Thanks for posting that link!

I think I did the same a few years back in another discussion on indies.

Vogel is an interesting guy... and he knows his niche audience and how to get then hooked on his content (demos). I think he should be required viewing for all indie devs.

On the flipside we have Knights of the Chalice 2 which I feel is probably great, but... am I going to pay $40 on sale for an indie game? Dunno. Probably not.
Well, there's nothing like a recession to amplify the over-saturation of a market.

And I probably owned a total of 6 games in 1990.

Depends what you consider indie I guess, but clearly, you haven't played Factorio or Terraria.

Stars in Shadow and Interstellar Space also have a crazy amount of replayability (if you try to beat the highest difficulty with all the races and possibly different galaxy settings and different paths to victory) similar to the MOO 1 & 2 classics they are clearly inspired from.

Streets of Rogue also has quite a bit of replayability if you try to beat the game with all the different characters (they have a lot).

Haven't finished ADOM yet (and I played a fair bit), but I see reviews with hundreds of hours on Steam. Similar Story with Tangledeep.

And don't get me started on Battle Brothers, Dead Cells, Stardew Valley or Shovel Knight (I bought the game early on and was upgraded to the Treasure Trove for free). The first 2 games in that list in particular are big time sinks.

Towerfall also has a fair bit of playability if you try to beat the hardest difficulty with friends in local coop.

The Blackwell series, put together, also took a decent amount of time and so did FTL to unlock everything.

See, I think you just haven't played the right indie games.

Also, with less than an handful of exceptions that barely exceeded that, I don't pay more than 30$ for a single game on general principle, indie or not. Save for very few gems like FTL or Factorio, I have a difficulty recalling games I've played in recent memory that would have justified having paid more than that (indie or not).

See, AAA games cost a lot more to make, but does it matter if I don't appreciate the direction where the energy was directed? Honestly, in terms of aggregated entertainment value, AAA games are not really better than indies for me (indies just have a tendency to pack the same amount of entertainment in a shorter time period for cheaper and personally, I'm grateful for the economy in time and money).

It's not that simple, as you are just assuming that most people make purchasing decisions exactly like you do, which may or may not be true. How much price sensitivity actually exists, and how much would increased marketing expenditure affect sales? For example, if you would sell 2,000 copies at $20 but 3,000 copies at $10 to capture the "holdouts", you're better off ignoring them. But if it was 5,000 copies, then it would be a good idea. Unless you have real data, though, this is all just a guessing exercise.

I consider indie games to be just as valuable, if not moreso, than AAA games. Lobotomy Corporation and La-Mulana deserved a pricing of $60 at release, and should have been considered the GOTY of their time.

Let's be clear: AAA games are at the price they are at, not because of their creativity or craftsmanship, but simply because they are backed by corporations that have reputation through sheer fiscal strength. What you are paying for is the chance to say "I played that", and to be able to talk with other people who share that common experience.

This isn't to say there are no great AAA games. Rather, I think that people mistake their opportunity to connect with society as an inherent quality of the game, when it is actually the power of FOMO at work.

Personally, I found more value in Dead Cells, Hades, Stardew Valley, Spiritfarer, Katana Zero, etc. than any AAA game I've played recently, and can't think of any AAA game I'm looking forward to like I am indie games. I would happily have bought a physical edition of Return to Monkey Island (at the physical edition price), but there is non available.

Personally, my criteria for buying something is that it be a historically low price for that game, and be at least 75% off, or less than $10 (usually less than $5). This is the same whether indie or AAA.

So far, with the sale ongoing on gog and Steam, I've not bought anything yet.

I have to disagree, I personally think many indie titles offer way more enjoyment compared to most AAA titles.
I played Stardew Valley for 300 hours, Enter the Gungeon for 30-50, Binding of Isaac for 50-70 and the list goes on and on and on.
Most AAA games I play I either rush through just to be done with the game or I abandon a playthrough after a couple of hours.

https://preview.redd.it/adjusted-for-inflation-v0-ciahth99l29b1.jpg?auto=webp&s=8095d900cd04ad5786484ae1592e32f9d3e64181

Nah, pixel art and low res art is fine.

Doing quality high res art takes time and skill which most indies don't seem to have. The end result usually looks like crap, and I think this is why "high res" indies often tend toward either cartoonish mobile vector graphics, or almost-flat shaded 3d which likewise has a cartoonish quality to it.

It doesn't have to be super high end res. I just want a resolution high enough that individual pixels aren't highly noticeable.

Also it takes no effort to make the text not low res.

Strong disagree with the premise of the thread. I have paid for many indie games at many price points. I have gotten extremely great values (great game low price) and also some stings (not so great games at higher prices).

I don't understand you categorically rejecting prices, or even lumping "indies" together. Each product should be evaluated on its own. But there's CERTAINLY nothing to reduce your expected price for "indies" compared to B and higher budget games. Plenty of them are not nearly worth their listed price.

So, yes, total rejection of your "indies are too expensive" premise. Some of my favorite games of all time have been indies of various production budgets and prices.

What constitutes as indie has become blurry over the years. They vary greatly in budget and scale, and them have publishers for support.

Developers are largely undervalued for their work, but with the sheer number of competing games and a consumer base that is used to deep discounts, many devs are afraid of asking for more. Very few indies can dedicate to game development full-time for many years like Jeff Vogel.

The same goes for me (though I couldn't care less about "the pride" of developers, and their communication skills) - and not only for indies, but for AAA games, too.

Why?

Because:

1) these days I know for sure that any given game will be available for that price at some point in the future,

and because

2) my money doesn't grow on a tree in my garden, waiting to get plucked.

Unless you have so much of it, that you use it as a substitute for confetti at parades, there's really no reason to spend more money on a game, than is ultimately asked for.

Edit: word double

Isn't what the market is willing to pay the best indication of value? How else would you assign value to the work?

HA. + 10 interweb points