|
Matching inflation to a game finished years ago? Yeah the handful of devs working part time to maintain and patch might cost a bit more nowadays but it's still a cash grab. Surely they would make loads more money having a sale just before the expansion release.
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 13:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 20:42 |
|
|
Truga posted:DSP is currently on sale for 13.5 and a better game quoted for ban
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 14:57
|
|
|
Dressed to Kill posted:Matching inflation to a game finished years ago? Yeah the handful of devs working part time to maintain and patch might cost a bit more nowadays but it's still a cash grab. If there's another way to make more money then this is not a cash grab. This is just unwise business practices
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 17:19
|
|
|
Dressed to Kill posted:Yeah the handful of devs working part time to maintain and patch might cost a bit more nowadays but it's still a cash grab. I'm not even sure about that. The tech industry seems more in the mood to get rid of people (or in HR-speak, "perform a resource action") than to give them raises ATM.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 18:08
|
|
|
gaj70 posted:I'm not even sure about that. The tech industry seems more in the mood to get rid of people (or in HR-speak, "perform a resource action") than to give them raises ATM. Microsoft hired 40,000 people last year, then this year is firing 10,000. I don't think Wub software aggressively expanded that much, so they aren't going to see the same effects.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 18:28
|
|
|
I value entertainment at $5 per hour ... A formulation I haven't changed in like 20 years. I have played Factorio for 600 hours, so I think it's a good deal. People sitting around at home saying, "THOSE GREEDY DEVS NEED TO MAKE FACTORIO CHEAPER! I am only willing to pay $15 for it! How dare they not lower the price!" Never underestimate the ability for one person to undervalue someone else's time/effort.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 18:44
|
|
|
im poor, if i don't get an hour of entertainment per dollar, than i feel cheated. not that factorio hasn't surpassed that, but i understand the whole "i can't just be dropping 30 on a maybe" mindset
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 19:05
|
|
|
If they wanna charge more, they can just charge more. They don't really have to justify it at all. It's their game, they can charge what they like. It's not like it actually affects me in any way, since I already own the game. Yeah, there's probably going to be a non-zero amount of people who'd have been okay buying it at $30 but wouldn't buy it at $35. Wube are well aware of that, it's something they definitely took into account when making this decision. They can see how often people buy their videogame and they know how much they're making from it. As for the "cash grab" talk, I think that's excessive. This is an industry full of microtransactions poo poo designed to turn players into ongoing revenue streams. Meanwhile, all Wube is doing is slightly increasing the one-time base price of a successful game that's (presumably) still selling well three years after it came out of early access. It's not like they're locking roboports behind lootboxes or requiring us to fuel beacons with paid currency or something.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 19:13
|
|
|
Hey i don't have a problem with the price (I paid 20 and have over 2000 hours). The reasoning is just a lie.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 19:25
|
|
|
Vizuyos posted:If they wanna charge more, they can just charge more. They don't really have to justify it at all. It's their game, they can charge what they like. It's not like it actually affects me in any way, since I already own the game. Just another 300,000 green circuits and I can unlock another Rail Stop! This is awesome!!
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 19:35
|
|
|
I don't think anyone's arguing Factorio's price increase is a sin. It's worth it at $30 and it'll be worth it at $35. But there's a reason it's generated so much discussion for a mundane with-inflation price increase - it draws attention back to Wube's pricing strategy in general, which has a bit of a weird vibe to me. Factorio never going on sale, out of a principle that their game is worth what it's worth and should be judged by its listed price only, isn't a bad one necessarily. But it isn't in line with what the market for video games is actually like. Steam doesn't even really provide an effective way to communicate that they take this approach - you have to scroll a fair way down the store page and get into the third paragraph of the description before you find that out. There's gonna be thousands of people with Factorio on their wishlists waiting for a sale that will never come. And for what? Factorio isn't a worse game for never being discounted but I doubt anyone is arguing that it's better for it - at least, out side of people that are such big fans that they'll assume any decision Wube makes is a good one a priori. If they're in need of more money, they could easily put the game on sale and make much more than they'll get by squeezing an extra fiver from the trickle of people who'd like the game but haven't bought it yet. No one would judge them for that, no one has a problem with the concept of video game sales. They wouldn't be losing out on any profit potential, since the unit cost of producing a copy of Factorio is zero. But they haven't done that, they've just raised the price so their original estimation of its value stays accurate to inflation. They're sticking to their guns for the sake of a principle that nobody really cares about. It belies a stubbornness that leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, especially in light of everything else we've learned about Kovarex.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 20:06
|
|
|
Truga posted:DSP is currently on sale for 13.5 and a better game The inherent alignment issues caused by the world being a sphere make your statement a falsehood. As for the price raise, I've owned the game for like 10 years I don't give a poo poo lmao.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 20:41
|
|
|
Gamers are so weirdly entitled.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 20:50
|
|
|
lol at everyone calling it a cash grab or whatever. the real money is in perpetually listing your game with a 10% discount or whatever (which is why the other 99% of game studios on steam do it). if arbitrarily raising prices by five bucks increased profits then other companies would do it too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 22:46
|
|
|
Tenebrais posted:I don't think anyone's arguing Factorio's price increase is a sin. It's worth it at $30 and it'll be worth it at $35. But there's a reason it's generated so much discussion for a mundane with-inflation price increase - it draws attention back to Wube's pricing strategy in general, which has a bit of a weird vibe to me. They are playing a long game. They raise the price to $35 then in six months they finally put it "on sale" for $30 and all those people who were waiting for a sale instead of paying $30 will buy it on sale for $30.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 22:58
|
|
|
The Locator posted:They are playing a long game. They raise the price to $35 then in six months they finally put it "on sale" for $30 and all those people who were waiting for a sale instead of paying $30 will buy it on sale for $30. It's on sale now, until they raise the price 
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 23:50
|
|
|
They mentally increase the price by $0.01 every time someone makes a thread complaining that the game never goes on sale and then update it in $5 increments.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 00:27
|
|
|
the inflation explanation makes perfect sense, everything has gone up in price. they also need to keep a stream of income healthy until the DLC launch.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 00:35
|
|
|
nrook posted:Gamers are so weirdly entitled. Seriously lol You all own the game, this literally won't affect you. Also you all probably have hundreds of hours, you know the game is worth $35.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 01:22
|
|
|
They should charge 70 dollars for this game
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 01:39
|
|
|
Taffer posted:Seriously lol Maybe. They've indicated the expansion will cost the same as the base game, so it's +$5 in 1Q25ish ;-)
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 02:37
|
|
|
Taffer posted:Seriously lol This is one of my most-played steam games and it's cheaper than a new ubi/acti game by about half. Any poster that complains about a $5 increase, provided with a reasonable explanation, should have to post how many hours they have in it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 05:11
|
|
|
World Famous W posted:im poor, if i don't get an hour of entertainment per dollar, than i feel cheated. not that factorio hasn't surpassed that, but i understand the whole "i can't just be dropping 30 on a maybe" mindset They still have a demo you can download from their website. Not sure if it's available on steam but it should be more than enough to make that decision, not to mention the tens of thousands of hours of video out there. They should raise the price to $35 now but put it on sale for $30 until the originally scheduled increase, so they notify everyone who has it on their wishlist. Then it really becomes a cash grab.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 05:56
|
|
|
Probably would be better received if it was somehow reframed as the end of a multi-year sale instead. Raising the price at this point leads to feelings of being over charged or cheated, and people are just wired to hate that feeling way out of proportion to any real effect on them. I don't care too much. Aside from the fact I already own the game so it doesn't even affect me, it's one of the least offensive examples of  you're likely to see in a given week. The price is up front rather than buried in gacha crap, it's a non-essential good with no expiration date, no artificial scarcity, no natural monopolies exist and a huge catalog of competitors immediately available. Instead I could play satisfactory, cities: skylines or oxygen not included and those are just the games I already own that are genre adjacent.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 06:13
|
|
|
It doesn't matter that they haven't added any more employees, $5 is less than the delta with cost of living increases since. And no employee should work for less, you goblins.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 06:51
|
|
|
The Factorio devs' take on pricing isn't bad, just odd. Honestly it's not even that weird, it just stands in defiance of the widespread view of a piece of software being a singular "product" that depreciates in value over time. Partly because while games don't age, the design decisions and tech they're built on do as the industry moves onward. And partly because it's smart marketing to gradually reduce the price over time: when a game's been out for a year at $60, most of everyone who was willing to buy it at that price already has. So then you drop it to $40 and pick up a bunch of new customers who were previously priced out. It's win-win, but it does create this perverse incentive for the savvy customer to just wait for the price to drop. The same thing happens with sales, which the Factorio guys brought up in their reasoning in why they don't do them. So while they seem to be doing it out of a desire to simplify things and have the game just cost what it costs, some people are going to perceive it as penny-pinching.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 06:59
|
|
|
Their stance on pricing is actually something I respect, which is great since they need all the good-will they can get due to the previously-mentioned issues around Kovarex etc. I don't know about you all, but while I enjoy my job a lot and want to keep doing it forever, I personally feel that today I am generating more output for 1 hour of my effort compared to when I first started due to learning and improving and specializing in what I do. If anything, I would like to charge more per unit of effort on my part rather than less. So - seeing how they continue to work on Factorio and deliver updates and presumably the DLC will also add new features to the base game itself - I am also not surprised they are charging more. Maybe they could sell extra copies by having a sale or lowering the price, but it's a relatively old and very niche game, anyone who knows about it and really wants a game like this has had plenty of time to decide and buy it (or not) and I don't think $5 either way will make a big difference. I guess the ultimate decision they have to make is: does Wube need more money to continue as-is, or not? By their decision they probably chose the "not" and that's great for them. Back on a personal level I made a similar choice before - my salary went up, but instead of getting more money I chose to work less hours. The price of factorio went up so that they can earn the same amount while selling fewer copies. I see that as a measure of success. I wonder how much of this reaction is also cultural. I've lived in america and europe and I feel like european culture is more accepting of "get less money in exchange for more freedom"-type decisions, whereas my experience in america (and to some extent canada) was "anything is worth getting an extra dollar right now". Back on the actual topic of Factorio: The Game, I haven't played in a while, but assuming that the space addon is good I will absolutely get back into it, and if they charge another $30 for it I will probably buy though I might wait to read some reviews first. In my opinion, it is still the best factory game - I tried Factory Town, Satisfactory, and DSP, and none of them scratch the same itch. I've been playing Captain of Industry lately and it feels like it might be a contender. For me that means Factorio itself has some special charm (or was just lucky / right game at the right time) that the others do not, so based on the limited competition in this gaming niche I think a price increase is very reasonable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 09:46
|
|
|
FYI Minecraft is $30 right now. It started at $13. It is currently the most sold game of all time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 11:11
|
|
|
I do find their pricing model interesting. And what actually annoys me about it is that they don't publish enough data to draw real conclusions about how well it works. They seem to be confident in their approach, but on the other hand they do pretty dumb things sometimes. Remember how they tried to sell the game for bitcoin, back when paypal refused to work with non-americans? I say as someone who paid 50$ for a higher funding tier, back in the day.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 15:32
|
|
|
I just got this game Saturday and have been up until 5 AM two days in a row with it. Good times. Struggling with care and feeding of assemblers. I've done a bunch of layouts, the most successful so far has been just two loops that everything, products and ingredients alike, get dumped into but it obviously jams up quite a bit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 19:44
|
|
|
Point to Multi-point is your friend. Never loop. Just allow things to backup if it happens. A full belt means you need more consumption. An empty belt means you need more production.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 19:49
|
|
|
What does point to multi-point mean? I haven't seen most of the tech tree yet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 19:50
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:I just got this game Saturday and have been up until 5 AM two days in a row with it. Good times. You in 10 hours: "Sushi belts kind of suck" You in 1000 hours: "Sushi belts are actually epic best in slot"
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 19:51
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:What does point to multi-point mean? I haven't seen most of the tech tree yet. It means to just run your belts straight from what's supplying your ingredients to what's consuming said ingredients, using splitters to divide one ingredient belt up to reach several assemblers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 19:57
|
|
|
I am "only" at 600 hours, but I have never used Sushi belts... 32 length trains ... however ... I use the gently caress out of. So is that the all-you-can-eat buffet equivalent?
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 22:10
|
|
|
I built a Sushi belt in my first game. It makes sense if you haven't seen any videos about the game before. Building an actually useful sushi belt is witchcraft. There are 2 in the 100% speedrun, where you plop down a blueprint that took something like 10000 man hours to plan and test.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2023 22:44
|
|
|
Sushi belts can make sense for science, assuming you do the calculators to keep the colors balanced.. I've never seen a need for them otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2023 00:54
|
|
|
The pricing discussion is weird to me. The price increase is inconsequential, particular given typical time spent playing the game. It probably is a poor move from a business perspective, but I really don't care. Given the information that came out about Kovarex, any price greater than free is too much. Maybe others are better at separating art from the artist, but I don't buy into that at all. Particularly in the present when there are alternatives in the genre. Last time someone asked me about buying Factorio I steered them to Satisfactory/DSP instead. No other factory game does quite what Factorio does with trains, though even Factorio is pretty clunky here. I would probably be better off playing openttd and another factory game separately.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2023 04:47
|
|
|
Also post your base(s), triumphs, and
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2023 05:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 20:42 |
|
|
Simple sushi belts don't even need a ridiculous amount of combinator knowledge. The key is having a memory cell that gets pulse signals from every inserter that takes from or adds to the belt. (Or from belts that feed in.) When stuff comes off the belt, those inserters subtract from the memory cell, and when the memory cell is lower than the target value, inserters or belts add items to the belt and add to the value in the memory. And the memory cells are literally just a combinator wired to itself, with the other wire color used for input pulses.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2023 09:35
|
|