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General discussionRelease: Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows(70 posts)(70 posts)
(70 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 17, 2015
Totally FREE and massive, like a really big, explosive bird creature.

<span class="bold">Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows</span>, a free and huge expansion to the award-winning NES-style platformer, is available now, DRM-free on GOG.com

Shovel Knight promised and delivered: a core platformer, an NES-style palette, pixel-perfect gameplay, a hero out to save the world and get the girl - but most importantly - a true understanding of what made the classics tick. Following critical acclaim and a hugely successful launch, another promise was made: a significant expansion, free for everyone, excitement. And now it's here.

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows expands on nearly every aspect of the original release: there's a new adventure to go on (maybe some romance too), new gameplay mechanics, an alchemy crafting system, new objectives, new bosses, and even new paths, nooks, and crannies in the original levels. It truly is the game anew. Among it all is a new playable character: an old friend, the Plague Knight, offering a completely different style of play. He's an explosive trickster, whose mobility, weapons, and move-set offer new challenges whether you're playing through the classic levels or the new campaign. For a better idea of what's new (and the fascinating design process), check out the dev's blog on the Plague Knight's Mobility Design!

Get in on an all-new <span class="bold">Shovel Knight</span> with the <span class="bold">Plague of Shadows</span> update - available now, DRM-free on GOG.com

Stream watch:

Tune in to Twitch.tv/GOGcom tomorrow - that is, on Friday, September 18th - to see Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows streamed live by VideoGameCarnage and cheer him on!
Posted September 18, 2015
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yyahoo: The customer expects a high discount. They value it. If something is 80% off, a lot of time it touches that part of the brain that screams "great deal" and they want to buy it just because of that.

...

I know what you're saying, but you're in the minority of people who see through the situation. You have to sell to the majority though.

...
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CharlesGrey: Pretty much. I don't like it, but that's just they way it is. It's ridiculous, because most would probably rather buy the same game when it's 90% off a 50 dollar base price, rather than 50% off a 10 dollar base price, even if it results in the same end price. Seems like some people don't even look at the resulting price, and instead only focus on the discount percentage. "Wow, I'll save so much money!"

Most base prices for GOG games are actually quite reasonable in my eyes, but there's a few specific publishers which clearly use this strategy of exaggerated base prices, so they can apply larger discounts. Not even sure who to blame for this, since the publishers only react to the customer behavior, just as the customers react to these pricing tactics. It's a nasty cycle, but I'm not sure it can get much worse at this point ( aside from more publishers and devs using the same tactics ) since we're already at a point where 85+% discounts ( and matching base prices ) are a frequent occurrence.
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Reaper9988: What exactly is tottaly free about this ?
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CharlesGrey: Everything... if you own a copy of the base game.

That "free for everyone" is probably not the best choice of words. :P
Ahhh allright :D. Yeah I think the choice of words is rather poor lol.
Posted September 18, 2015
Sure there's a point though where there is a dropoff to the amount of sales made at the original price and that it would be in the developer's best interests to consider a sale / reduction in price. That amount of time may have been hammered by consumer's expectations due to deep sales / launch discounts etc, but 15 months for an indie developer wouldsurely be well past that mark I would have thought.
Posted September 18, 2015
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Bigs: Sure there's a point though where there is a dropoff to the amount of sales made at the original price and that it would be in the developer's best interests to consider a sale / reduction in price. That amount of time may have been hammered by consumer's expectations due to deep sales / launch discounts etc, but 15 months for an indie developer wouldsurely be well past that mark I would have thought.
I guess they'll keep it at the current price point for as long as it keeps selling. It seems to be a popular and well received game, after all. Plus, there's another factor: I believe it has been released on consoles and handhelds in addition to PC, so they may be bound by certain contracts. Console ( download ) games are generally more expensive, so maybe they don't have permission to undercut that price ( much ) on PC.

For something completely different: The link in the release post seems to be effed up. Here, this should work: http://yachtclubgames.com/2015/08/plague-knight-mobility-design/ ( Quite interesting read, by the way. )
Posted September 18, 2015
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CharlesGrey: Pretty much. I don't like it, but that's just they way it is. It's ridiculous, because most would probably rather buy the same game when it's 90% off a 50 dollar base price, rather than 50% off a 10 dollar base price, even if it results in the same end price. Seems like some people don't even look at the resulting price, and instead only focus on the discount percentage. "Wow, I'll save so much money!"

Most base prices for GOG games are actually quite reasonable in my eyes, but there's a few specific publishers which clearly use this strategy of exaggerated base prices, so they can apply larger discounts. Not even sure who to blame for this, since the publishers only react to the customer behavior, just as the customers react to these pricing tactics. It's a nasty cycle, but I'm not sure it can get much worse at this point ( aside from more publishers and devs using the same tactics ) since we're already at a point where 85+% discounts ( and matching base prices ) are a frequent occurrence.
Leaving aside the percentages and only speaking for myself.

Generally 2 - 5$ is a price I might give a game a shot I don't particularly care about, as for this one i'm not interested at the current price point.

That being said, I figure long time sales have a lot to do with how well it sells and if the game does well enough at the base price there's little reason for the devs to lower it.
Posted September 18, 2015
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yyahoo: The customer expects a high discount.
Did you ask yourself why the customers "expect" a high discount?
My answer would be Because of rentals on ssteam! (I admit I could be wrong thou)
Posted September 18, 2015
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budejovice: Yeah, not a chance until we see the same discount Steam has seen. Good luck to you guys.
And why would that be?

I'm waiting for a promo to get it myself...

edit: ok read the thread, apparently they will eventually promo it here, I'll keep it on my wishlist then.
Post edited September 18, 2015 by Zoidberg
Posted September 18, 2015
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mobutu: Did you ask yourself why the customers "expect" a high discount?
My answer would be Because of rentals on ssteam! (I admit I could be wrong thou)
Yeah the game developers and publishers (+selling platforms) screwed themselves in this regard.
Early sales are so common that a lot of people doesn't even consider buying at full price anymore, no matter what full price is.
That applies especially for indies where most games are bound to go on sale or into bundle very soon that it makes little sense for consumer to buy them full price.
A lot of games are even overpriced on release only because they are already calculating the 75% off price or something similar when most people will buy it.
Then when game appears that doesn't make sales so often it looks so strange and can disappoint people. Even though it is good game that likely deserves its price.

So while overall big sales increased sales of most games and bundles increased interest in indies they also devalued the games, made gamers believe they should only pay margain of their prices for it and are thus forcing many developers to participate in it unless they want to be left out and not sell their "overpriced" games at all.

When I joined here in 2009 there were mostly sale ranging from 20% to 30% off.
Only few years later, after big Steam sales took off, in 2010 or 2011, people were already saying that 50% or even 66% off is too insignificant sale and that they will wait for better sale.

I know here it is mostly about the fact it was discounted on Steam and not here but overall I think it's true.
From the thing Niggles posted it looks like they were kind of pushed into Steam sales because they are just too big to miss out and they only did lower discount in order to participate and they don't have to do it here because it's just not that big platform. So it looks like it possibly isn't because they are treating GOG as second tier store but mostly because they were "forced" into making Steam sale out of necessity.
Posted September 18, 2015
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Vitek: ...they were "forced" into making Steam sale out of necessity.
Yes, I understood the same thing from that post, they were somehow forced by Steam (contracts etc) to participate in sales and it seems that the minimum accepted discount was ~30% with which they go in the end.
Posted September 18, 2015
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fortune_p_dawg: the game was totally worth the full asking price (for me, anyway).
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but then... at the same time maybe this isn't really your type of game but if it gets discounted you'll give it a fair shake?
It isn't the matter of "type", really. Interests (and sympathies) are nested fractally and transcend genres. My ideal game is an RPG, but RPGs fall so short of that ideal that the existing games I end up liking most are anything but. Same with expert opinions, even trusted expert opinions. People whose tastes I trust have recommended Race the Sun, Risk of Rain, and Gone Home. Good thing I bought those on sale! And there's (apparently) no demo available. I don't want to pay full price (or, indeed anything) for a game where I hit a wall and get permastuck. Sure, I could pirate and buy the game as soon as I start liking it, but I have many more games I already bought.
Posted September 18, 2015
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moonshineshadow: A free expension that adds tons of content? Nice :D

and a little *sigh*, now I need to replay the game, how the hell should I decrease my backlog like that :P
I think I've read somewhere that the dev gives you a code if you don't have your old saves anymore... But I cant remember where. The manual suggests this too:

Note: There may be a way to unlock Plague of Shadows without finishing the Shovel Knight campaign…
http://yachtclubgames.com/plague-of-shadows-manual/



And to add something to the discount debate: I think it's better to set a base price that represents what you really want to have for your game, instead of pulling a Telltale and to ask $30 for an eight years old game, doing 80+% off sales three or four times a year. You basically can't buy Sam & Max outside of a sale, because everyone knows that it's heavily overpriced, just to be able to give absurd discounts regularly. Everyone who buys this game at $30 gets ripped off heavily. It would be much fairer to set the base price to 9.99 and to give 33-50% off everyonce in a while.
Post edited September 18, 2015 by real.geizterfahr
Posted September 18, 2015
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yyahoo: That said, I know the devs of this particular game are very much against large discounts of their work
And I think, they have every reason to be so - they put a ton of work and passion into it (see link below).

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CharlesGrey: As for what makes this one special: There's tons of games which attempt to be "retro", but this is one of the few which not only fully captures that spirit of the old classics, but actually outdoes most of them. You can tell the developers love the genre, and know what they're doing.
Here's an interesting link. The devs explain, what hoops they had to jump through, to make it as retro as retro gets:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidDAngelo/20140625/219383/Breaking_the_NES_for_Shovel_Knight.php

Regarding the "Steam only" - sale: I may be misinformed here, so take that with a grain of salt, but i believe, Steam always asks the devs, whether they would be interested in having their game(s) "on sale", and so my guess is: Steam asked, and they agreed - if GOG had asked, they might have agreed also.

Just my two cents.
Posted September 18, 2015
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yyahoo: That said, I know the devs of this particular game are very much against large discounts of their work
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BreOl72: And I think, they have every reason to be so - they put a ton of work and passion into it (see link below).
Yup, never said differently...
Posted September 18, 2015
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BreOl72: And I think, they have every reason to be so - they put a ton of work and passion into it (see link below).
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yyahoo: Yup, never said differently...
Never claimed anything else. ;o)
Posted September 18, 2015
Christ, all these people demanding a sale.. I, for one, regret not giving the developers more money for their stellar job.

I also noticed this removed the "update" feature in 3DS' title menu, which likely means they're done with this game and are working on a sequel. Yay!
Posted September 18, 2015
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MrFortyFive: It is slightly annoying that the Steam version has been discounted while the GOG version hasn't, but if there's ever a game worth paying full price for, it's this one, especially considering full price really is quite reasonable.
Dang, I was *this* close to caving in, accepting that the game would never go on sale and buy it at full price.

Why did you have to ruin it for me? Now, I just have to wait for them to match the Steam price here...
Post edited September 18, 2015 by Magnitus
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRelease: Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows(70 posts)(70 posts)
(70 posts)