How much would you be willing to pay for a custom-campaign with interconnected mission. Let's bring up two examples.
1. 5 missions, map design blizzard-level-of-quality, no custom content, no new art, no new sound, few new units/spells (data) no voiceover.
2. 10 missions, map design is blizzard-level-of-quality, a lot of custom content and art, many new units/spells (data), yes to voiceover.
If there is any of you who know me and know the work I've done for WC3, could you tell me how much you would have paid for any of my three campaigns (see signature) back then when you first played them? It's okay if you say 0 (zero), I won't stop making campaigns.
Pay money to play a game in a game? Don't think so... How much would I enjoy it? If was quality and it obviously took a long time probably quite a bit.
Why would you have more missions for custom content? Would you even have enough space for that? Anyways I wouldn't pay for the first one since it's only 5 missions and nothing custom. The second one I would pay maybe $3 depending on the level of quality. You say blizzard level of quality but you can't really get that level of quality and if you could you would be making your own game instead of campaign maps.
For the stuff without custom add-ins I would probably pay up to 5 bucks depending on how much fun it looks and whether it has any good reviews. The custom stuff could be worth up to $15 to me if, again, it looks fun and has good reviews.
Why wouldn't you make more missions? It's supposed to be a campaign with multiple maps, on different tilesets with a long story. Not the typical multiplayer map you play over and over. In my opinion the quality of a campaign is reflected by its one-time-playthrough-experience and not its replayability.
You're right about the blizzard-quality of course. Let's assume I mean an as-good-as-a-custom-map-can-get-quality level design. Meaning: solid, polished and fun, maybe minor bugs. Something you would rate 7-9 out of 10.
I don't mean that it's bad that there is more for the custom assets but the one without custom assets could have more maps since it has no limit being used up each map. Custom assets take up space and would mean less space each map as I'm assuming each map uses different sets of custom assets, with some same assets used among them all. So basically would you really be able to fit 10 custom content full maps on bnet? I know 10 no custom content maps would be easy to fit as there is no custom assets. That's what I mean. Sorry if it isn't clear.
Something along the lines of that. For campaign style maps I have somewhat of a small 'formula' where I pay 50 cents per map + 10 cent for each mark of quality (voice acting, new models, custom cinematics [campaign style], etc), with a maximum of 1 euro per map.
Well, I wouldn't pay anything using money. In case Blizzard changes their wow cards to points cards usable on their BlizzStore and the marketplace, I would buy using them.
1. 0.25-1€, would need to be very good for 1€
2. 5€. Maybe 8€ if it was exceptional. Would need to be GREAT for me to pay 10€, and I would need to really love the project and the makers to support them like that. I don't think it would be easy for me to pay over 5€.
As for your campaigns, Outsider, I would have payed 5€ for each easily, or maybe 3-4€, they needed more custom stuff, imo, and maybe 2€ if I didn't know what they were about. Anyway, they were goddamn awesome, but you don't know if something's awesome until you play it, so it's hard to tell. I don't remember if they had voice acting, and I think most models were of various people, and downloadable out there.
@Keyeszx
I started this discussion with the marketplace in mind where I believe that Blizzard would allow more and larger maps. But since this is a system almost nothing is known about I just don't want to assume anything. I started this thread to get a general idea as to what people were actually willing to pay. Many people posted some interesting responses. I would have thought that most people would pay nothing at all.
@Lonami
1. No, my campaigns didn't feature voice acting and almost all of the stuff was made by other people. So the funny thing is, I believe in order to make some profit the fewer people worked on a project, the better, leading to very little to none custom stuff. - 2. Yes, people don't like to pay for what they don't know. ONE idea would be to create a free demo of EACH map, letting the player experience a small portion of each map (yes, even the final chapters of a campaign). So people can buy the rest of each map if they liked it and are hungry for more, or just leave it at that. I actually prefer this approach to the one where people hand out the first map of a campaign for free and charge for the rest. First of all you lose money by gifting the first map, second of all the later maps could not be as good as the first.
I have not yet seen any campaign in wc3 or sc2 that I would pay for. I wouldnt even pay single cent for sc2 campaign if I could get the editor bnet combination for cheaper...sc2 story just is so fucking plain bad Imo.....
but for a good map I guess I could pay around 1-5e, but it has to really make good impression and get good reviews to impress me. I mostly just dont get new games for some reason even If would love to try them. Smashcraft definetly could have been a map worth buying for 1e, but then again I dunno if Im really gona buy anything. I think im more of a map maker than a player.
You are asking the wrong people this question. I would guess most people on BNET would pay $1 or so for the map, maybe more if it was really good. Think of the app store. People do buy $10 apps, but they have to be really, really good, and from my experience they are usually not games.
I can't say how much I would pay, because it honestly depends on a lot of things. Reviews are important. Blizzard doesn't do reviews, I am not buying a thing.
I may have misunderstood the purpose of this thread, but you are trying to see how much you can get for your game on the marketplace? If that is the case, this really depends on how Blizzard decides to do this, and a lot of other things. My guess is that in the end, games will be similar to the app store, costing $1 - $5.
All of this is a total guess by the way. There isn't really any way to accurately predict this, because it hasn't really been done before. (A game within a game, made by random people)
@OutsiderXE: Go
I know your warcraft 3 campaigns, i played with them, and they were fantastic. For the marketplace, it depends, how we can pay. I won't use it if i need paypal or something like this. But if, as Lonami told, we can use game cards to get credit, I would buy one, then download some intresting things. But i think Blizzard will decide how much the things will cost, so they can avoid, that somebody sell it for, or almost, free or too expensive. For a good campaigns, i would pay, i hate this multiplayer minigames, TD-s, Dota etc. More like strory related things, campaigns, meele gamplay with new units/buildings, races etc.
Hmmm.. Wings of Liberty had 29 missions. For expansion with 30 missions I would pay around 50 euro.
So if it is really Blizzard quality then 1-2 euro per map. But it really requires that its Blizzard quality. (= Lot of models, voice actors, really good story, and lot of replayable value)
- -
For me Heart of the Swarm defines price for good quality map / campaign. In Wings of Liberty we paid for base game so that must be hard decision for Blizzard too.
@Lonami 1. No, my campaigns didn't feature voice acting and almost all
of the stuff was made by other people. So the funny thing is, I believe
in order to make some profit the fewer people worked on a project, the
better, leading to very little to none custom stuff. - 2. Yes, people
don't like to pay for what they don't know. ONE idea would be to create
a free demo of EACH map, letting the player experience a small portion
of each map (yes, even the final chapters of a campaign). So people can
buy the rest of each map if they liked it and are hungry for more, or
just leave it at that. I actually prefer this approach to the one where
people hand out the first map of a campaign for free and charge for the
rest. First of all you lose money by gifting the first map, second of
all the later maps could not be as good as the first.
Yeah, that's my idea, too. Give 1-2 missions for free, make people pay for the next ones, and maybe make the finale a bit expensiver... that may not work. Letting people play "demo mode" for most of the missions, where they just experience a part of it, could be better.
Maybe charging for each map is a good idea, too, instead of buying the entire campaign. That way, you can stop buying the if the quality drops.
Another option could be to release a free "short" version, with some missions cut off, and some optional objectives removed. That way, you play the entire storyline, and then, if you want to replay it with more objectives, more missions and more stuff, you pay.
Still, I'm not sure at how to approach it, but people knowing what's it about is very important. I got your campaigns asap because they had good reception, and because they were about books I had read; and I think you making them about those books gave you some advantage. With all the campaigns out there, you can't start playing each of them to see what they're about.
Videos and screenshots are good, but the ideal scenario is fixing this in-game, where the people play.
Why would you have more missions for custom content? Would you even have enough space for that? Anyways I wouldn't pay for the first one since it's only 5 missions and nothing custom. The second one I would pay maybe $3 depending on the level of quality. You say blizzard level of quality but you can't really get that level of quality and if you could you would be making your own game instead of campaign maps.
He would just need to save all of his custom content in one or two mods. No need to duplicate that stuff in each map.
Let's not mince words. The casuals will probably not pay more than $2 for anything. Many would probably stick to the free stuff. I can see a lot of Lite versions of maps being released for free, while the more hardcore audience would be willing to pay the extra couple of bucks for really great content. I would guess that the population split between casuals and hardcore gamers (if the dichotomy really exists) is around 70/30 in SC2. This will certainly affect profit margins for maps and designers should plan accordingly.
Another point: Free games will gain popularity faster because - well, they're free. This will provide incentive for "Lite" maps. Boost the popularity a bit, get people introduced to your game, then let them decide if they want to reward you (and themselves) for your efforts buy purchasing the full version. I'm basically predicting the same situation that happens with mobile apps.
He would just need to save all of his custom content in one or two mods. No need to duplicate that stuff in each map.
Let's not mince words. The casuals will probably not pay more than $2 for anything. Many would probably stick to the free stuff. I can see a lot of Lite versions of maps being released for free, while the more hardcore audience would be willing to pay the extra couple of bucks for really great content. I would guess that the population split between casuals and hardcore gamers (if the dichotomy really exists) is around 70/30 in SC2. This will certainly affect profit margins for maps and designers should plan accordingly.
Another point: Free games will gain popularity faster because - well, they're free. This will provide incentive for "Lite" maps. Boost the popularity a bit, get people introduced to your game, then let them decide if they want to reward you (and themselves) for your efforts buy purchasing the full version. I'm basically predicting the same situation that happens with mobile apps.
Yeah, that's what I mean, too. Short version: free, long version: €. The Application Market is pretty much the same as any other virtual market, and learning from it is always good.
Its my belief that sc2 maps that are free will never lead to actual purchases of the full version.
first of all ... just making a lite version basically requires completely chaning the entire point of the content.....
Unless you can offer in game advertisements or something.... thats the most common form of "lite" apps on the android market..... and I just stick with the advertisements.....
$0.00 None, if I want to play a single player story mode game. I would play ME. If the story mode can beat Mass Effect caliber gameplay and graphics I would consider. But, most likely, I wouldn't even try it if you payed me. Just being brutally honest, its nothing against you, you could be the best modder in the world for all I know. Also, the quality of the Blizzard campaign was really bad, any good modder on this site could probably do leaps and bounds ahead of what Blizzard released. Wasn't it Programmer whom embarrassed Blizzard by releasing the DotA hero selection screen the day after it was presented? Blizzard was all smug about that too lol.
If I want to play fun mini games, I'll play WC3 Custom games.
If I want to play FPS games, I would play BC/BF, ET or CoD.
If I want to play DotA style games, I would play on a real platform for those games.
The only thing SC2 has in terms of current marketing value is its tournament scene, and the potential of the custom map scene. And, I wouldn't consider any of those in its current state as a growing success.
That said, SC2 has no market value for me. Other than the initial SC2 purchase, and future negative purchases on other Blizzard products.
How much would you be willing to pay for a custom-campaign with interconnected mission. Let's bring up two examples.
1. 5 missions, map design blizzard-level-of-quality, no custom content, no new art, no new sound, few new units/spells (data) no voiceover.
2. 10 missions, map design is blizzard-level-of-quality, a lot of custom content and art, many new units/spells (data), yes to voiceover.
If there is any of you who know me and know the work I've done for WC3, could you tell me how much you would have paid for any of my three campaigns (see signature) back then when you first played them? It's okay if you say 0 (zero), I won't stop making campaigns.
Pay money to play a game in a game? Don't think so... How much would I enjoy it? If was quality and it obviously took a long time probably quite a bit.
Why would you have more missions for custom content? Would you even have enough space for that? Anyways I wouldn't pay for the first one since it's only 5 missions and nothing custom. The second one I would pay maybe $3 depending on the level of quality. You say blizzard level of quality but you can't really get that level of quality and if you could you would be making your own game instead of campaign maps.
For the stuff without custom add-ins I would probably pay up to 5 bucks depending on how much fun it looks and whether it has any good reviews. The custom stuff could be worth up to $15 to me if, again, it looks fun and has good reviews.
@Keyeszx: Go
Why wouldn't you make more missions? It's supposed to be a campaign with multiple maps, on different tilesets with a long story. Not the typical multiplayer map you play over and over. In my opinion the quality of a campaign is reflected by its one-time-playthrough-experience and not its replayability.
You're right about the blizzard-quality of course. Let's assume I mean an as-good-as-a-custom-map-can-get-quality level design. Meaning: solid, polished and fun, maybe minor bugs. Something you would rate 7-9 out of 10.
1. $0
2. Up to $5.00
@OutsiderXE: Go
I don't mean that it's bad that there is more for the custom assets but the one without custom assets could have more maps since it has no limit being used up each map. Custom assets take up space and would mean less space each map as I'm assuming each map uses different sets of custom assets, with some same assets used among them all. So basically would you really be able to fit 10 custom content full maps on bnet? I know 10 no custom content maps would be easy to fit as there is no custom assets. That's what I mean. Sorry if it isn't clear.
1. Up to 5 euros.
2. Up to 10 euros.
Something along the lines of that. For campaign style maps I have somewhat of a small 'formula' where I pay 50 cents per map + 10 cent for each mark of quality (voice acting, new models, custom cinematics [campaign style], etc), with a maximum of 1 euro per map.
Well, I wouldn't pay anything using money. In case Blizzard changes their wow cards to points cards usable on their BlizzStore and the marketplace, I would buy using them.
1. 0.25-1€, would need to be very good for 1€
2. 5€. Maybe 8€ if it was exceptional. Would need to be GREAT for me to pay 10€, and I would need to really love the project and the makers to support them like that. I don't think it would be easy for me to pay over 5€.
As for your campaigns, Outsider, I would have payed 5€ for each easily, or maybe 3-4€, they needed more custom stuff, imo, and maybe 2€ if I didn't know what they were about. Anyway, they were goddamn awesome, but you don't know if something's awesome until you play it, so it's hard to tell. I don't remember if they had voice acting, and I think most models were of various people, and downloadable out there.
@Keyeszx I started this discussion with the marketplace in mind where I believe that Blizzard would allow more and larger maps. But since this is a system almost nothing is known about I just don't want to assume anything. I started this thread to get a general idea as to what people were actually willing to pay. Many people posted some interesting responses. I would have thought that most people would pay nothing at all.
@Lonami 1. No, my campaigns didn't feature voice acting and almost all of the stuff was made by other people. So the funny thing is, I believe in order to make some profit the fewer people worked on a project, the better, leading to very little to none custom stuff. - 2. Yes, people don't like to pay for what they don't know. ONE idea would be to create a free demo of EACH map, letting the player experience a small portion of each map (yes, even the final chapters of a campaign). So people can buy the rest of each map if they liked it and are hungry for more, or just leave it at that. I actually prefer this approach to the one where people hand out the first map of a campaign for free and charge for the rest. First of all you lose money by gifting the first map, second of all the later maps could not be as good as the first.
I have not yet seen any campaign in wc3 or sc2 that I would pay for. I wouldnt even pay single cent for sc2 campaign if I could get the editor bnet combination for cheaper...sc2 story just is so fucking plain bad Imo.....
but for a good map I guess I could pay around 1-5e, but it has to really make good impression and get good reviews to impress me. I mostly just dont get new games for some reason even If would love to try them. Smashcraft definetly could have been a map worth buying for 1e, but then again I dunno if Im really gona buy anything. I think im more of a map maker than a player.
@OutsiderXE: Go
You are asking the wrong people this question. I would guess most people on BNET would pay $1 or so for the map, maybe more if it was really good. Think of the app store. People do buy $10 apps, but they have to be really, really good, and from my experience they are usually not games.
I can't say how much I would pay, because it honestly depends on a lot of things. Reviews are important. Blizzard doesn't do reviews, I am not buying a thing.
I may have misunderstood the purpose of this thread, but you are trying to see how much you can get for your game on the marketplace? If that is the case, this really depends on how Blizzard decides to do this, and a lot of other things. My guess is that in the end, games will be similar to the app store, costing $1 - $5.
All of this is a total guess by the way. There isn't really any way to accurately predict this, because it hasn't really been done before. (A game within a game, made by random people)
Great to be back and part of the community again!
@OutsiderXE: Go I know your warcraft 3 campaigns, i played with them, and they were fantastic. For the marketplace, it depends, how we can pay. I won't use it if i need paypal or something like this. But if, as Lonami told, we can use game cards to get credit, I would buy one, then download some intresting things. But i think Blizzard will decide how much the things will cost, so they can avoid, that somebody sell it for, or almost, free or too expensive. For a good campaigns, i would pay, i hate this multiplayer minigames, TD-s, Dota etc. More like strory related things, campaigns, meele gamplay with new units/buildings, races etc.
Hmmm.. Wings of Liberty had 29 missions. For expansion with 30 missions I would pay around 50 euro.
So if it is really Blizzard quality then 1-2 euro per map. But it really requires that its Blizzard quality. (= Lot of models, voice actors, really good story, and lot of replayable value)
- -
For me Heart of the Swarm defines price for good quality map / campaign. In Wings of Liberty we paid for base game so that must be hard decision for Blizzard too.
Yeah, that's my idea, too. Give 1-2 missions for free, make people pay for the next ones, and maybe make the finale a bit expensiver... that may not work. Letting people play "demo mode" for most of the missions, where they just experience a part of it, could be better.
Maybe charging for each map is a good idea, too, instead of buying the entire campaign. That way, you can stop buying the if the quality drops.
Another option could be to release a free "short" version, with some missions cut off, and some optional objectives removed. That way, you play the entire storyline, and then, if you want to replay it with more objectives, more missions and more stuff, you pay.
Still, I'm not sure at how to approach it, but people knowing what's it about is very important. I got your campaigns asap because they had good reception, and because they were about books I had read; and I think you making them about those books gave you some advantage. With all the campaigns out there, you can't start playing each of them to see what they're about.
Videos and screenshots are good, but the ideal scenario is fixing this in-game, where the people play.
He would just need to save all of his custom content in one or two mods. No need to duplicate that stuff in each map.
Let's not mince words. The casuals will probably not pay more than $2 for anything. Many would probably stick to the free stuff. I can see a lot of Lite versions of maps being released for free, while the more hardcore audience would be willing to pay the extra couple of bucks for really great content. I would guess that the population split between casuals and hardcore gamers (if the dichotomy really exists) is around 70/30 in SC2. This will certainly affect profit margins for maps and designers should plan accordingly.
Another point: Free games will gain popularity faster because - well, they're free. This will provide incentive for "Lite" maps. Boost the popularity a bit, get people introduced to your game, then let them decide if they want to reward you (and themselves) for your efforts buy purchasing the full version. I'm basically predicting the same situation that happens with mobile apps.
Yeah, that's what I mean, too. Short version: free, long version: €. The Application Market is pretty much the same as any other virtual market, and learning from it is always good.
@Lonami: Go
Its my belief that sc2 maps that are free will never lead to actual purchases of the full version.
first of all ... just making a lite version basically requires completely chaning the entire point of the content.....
Unless you can offer in game advertisements or something.... thats the most common form of "lite" apps on the android market..... and I just stick with the advertisements.....
$0.00 None, if I want to play a single player story mode game. I would play ME. If the story mode can beat Mass Effect caliber gameplay and graphics I would consider. But, most likely, I wouldn't even try it if you payed me. Just being brutally honest, its nothing against you, you could be the best modder in the world for all I know. Also, the quality of the Blizzard campaign was really bad, any good modder on this site could probably do leaps and bounds ahead of what Blizzard released. Wasn't it Programmer whom embarrassed Blizzard by releasing the DotA hero selection screen the day after it was presented? Blizzard was all smug about that too lol.
If I want to play fun mini games, I'll play WC3 Custom games.
If I want to play FPS games, I would play BC/BF, ET or CoD.
If I want to play DotA style games, I would play on a real platform for those games.
The only thing SC2 has in terms of current marketing value is its tournament scene, and the potential of the custom map scene. And, I wouldn't consider any of those in its current state as a growing success.
That said, SC2 has no market value for me. Other than the initial SC2 purchase, and future negative purchases on other Blizzard products.