Destination Ares Patch Notes — March 14, 2018
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
You may have noticed that Destination Ares has had suppressed sales prices on Steam.
This was an intentional experiment. :redscientist:
From launch onwards, every sale was 10% off, plus 1% per sale before it. So, the second sale was 11% and the sixth was 15%. My goal was to build a sense of consistency and transparency with my sales pricing structure.
Of course, there were two issues with this method.
First, I didn't tell anyone that I was doing this. :evafacepalm: Whoops, there goes the transparency part.
Second, 1% per sale is too slow for a game of this scale, if we consider how many Steam sales can be squeezed in a year. My rough estimate based on previous data is 12 sales per year (5 or 6 weeklongs + 4 seasonals + 2 or 3 randoms ). If Valve :2017meatball: ever reaches out to do a special promotion, this could go up slightly.
Still, that's only 22% off, max, by the game's launch anniversary, *if* I participated in every sale opportunity (which, for various reasons, doesn't always happen). 22% is a respectable discount, but doesn't light a candle against other pricing schedules.
I could see some games making that '1% per sale' work. It hasn't worked for this title, however.
So, I've decided to amend my strategy.
Step one:
Let you all in on the secret.
Done.
Step two:
Make up a bit for lost time.
This week and this week only, Destination Ares is 20% off on Steam.
Step three: :alarm:
Decide and announce the new pricing structure.
From now on, Destination Ares' sales price will add 3% each time.
Today it's 20%, next time it'll be 23%, then 26%, and so on.It's not a dramatic increase from sale to sale, and it's not supposed to be!
I want you to be confident that you're getting a good deal when you buy this game that I put so much literal blood, sweat, and tears into making. Whether you buy it on sale or not, you should know what you're getting into, and part of that is knowing how much you could be paying.
However, if you're going to wait anyway, I don't want you to have to wait until the heat death of the universe. :bluemedic:
Hopefully, this will be the sweet spot.
Thanks for taking this ride with me.
