suppose given resources the delay could also be just integrating with their services platform.

        I suppose I’ll pick up RotT here to support you guys and hope that they play cool with allowing people to activate it on steam (since I assume you won’t be releasing a box set that might be a fairly safe bet).

      2. meh for leaving a sentence uncompleted after tabbing away.

        […] actually interact with the community in a very open / human way given how busy you all must be with “proper” things to do with the game. 🙂 Just bought RotT and told the gf a bit about you guys and she’s impressed with your DRM stance liked the beer and pies bit.

        Hope you have a few good pints on me!

  24. Any chance the Xbox version of Ultratron gets a price drop too? I’d have bought it instantly if it were a buck. $5 is kinda hard to justify considering the amount of quality dual stick shooters on Xbox Indies for $1.

    1. Ooh, I’d totally forgotten about that. I’ll ask Paul. He’s got an Xbox Titan Attacks lying around somewhere too.

      1. Nice. I’d totally recommend it to people if the price dropped. It’s among the best dual stick shooters on Xbox Indies, but I kinda figure at $5 it probably didn’t sell a whole lot.

        Just tried Titan Attacks, pretty cool, would buy that on Xbox if you put it up at one of the lower price points.

        Gonna get the PC bundle too, great price.

Comments are closed.