Developers are making more money by making their Switch games cheaper

[Marc]

There's a strategy going around where people have been lowering the price of their small indie games on the Switch eShop. It actually performs better than selling the game for its original price tag. I'm not surprised it works to be honest.

A Robot Named Fight

A Robot Named Fight is a Metroid-style rogue-lite game. The publisher of the game insisted that he lowered the price of the game and it seemed to have worked out really well. It's kind of sad but if it works, it works I guess:

During that sale it performed better than launch.

Membrane

Another game that had similar success is Membrane. They shaved off 99% of the game's price and it performed better than its launch.

We just eclipsed 100,000 sales with our last discount of 99 percent off. Only 1 percent of those sales were made when the game was at full price.

Son of a Witch Developer

The developer behind Son of a Witch did things a little differently, but it still worked out for them in the end.

I cannot compete with companies like Forever Entertainment or QubicGames, who develop small games and push new ones all the time. So I decided to go into smaller games myself as well.

Instead of him trying to slash the prices of his current games on the Switch eShop, he ported his other games to the console and offered them for a really cheap price - 19 cents for example for one of the games like Quest for the Golden Duck. I see it's back at its $10 price tag atm tho.

While we weren't aware of this strategy, we have seen games go as low as 89 cents like SUPERBEAT: XONiC. I'm sure people purchased it using their My Nintendo gold coins or spare change they had remaining in their eShop balance, even if they didn't want to play it.

 

[Mayumi]

Oh, it totally makes sense. I mean, the more affordable your price point, the more consumers you will have buy your product.

And yeah...I totally snagged that Xonic Beat game (whatever it's called) for less than a dollar. Like, why the heck not.

 

[Marc]

And yeah...I totally snagged that Xonic Beat game (whatever it's called) for less than a dollar. Like, why the heck not.

Hmm did you even play it?

 

[Mayumi]

Hmm did you even play it?

Yeah, I've played a couple games in the series before and thought they were pretty good. I love rhythm games, but this newest one I've only admittedly played a few minutes of. It's good, just, way too many games clogged up in my catalog, haha!

 

[ErixSan]

While most of these become so cheap it is tempting to buy, the problem is that many of these lack quality or are bad clones of an already available game.

It is like the "on sale category" is now the "mobile phone like games".
There were some exceptions, like Superbeat: Xonic, but to be fair I already played it on the PS Vita.

 

[eonia]

While most of these become so cheap it is tempting to buy, the problem is that many of these lack quality or are bad clones of an already available game.

It is like the "on sale category" is now the "mobile phone like games".
There were some exceptions, like Superbeat: Xonic, but to be fair I already played it on the PS Vita.

yeah, at least its possible to see reviews of most games to see if its a decen game or a horrible one

 

[Artisan]

This is good to lesser known devs but if it costs more expect buyers to raise their expectations. Not everyone on the bottom line has money to spend. Is the quantity of buyers is higher than if the game costs more and have less people playing it. Do you expect word of mouth to make money or are gamers going to keep to themselves because they are embarrassed they paid that much. You're really selling your game in order to make waves I guess.

 

[Deepak]

WHAT?! Thats why there are random crap games in best sellers. I spent 2 cents on 2 1 cent games cuz it was 99% off. Kept me occupied for an hour so its worth it. Sort of.

 

[Eric Cartman]

It's a pretty interesting but effective tactic. The games aren't of poor quality though. I'm surprised that they are earning more money selling their game 99% off than their original price tag. The switch shop is full of surprises anyway. Both good and bad. For example, I've seen really poor quality games being sold for as much as Nintendo would sell a triple A title like splatoon 2 or smash. It's pretty shocking but people can sell their game for as much as they want. Even if it's not very reasonable. I'm very curious of what can come to the shop in the later future since the Nintendo switch eshop is filled with very good indie titles that are worth the money and are very fun to play.