Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
For the price of your game, you have a large selection of options to choose from. If
you want to put your game out there for free you can, or if you want to charge $999
you can (although that might not be the best idea if you want to sell a copy). The
price can sometimes be a difficult decision to make, and getting it wrong can impact
sales; however, sticking close to the industry standard will usually keep you safe.
As this is a mobile platform, you need to consider that the pricing structure for mobile
games is very different from the traditional retail pricing. A race to the bottom has
led to many consumers expecting the 99c price point for games, and anything higher
than that requires a bit of content to justify the extra cost. Thankfully, this has shifted
away as larger companies push into the market with higher price points; however,
you should not expect consumers to be happy with prices over $10-$15, unless your
game has a lot of amazing content. To get around this limitation, mobile games have
started to rely on in-app purchases to make up the extra revenue; we'll take a look
at how you can add that later in this chapter.
Once you have decided on your price, you need to set it using the provided drop-
down menu. If you are charging for your game, you also have the option of setting a
trial period. There are two ways you can provide a trial game to your customers. The
first is to use the Windows Store API to check if your game is running in trial mode,
and then alter your content accordingly. This takes a little more effort; however, you
can tailor the experience to try and encourage a purchase (also known as a conver-
sion). We'll take a look at this in the next section.
The other technique is much easier, and lets you just specify a trial period in which
the player can enjoy your game as if they had bought it. However, at the end of the
trial period the game will be locked out automatically and the player will be prompted
to purchase the game. This is managed by the store and is done automatically for
you based on the period you specify, which means you can easily add in a short tri-
al of the game for potential customers to experience, without actually touching your
game code.
The downside here is that, if your game can be experienced completely within the
trial period, they may not feel the need to buy the game. You can, however, combine
