Does anyone actually pay $20 for ROMs?

[BobAtari]

I know everyone has strong opinions about pricing for retro homebrew - and if it needs saying I fully support the right of creators to ask whatever price they see fit for their creations and I don't believe I have any right to get them for less - but does anyone actually pay $20 for a digital ROM?

 

I'm not asking "do you think it's a fair price?", because fairness is an inherently subjective concept and not really applicable to non-necessity items anyway. I'm asking if you put your money where your mouth is and genuinely hand over the real dollars in real life.

 

(I don't. I've paid $10 many a time, but that's my limit. I'd love to buy the entire Champ Games 2600 catalogue at that price, but at $20 a pop they can shove it.)

 

Just curious. Show of hands?

Edited July 11, 2023 by BobAtari

[+cjherr]

Yes I do. Gladly. I am more than happy to support the work these developers do.

[+wavemotion]

As an emulator developer, I'm happy to support non-DRM digital downloads (and, similarly, I'm not a fan of DRM/locked ROMs). While I strongly prefer $5/$10 price-points, I'm fine paying up to $20 and have on many occasions. 

 

This stuff is a labor of love - I've put many hundreds of hours into developing emulators for classic systems for the DS/DSi and I know how much effort development is (no kidding - if I charged my professional rate for the development, it would amount to more than $40k of pro-bono work). Giving a developer some pizza money in exchange for a high-quality game/port sits just fine with me (especially if that helps encourage further development activities).

 

 

[+Gemintronic]

In 2 years of pay what you want downloads only 1 person chose to pay $12 dollars for Upp Plus.  This was a game I actively promoted and was featured by YouTubers.

 

https://theloon.itch.io/upp

[+splendidnut]

Threads like this make me wonder if it's worth investing time and effort into creating things.

[+Gemintronic]

I mean, to be clear: I'm not complaining.  Paying anything at all is appreciated.  Makes me feel that my creations provide enough smiles for others to pay it forward.  Just not $20.

[+Gemintronic]

1 hour ago, BobAtari said:

(I don't. I've paid $10 many a time, but that's my limit. I'd love to buy the entire Champ Games 2600 catalogue at that price, but at $20 a pop they can shove it.)

 

Just curious. Show of hands?

 

Oh, uuhhh.  I guess I missed the fact you're taking umbrage at Champ Games.  Dude.  These are beyond retail quality work.  He's also risking litigation from rights holders because WE tend to spend money on unlicensed titles.

 

I know *I* don't deserve $20 bucks for Upp Plus.  But, HIS titles do.

[RamrodHare]

I' pay $20 for a great game, if I could afford it. Unfortunately,  I can't  even afford $5. I only have free roms. That's how life goes sometimes.

[+Andrew Davie]

The market for '2600 games is very very very small. Even the best of the games might sell a few hundred copies. $10/copy would not even begin to cover paying for the time required to develop a game.  So let's not be critical of authors asking for whatever price they feel is reasonable. If people don't buy, fine. But literally telling authors they can "shove it" for daring to ask for a reasonable price for their work... hmmm.  I think I worked out some time back that the per-hour take-home for Boulder Dash was something like 5 cents. Thank you for the support.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

$10 is closer to my sweet spot for a digital copy, but I have no issue with developers asking $20 and will pay it for a game I like.

 

I've paid $10 for ROMs and felt like I didn't get my money's worth and paid $20 for ROMs and felt like I'd gotten a screaming good deal.

[+Gemintronic]

I think the O.P. kinda forgot the very developers he's criticizing are also AtariAge members and enthusiasts.  We play Atari and understand what went into making amazing games. 

 

It's like participating in a book club while the guy right next to you loudly proclaims how overvalued your writing is.

[+Andrew Davie]

My next game is going on sale for 1 cent.  For the first copy.  I'll double the price every copy after that. Second person gets a copy for 2 cents. The third for 4 cents. It will be interesting to see how many copies I sell.

 

[+wavemotion]

5 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

My next game is going on sale for 1 cent.  For the first copy.  I'll double the price every copy after that. Second person gets a copy for 2 cents. The third for 4 cents. It will be interesting to see how many copies I sell.

 

The 30th copy at $5.35M isn't so bad... but would really hate to be #31 at  $10,737,418.24.  At that price, the developer can shove it

[+5-11under]

24 minutes ago, llabnip said:

The 30th copy at $5.35M isn't so bad... but would really hate to be #31 at  $10,737,418.24.

You're overpaying... it's pennies, not dollars.

 

Edit: D'oh... my bad... error counting the digits.

[+littaum]

2 hours ago, BobAtari said:

I know everyone has strong opinions about pricing for retro homebrew - and if it needs saying I fully support the right of creators to ask whatever price they see fit for their creations and I don't believe I have any right to get them for less - but does anyone actually pay $20 for a digital ROM?

 

 

 

Yes, many times.  Next question?

[zzip]

31 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

The market for '2600 games is very very very small. Even the best of the games might sell a few hundred copies. $10/copy would not even begin to cover paying for the time required to develop a game.  So let's not be critical of authors asking for whatever price they feel is reasonable. If people don't buy, fine. But literally telling authors they can "shove it" for daring to ask for a reasonable price for their work... hmmm.  I think I worked out some time back that the per-hour take-home for Boulder Dash was something like 5 cents. Thank you for the support.

This is a great point that the average consumer often doesn't understand.   They're used to buying mass-market things.    When you sell a million widgets, you can make due with a tiny profit margin off each widget.

 

When you can only hope to sell a hundred units, you're going to need a higher profit margin to make it worth your while.   Not just that you don't get volume discounts in manufacturing your widget.    So your costs are higher,  you profit margin needs to be higher.    So you aren't charging higher prices because you're greedy,  it's necessary if you hope to make any money back.

[RevEng]

Regular game pricing went through a race to the bottom some decades ago. Before someone counters with $70 xbox games or similar, consider the game development team and commensurate budget. The race to the bottom was largely fuelled by a glut of game devs (and shenanigans with regard to the labour) and the crapification of game profitability strategies. (dlc, in-game ads, pay-to-win, subscriptions, web3, etc.)

 

None of that is accessible to the retro game dev, thank heavens, and there is no glut of retro game devs. It's a boutique market, with boutique pricing. TBH it's obscenely low as far as boutique pricing normally goes, with "free" or "demo" often being an option. Really it's charity work that retro game devs are doing.

 

So I'd say your pricing expectations are just wrong, since you're comparing two very different markets. It's the same as expecting Amish furniture at Ikea pricing, or those Amish "can shove it!"

[+wavemotion]

11 minutes ago, 5-11under said:

You're overpaying... it's pennies, not dollars.

One penny doubled every day for 30 days is $5,368,709.12

 

Exponential growth is quite amazing!

[+5-11under]

1 hour ago, splendidnut said:

Threads like this make me wonder if it's worth investing time and effort into creating things.

If your main goal is maximize dollar input, you're likely better off creating something else besides videogames for old systems.

 

If your goal is to have fun and make a handful or so dollars for each of about 20-200 games, then maybe this is for you. You could increase the dollars or quantities via physical product, game type/quality, and/or system selection.

[+5-11under]

8 minutes ago, llabnip said:

One penny doubled every day for 30 days is $5,368,709.12

My bad... counting the digits wrong. No commas when using my browser to do math.

 

[Crazy Climber]

I probably wouldn't pay $20 for a ROM but I guess I've never been in a situation where that is my only option...

 

I certainly wouldn't tell a game developer to "shove it" for asking that price if that's what you want to know lol.

 

As long as physical media is available I will always take that option.

 

 

 

 

[+johnnywc]

Hi there,

2 hours ago, BobAtari said:

I know everyone has strong opinions about pricing for retro homebrew - and if it needs saying I fully support the right of creators to ask whatever price they see fit for their creations and I don't believe I have any right to get them for less - but does anyone actually pay $20 for a digital ROM?

My records indicate 'yes', at least for a small but loyal following.  

2 hours ago, BobAtari said:

I'm not asking "do you think it's a fair price?", because fairness is an inherently subjective concept and not really applicable to non-necessity items anyway. I'm asking if you put your money where your mouth is and genuinely hand over the real dollars in real life.

 

(I don't. I've paid $10 many a time, but that's my limit. I'd love to buy the entire Champ Games 2600 catalogue at that price, but at $20 a pop they can shove it.)

LOL I don't think I'll be 'shoving it' any time soon, but I can tell you that the price was determined after discussions with Al / AtariAge.  He originally wanted to sell ROMs through AtariAge, but since he has 1000 other things going on and I was constantly receiving requests to sell ROMs, I reluctantly put together our Champ Games website and eventually added all of our ROMs to the store.  What I didn't want to do was have a negative effect on the boxed / physical sales of these games, so the price was set to be fair but also competitive vs. the boxed copy price.  As you may know, Al pays thousands of dollars up front to fund the printing of the boxes, manuals and labels so this was a factor in determining the somewhat higher price.  This is also why we generally wait 3 - 6 months after the boxed copy is added to the AA store before offering the ROM version on our site.

 

With that said, we do have a partnership with AtariAge/Al and offer a 50% discount on the sale of a ROM with proof of purchase of the physical game from AtariAge.

 

It should also be noted that not *all* of our games are priced at $20, though to be fair, yes most of the newer ones that are 32K are.  These games have literally taken years to develop with hundreds of hours of work put in not just from a programming standpoint but also for graphics, sounds, testing and artwork.  I know you're not arguing whether it's a fair price, but wanted to put things in perspective for those people wondering if they should think it's a fair price.

 

Regarding your interest in purchasing all of our ROMs, be sure to keep an eye out for our holiday sale!   We had one last December and offered up to 25% off your entire purchase if you bought all of our ROMs.  

 

Lastly, we have had people reach out to us directly saying that they would like to buy multiple ROMs but the cost is too much; in each case we have always worked something out.

 

I respect your opinion about not wanting to pay that much for a ROM.  For example, I would never pay $8 for a Starbucks coffee, but people are more than happy to if they think it's worth it, so to each their own.  

 

Thanks for the input (but not for the 'shove it' part). 

 

John

 

 

 

 

[juansolo]

I think $20 is completely reasonable for a new game of the quality of Champ or Muddyvision (both of whom I've bought ROMs from). They also have lower tiers for other titles and give a discount if you own the physical.

 

There are two reasons for this, the main one is that I want to thank these devs for writing them and hopefully encourage them to keep doing so. The second is because buying physical games in the UK from the US is becoming increasingly untennable.

Edited July 11, 2023 by juansolo

[4ever2600]

Dude, it's worth it...  if its a game you love, it's worth it.  Champ games = better than Atari quality.  

[BobAtari]

As I suspected, there's simply NO phrasing gentle enough on this issue that will stop certain people getting all indignant and prickly. I think maybe Americans regard even discussing the price of stuff as tantamount to Communism. Anyway, thanks to everyone who just answered a simple question.

 

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As you may know, Al pays thousands of dollars up front to fund the printing of the boxes, manuals and labels so this was a factor in determining the somewhat higher price.

 

This was an interesting snippet. So us ROM-buyers are in fact effectively subsidising the people buying the physical cartridge?

 

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For example, I would never pay $8 for a Starbucks coffee, but people are more than happy to if they think it's worth it, so to each their own.

 

On both aspects of that we can definitely agree 😄

 

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This stuff is a labor of love

 

Well, it's not if you're expecting to make a profit on it. That's pretty much the opposite of the definition of a "labour of love" 😉 😄

 

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If your main goal is maximize dollar input, you're likely better off creating something else besides videogames for old systems.

 

Yup.

 

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I guess I missed the fact you're taking umbrage at Champ Games.  Dude.  These are beyond retail quality work.  He's also risking litigation from rights holders because WE tend to spend money on unlicensed titles.

 

I didn't "take umbrage" at anyone. I went OUT OF MY WAY to say that people were entitled to charge what they want and that I had no entitlement to lower prices. If you're taking a flippant "shove it" as some sort of tirade, dear God, how do you even get out of the house in the morning? Hate to get all culture-war again but America is a country where you have a school massacre every day and shrug your shoulders but someone uses a bit of jokey language on a forum and suddenly it's an outrage. You're a weird bunch.

 

(The morality of making money out of unlicenced clones of other people's work is an intriguing and separate debate here, but for the record I'm personally very glad people do it.)

 

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When you can only hope to sell a hundred units, you're going to need a higher profit margin to make it worth your while.

 

This, also, is a whole separate debate. There's no definitive right or wrong answer, everyone has their own view and their own cutoff points. All I can say, speaking solely for myself, is that at $10 a game ChampGames (for example) would have had $70-80 of my money. At $20 a game they've had $0. Other people's mileage may vary.

 

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I think the O.P. kinda forgot the very developers he's criticizing are also AtariAge members and enthusiasts.  We play Atari and understand what went into making amazing games. 

 

I wasn't criticising anyone. But what makes you think that doesn't apply to me? I'm a former professional videogame developer with one of the UK's most successful producers of the 1990s, and I've subsequently been involved in quite a lot of homebrew development (almost all of which was for free, as it happens, just for the love of it). I suspect I know rather a lot more about "making amazing games", and the economics involved, than most of the readers of this forum. But that's neither here nor there. I was just asking a question because I was interested. Thanks again to all who answered it.