Pitfall at £0.69? Is Activision crazy?

By Nicholas Lovell on August 9, 2012

Activision has released its first game from its new Leeds studio today: Pitfall. A remake of a 30 year old classic that bears more than a passing resemblance to Temple Run.

Activision priced the game at £0.69 ($0.99). I turned to Twitter to ask: "Question: if you were Activision, would you have put Pitfall out at 69p? Free? More expensive? Why?". These are the answers.

"I’d have put it out free. Grab as many users as possible, to promote future releases to." – @stepickford

"if i were activision i would iterate the game’s graphics first and then think about giving it away for freemium" – @fabi_smith

"69p is for publishers who dont have the balls/conviction for F2P but are worried that product is not good enough for £1.99" – @SJ_Harris

"@SJ_Harris I disagree. I think it’s simply a sweet spot for paid apps" – @FireflyNick

"@SJ_Harris @nicholaslovell it’s not ‘balls’ or ‘conviction’ in Activision’s case, I just think it’s a complete lack of expertise" – @BenjaminCousins

"Not sure you need free when you have the reach of an IP. So more expensive. Not sure how strong the Pitfall IP is though." @nicolasG_B

"going up against Temple Run at £0.69. Hilarious." – @BenjaminCousins

What do I think?

I agree with Simon Harris. 69p/99c is a terrible price point.

99c says that you don’t believe that your game will appeal to wide range of people. You don’t want it to reach the largest possible audience (for which you would need to go free).

99c says you don’t believe in the free-to-play business model. It amazes me that there could still be F2P refuseniks in positions of authority anywhere, but there you go.

99c also says that you don’t believe your game is any good. Epic believed Infinity Blade was awesome. They priced it at $5.99. Sports Interactive believes that Football Manager was awesome. They priced it at £6.99 (that’s sterling, not dollars). If you have a strong game, or a strong brand, you can price higher than $0.99.

Regular readers might be surprised that I am not arguing for free. I am not totally obsessed by free. I think you should go free (because your game great) or go expensive (because your game is great but has a marketing advantage such as a great brand or a first-out-of-the box element like Infinity Blade’s amazing graphics), provided that you have a paymium strategy.

To me, 69p/99c is the worst possible price point. What do you think?

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and forthcoming Penguin title The Curve.

Charles Chapman, FTG

Given how they have IAPs anyway (including the must-buy 2x multiplier), I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t free within a few weeks.
They’ll get Apple support today, which will guarantee a load of sales at 99c. Then within a few weeks or so they’ll make a big song and dance about it going free, which will be the main event as it were.
So, really it looks like it is a free, game, but they’re charging for it for a few weeks.
http://www.gamesbrief.com Nicholas Lovell

That’s a good point, and I’m sure you are right. I would still have launched at £1.99/$2.99
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ross-Lovell/554777602 Ross Lovell

“99c also says that you don’t believe your game is any good ”

I’d rewrite that.

F2P also says that you don’t believe your game is any good
http://www.gamesbrief.com Nicholas Lovell

Do you really believe that?

A free game has to work so much harder to keep a player than a paid game. It knows that its success lives or dies by retention, so it has to keep players playing. On average, people wont spend until they’ve played the game 10 times. It’s a much higher bar.

A free-to-play game makes much more money than a paid game AND has to be better to be successful. I don’t understand your point at all.
http://twitter.com/onimitch Mitch

I agree with this, many games seem to be employing this tactic – launch as paid then switch to free a few weeks later.
mysticalOso

Everyone seems to overlooking a fundamental point here: The freemium business model massively effects the gameplay of any game. Therefore 69p is the best way to reach as many people as possible without having to bombard your users with gameplay intruding monetisation tactics! It’s not just about money guys it’s also about the games…
http://twitter.com/NicolasG_B Nicolas Godement

I think Nicholas’ point is about price elasticity : at a higher price-point, an established IP will typically make more money because its reach won’t be proportionnaly reduced by as much.

Unless Activition *only* care about reaching as many people as possible, even if it means reducing their ROI, which I strongly doubt.

With that said Pitfall seems to be doing well (top grossing 30-50) so perhaps it wasn’t such a bad price-point after all. Besides the game does bombards users with IAPs
http://www.facebook.com/andrea.keil.18 Andrea Keil

“99c also says that you don’t believe your game is any good.”

??? WTF?

So you think Chillingo, Rovio and so on think that Cut the Rope, Angry Birgs, Bad Piggies, Doodle Jump, Fruit Ninja etc. etc. isn’t any good??
http://www.gamesbrief.com Nicholas Lovell

With the exception of Bad Piggies, all of those games were launched before freemium/paymium become to be fully understood. A free game has to work a lot harder to earn money from its customers than a paid one. A paid one just needs good marketing and if it sucks, oh well, the customer has already paid their money.

I stick by my view that you should go free or go expensive, but not cheap.
http://www.facebook.com/andrea.keil.18 Andrea Keil

Hmm, okay, get your point… now.
http://twitter.com/Sikthehedgehog Sik

Furthermore, at this point the price point is probably considered one of the main characteristics of the franchise, so there isn’t that much of a reason to change it by now.