One of the aspects of “Agile Development” is to quickly change to meet market needs.  MochiAds is sponsoring a contest with a $5000 grand prize for using their Leaderboards API.  In addition, FreeSpin3D is sponsoring an additional $5000 prize for the game that best uses their technology in this contest.

I am very fortunate to not have upgraded to Flash CS4 because FreeSpin3D requires the use of Flash CS3.  In addition, to use the FreeSpin3D ActionScript API, it requires the use of ActionScript 3.0 because of performance issues with ActionScript 2.0.  All in all, FreeSpin3D is a very powerful product.

FullSpin3D isn’t a full 3D-engine, rather it is a component that can be used inside a Flash file to load and display low polygon models.  It took me a good week to get a solid grasp on how to use the API and program behaviors using ActionScript 3.0, and I believe that it is a very viable tool – especially in game development.

Unfortuantely, due to the nature of the contest, I will not be posting iterative builds until the contest is over.  But rest assured, once the contest is complete I will unlock the development iterations to see the process in creating this Flash game.

The Escapist Magazine (of Zero Punctuation fame) recently put out a series of articles about piracy.  One of the articles I thought that was very interesting was one about the culture in Brazil where practically every piece of software available for sale is pirated.  This is very true in Asia as well.  But it was the price point that caught my eye:

The asking price is ridiculously small – usually around R$10 to R$15 (or $5 to $7.50) – but after a little negotiation, you can easily end up paying half that. You won’t, of course, receive a receipt; instead you might be giving a business card with the name of the game you purchased written on the back, with the promise that you’ll be able to exchange the game in that store if it proves to be faulty.

In general, there is speculation that the price of software – even AAA title software is too high.  Valve experiemented with Left4Dead by lowering it’s price point to see how much sales increases occurred at different price points:

10% Price Reduction – 35% Revenue increase
25% Price Reduction – 245% Revenue increase
50% Price Reduction – 320% Revenue increase
75% Price Reduction – 1470% Revenue increase

Note: This is revenue increase – not number of units sold.  The profits shot through the roof as the price came down.

I’m estimating that the correct price point for indie games is somewhere in the $3-$5 range.  This undercuts pirate prices.

In a bad economy, people will be seeking the most value for their dollar.  Games offer far more value than a movie because of replayability.  Therefore, a game that outprices books, comics, and even rental movies will do very well in this downturn economy.

One of the major setbacks about the big-AAA gaming companies is the risk of increasing production values with little return on investment. The obsession with movie-quality realism in games comes to a screeching halt the moment it comes to the question of whether or not the wrinkle detail on your character’s face (which took an artist a week to perfect) ultimately makes a difference when it comes to the profitability of your game.

In the words of the recently deceased “Ensemble Studios” creator of “Age of Empires” and “Halo Wars”:

“I think we may have tried to do too much with each game,” Shelley admitted, saying designers tend to suffer from that mentality across the board. The company used its last game, Halo Wars, as a chance to try and take a more stripped-down design approach.

Admittedly, high production values do sell in numbers. The question is whether it sells enough.

The question becomes even more embarassing when you check the profitability vs. production cost ratio of games that look like this:

Bejewelled 2 by PopCap Games