DeestanThe Story of Factorio, the Game that Only Increases in Price
SentinianThis game gets universal praise and I'd love to play it but as a PC gamer I refuse to as I wouldn't want to support a dev who not only never does sales but raises the price because of "inflation"
Me, I wish more games respected my time like that, instead of costing 40$ and going on 20% sale every few weeks, leaving me to hunt bargain bins to be able to get it at its "efficient" price.
For me the major red flag is the price going up for inflation. The game went up in price when it left Early Access already and that was 3 years ago. But now the game is being sold as a full game sure it might get updates but one can expect a finished product to at least stay the same price, not go up.
As for sales, at least on PC games are pretty much always on sale either through steam directly or from sites like humble or greenmangaming. You can pretty much pickup any not recent game for 20% off at anytime if you search gg.deals or a similar service.
Well, inflation is real. And they are using sales income to fund current development. That's as fair as it gets.
Would you be happy if they released it at 60$ and had periodic 60% sales?
Well yes, if you do the math it would be cheaper then the $30 price point it's been for years. Actually it adds up to the same as a 20% sale of the $30 price.
I get the point you make. I can accept a game that never goes on sale. The main problem I have is it increasing price after 3 years out of early access.
While we disagree severely, I am grateful to hear the "other side" in a civil discussion. I suspect the no-downvote policy of Beehaw enables this discussion and hope to find more of it.
insomniac_lemonI agree more with your earlier comments, and add that inflation is only one part of the equation.
Wages have been stagnant for a while meaning you may have the same income as back then that now has less purchasing power, and with rising prices you have less spending money.
If wages are stagnant like they have been for a while (at least in USA), money has less purchasing power and people have less savings/spending money. So I wouldn't call that fair, or at least not the in the sense that "we're just adjusting it". Raising the price in situations like this is squeezing the customers, and I doubt most prices hikes with successful things are just to keep the lights on.
I think this was my main problem with the reasoning being inflation. Everyone focusing on the value of the game itself. My problem is when someone blames something on inflation I think everything goes up in price except my wages lol.
BuxtonWaterMy problem is when someone blames something on inflation I think everything goes up in price except my wages lol.
But that's not the factorio developers problem, that's your governments problem. So it's a bit unfair IMO to assign the 'blame' to them.
mombiHe didn't assign the blame for his wages not increasing to Factorio, though.
That's not quite what I meant, I meant blame assigned for them increasing their price.
RandoCalrandianYour red flag is a green flag for me. It tells me the dev set a realistic and fair price in the first place, and i don't mind the increase in price specifically because it's so cheap per gameplay/hour compared to any AAA title.
If the price was $100 it would still be the best value game i've every purchased... and i think i've spent at least that much buying copies as gifts
Not to mention the mods essentially infinitely expand the base game.
Everything about how the dev has done this has been a green flag in my book, as a consumer.
loopsAfaik it's not done being developed. Wube is working on another update for it still, while at the same time ironing out remaining bugs. Of course it's not as fast is it was before 1.0, but they're still chugging away at it.
hazel 🤷🏻♀️🏳️🌈I'll support any company who makes an incredible game and charges a fair price without implement IAP and such.
I dunno, I don't really see it as "respecting my time." Historically, games like this have been hit or miss for me, so I never wanted to blow over $20 on it, and I certainly don't feel like $35. I would much rather just play something else I already own or can get for cheaper until I can buy the game on a whim instead of having to commit and play "check every nook and cranny for deal-breakers during the refund window."
I would also far prefer something like what BattleBit Remastered is doing. Game came out for $15, it's one of the best shooters I've played in years, so I bought the $20 supporter pack for some in-game cosmetics. Low entry price and rewards for further support. I fundamentally disagree with raising prices on existing products and hate this idea of price FOMO that has extended past early access.
Factorio is one of the very few games that has a demo though.
The free demo allows you to figure out if you enjoy the mechanics of the game, and if you don't, you do not end up with more bloat in your library.
ScrubblesDid... you watch the video?
Not yet, I was just commenting based off the title since it has just been posted.
Ok, I've watched the video. I will admit I had not known about the g2a thing. While I get the sale thing a little more. I still don't see the inflation point. I get it's to continue development and such but it's only affecting new users and in a way making it harder to buy the game at the best time. Imagine if I hadn't heard of this game until it went up to 35 bucks. Sure they say the best time is now, but now this fomo is also into play as a result of the price increases this game will possibly get.
ampersandrewYou can price your game for what it's truly worth when you've got such a quality product. The value of the dollar went down, but the value of Factorio hasn't changed.
Truly worth is subjective. The devs are welcome to raise the price for inflation. I know you can get thousands of hours in this game, but I personally don't agree that a game should go up price even if the dollar drops in value.
Would you feel differently if no updates were released for the original game, and all development post release was bundled into a paid expansion? What if, after that, the game was only made available with expansion?
IMO, that’s all this is, with the nice bonus that people who bought in early get the expansion for free.
I am a bit confused by what you mean. Are you saying something like Base game launches at 20 DLC brings it to current state with a 15 purchase
Later down the line they merge and the game becomes 35?
If that's the case then yes, it's pretty much the same concept and in fact I would actually see that as a bigger red flag.
Other way around - base launches at $20, dlc comes out at $5, game and dlc get bundled down the line in a $25 pack, discontinuing the separate purchases.
It's very subjective, but that's what they're saying when they increase the price over time. Personally, the price of that game could keep rising a whole lot before I'd stop saying it's worth the price to someone asking for my recommendation.
Why did you put inflation in quotes like it isn't real?
https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/usa-inflation-rate/
At $35 right now the game is reasonably priced for the amount of value you will get out of it. I believe there is an expansion on the way as well...
$35 being reasonable is an understatement. Most people take 50h to get through their first "full playthrough" and the replayability is limitless. Then there's free workshop content that'll take abase game and add another 200h onto it (Space Exploration, Krastorio, Sea Block, Bob's, Angels, etc)
Plus: They still have a free demo with no time limit too. You get exposed to the core loop within five minutes of playing and you'll know if it clicks or not for you before you even have to buy.
I bought the game at $25 but I'd buy it again at $35 and not regret anything...
I have like 400 hours and have never launched a rocket lmao
HrBingRLogistic bots are a game changer. For real.
Nah, logistic bots are just a matter of convenience. While it helps with compact builds, most of the time they simply are a substitute for belts.
Construction bots are where its at.
Lol. I basically only do rail worlds now or heavy mods (I'm like 75h into a space exploration run and just started going to other planets).
But no logistics bots? You mad man
I have a bad habit of restarting all the time, and I've always loaded up on mods.. I've just never expanded enough to figure out logistic bots which kinda intimidate me.
Bots are straightforward:
Storage is storage. This is where the bots put things you deconstruct and where the bots grab things to build.
Requestor chests use bots to attempt to always have the amount(s) you set in them at all times.
Active providers attempt to be empty all the time. Logistics bots will move items out of these chests into storage.
Passive providers are like active providers but don't need to be empty all the time. Bots will take out of a passive provider before storage (even if storage is closer to the destination)
Buffer chests are weird. I don't fully understand them but i believe they're basically normal chests until you get over X amount in them then they turn into active providers? You can set an option on requester chests to request from buffers and then i believe that it then ignores whatever buffer settings you have... I never use them...
An important nuance is that the network will try to keep the same item in the same chest so if you have wood in a storage chest in the north bots will fly PAST empty storage to go to that specific chest that already has wood in it. Also bots will never put items back in a provider and will never take out of a requestor even if the items inside are no longer requested by the chest.
Basically throw down a lot of storage chests in one place. Put passive providers as the output for stuff you build. Put requestor chests as input for assemblers (if you copy an assembler with a recipe you can paste it onto a requestor to automatically request the ingredients). Do not put gears in your network it's just easier to move iron around and make gears where you need it.
Okay that actually helped a lot! What about the other bots?
Construction bots just build blueprints and deconstruct things marked for deconstruction. They take items from providers first (active then passive) then storage. They'll put things picked up into storage (not sure if they go into requestors directly though).
You can build a personal robo port and put it inside your suit, then robots you have in your personal inventory will construct/deconstruct in an area around you and put/pull from your inventory only.
Usually you'll want more logistics robots than construction but you can select any robo port and see the number of available/idle bots of each type in the network. If you wanna get real fancy you can get these numbers out with wires and use combinatiors to do some logic like: Only add bots if all bots are in use or other such things
Construction bots: if you place a blueprint for a building, if it is in construction range of a roboport a construction bot is free, and it has the item to build it in a provider, storage, or buffer chest in the network, then a construction will go get that item and then build that building.
Moving to construction bots is transformative to the redesign and rebuild loop because you can deconstruct an entire area with a deconstruction planner and a sweep of your mouse, then paste down 6 copies of your new design with a blueprint in a few clicks and just let the bots do the grunt work, while you focus on design.
The two things that broke me out of restarting everytime I hit midgame were learning construction bots, and trying for the Lazy Bastard achievement. Since I did that, I’ve never felt like ending a run before rocket launch.
The quotations was due to the fact that no other digital only game increases it price after release because of inflation. I get the devs are updating the game still, but the price of the base game shouldn't go up with time. But that's just my opinion.
Off the top of my head, Rain World did it too.
Is it that different than adding expansions? The only difference is they aren't charging current owners for all the new content.
My later replies clear up my thoughts better but I will say, expansions are not the same as you don't need to buy the expansion to play the game. I've seen games give expansion for free to existing then paid for anyone new but the base game is still purchase that you can buy by itself.
There is not really much in terms of new content. Just minor bugfixes, some optimization and modding improvements. The announced expansion will also be payed content.
They probably used quotes because it's only one part of the equation. If wages are stagnant like they have been for a while (at least in USA), money has less purchasing power and people have less savings/spending money.
Raising the price in economic situations like this is squeezing the customers (whether it's intended or not), and I doubt most prices hikes with successful things are just to keep the lights on. Which is the big issue now with rising inflation and record profits.
Wube is Czech, located in Prague, it's not like their grocery bills got smaller. Inflation figures actually don't make up for that the Crown is quite stable against the USD, both are dropping against the Euro, and Eurozone countries are Czechia's main trading partners, by, like, an enormous lot. Me buying some Czech beer doesn't really make up for importing Spanish and Italian tomatoes.
If you want to complain about rising prices blame Nestle et al as well as real estate speculation.
Czech Republic Food Inflation - May 2023 Data - 2000-2022 Historical - June Forecast
Food price inflation in the Czech Republic slowed to a 13-month low of 14.5% year-on-year in May 2023 from 17.3% in April, as prices moderated for bread (15.8% vs 21.1% in April), meat (8.7% vs12.7%), semi-fat long-life milk (5.4% vs 19.2%) and eggs (32.3% vs 41.2%). Food Inflation in Czech Republic averaged 3.12 percent from 2000 until 2023, reaching an all time high of 26.00 percent in November of 2022 and a record low of -6.50 percent in July of 2009. This page provides - Czech Republic Food Inflation - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
I mean it seems like it's been a household name for a while (I say as someone who does not closely follow pop-culture). Has their food/beer/housing money run dry? By all data that I can see, there is something wrong if they're not a multi-millionaire. That's putting it mildly as I'm sure they reached the "can live off this for the rest of my life if I don't blow it" point many times over very quickly even if you pretend early sales don't count.
Also low-cost gamedev is a lot more viable now thanks to gratis tools+internet help+modern funding options etc. Mindustry comes to mind. Price hikes aren't(/shouldn't be) needed to buy a dev a coffee/beer.
Though honestly my main reply was about the inflation claim in general that people like to use (common AAA conversation).
It's not just the three original devs any more they actually have a payroll to worry about and are easily burning through a million a year.
Raw sales (assuming 500K at $30) is $15M though. This seems far from struggling territory or even breaking even, and is probably diminishing returns/unnecessary.
Even if you think it's worth it, that's a different argument than inflation. To me it sounds like a lie for continuously growing profits just like any other company.
5M easily go to taxes, steam takes another 2M and with the 33 people that are listed on their site they probably loose 2M on salary alone. Then there is another 0.5M for license, real estate and infrastructure. While it still leaves 5.5M per year average, that's an extremely tight budget for the development of a new game.
I don’t really understand your take. The sold the game cheap after 7 years of development and it’s still a really good value. I couldn’t praise the developers and how they run this game / business enough.
Factorio returns an ever increasing value for the money due to the continuous effort the developers have put in especially on modding, and on the ever expanding quality and amount of mods that gives you a whole new game many times over.
I cannot think of a game that has better value for money than Factorio.
The only downside is that you will spend an indeterminate amount of time playing the game and when you think your finally done, there is another game changing mod that will give you another full and even longer gameplay, for free.
My take is less about the game itself, and the idea of games increasing its price at all. I've tried the demo and its a game right up my alley plus I enjoy games like it such as satisfactory. It just doesn't stomach well to me of a digital game going up in price.
I have seen multiple people mention mods at this point and I don't really count modding as part of the value of a game since modders aren't getting paid when I buy the game. Plus really any game can be infinite if you enjoy it enough and mods exist for it.
Fair enough, we’ll just disagree then. I personally have no problem with this game increasing in price since I think it’s also increasingly giving value. I believe the studio runs an honest business and have honest expenses, and if this is what they need then I much prefer this over random sales, constant DLCs if you want to continue to get value, in game marketing and micro transactions etc.
dianneI cannot think of a game that has better value for money than Factorio.
Rimworld. It's the only other one I can think of that people play for insane hours, it's still my most played game and I've barely touched it in a long while, I think I have 1400ish, my boyfriend has over 3.5k hours
Butterbee (She/Her)I agree big time. Rimworld is so replayable and totally worth the price of admission. Strangely enough, it's another indie game that never goes on any significant discount.
Does the value you get of the game change depending on which time of the year you buy it?
Actually, the only change is up, as the game was improving and expanding pretty much constantly from the first early release to version 1.1. And it value is going up, when you buy in early access you’re only getting the current (unfinished but playable) state and a “promise” that it will get better in the future. When you buy the finished product you’re already certainly getting that better state, so it makes sense that it’s more expensive.
A game going up in price is fair from early access to release. This is a typical concept and an expected one for the reason you stated, the company makes a promise that it will be fully released.
To me the issue is the inflation price increase that most recently happened. Typically when a digital good releases in a finished state, it tends to stay at a max price. 30 USD is what Factorio decided on. Then it’s up to 35. Sure its had updates since the full release but why should I have to pay more then the full release price because I waited?
Typically sales are the reward for those who wait. Factorio seems to be the opposite, those who wait pay more. Inflation is real I understand, but this is also a digital good that has infinite supply. I as a consumer want to buy a game, and I can’t tell what the content changed from this 1.0 to the 1.1 since I haven’t played it. It probably is justifiable for the 5 bucks increase, but the consumer doesn’t know that. I just know this game I want, was 30 bucks and now it’s 35 and still hasn’t been on sale.
The reward for getting a full release game before a sale is to play it early. You aren’t losing the value of your purchase because I got it for 30% off. You got to play it early, and I waited for a price that I felt willing to pay. (The you is referring to people in general, not you specifically)
To me the issue is the inflation price increase that most recently happened. Typically when a digital good releases in a finished state, it tends to stay at a max price. 30 USD is what Factorio decided on. Then it’s up to 35. Sure its had updates since the full release but why should I have to pay more then the full release price because I waited?
Because when you buy it now for $35 right now, you get more for your money than what I got years ago for $25. Even ignoring the additional content and polishing, you’re also getting the benefit of all the testing and bug reporting by early adopters, as well as the bug fixing by the developers.
Typically sales are the reward for those who wait.
This is just the wrong mindset. Why would the developer, publisher, valve, or anyone else want to reward you for not buying their product?
(yes, I know software pricing is a clusterfuck. But the common theme is that the seller wants to extract as much value from every customer as possible, so ideally they would set the price individually for each customer based on the highest amount that customer is willing to pay. Sales after a while are a mechanism for this.)
Because when you buy it now for $35 right now, you get more for your money than what I got years ago for $25. Even ignoring the additional content and polishing, you’re also getting the benefit of all the testing and bug reporting by early adopters, as well as the bug fixing by the developers.
Is that not the opposite? Sure I get less buggy version, but you also have how many years to play compared to me. And you are getting the same game I am when I buy it. You eventually get that content, which one could say is added value to the 25 bucks vs the 35 I spend. You got 10 bucks of content from free essentially.
This is just the wrong mindset. Why would the developer, publisher, valve, or anyone else want to reward you for not buying their product?
It’s not the publisher rewarding me. The reward comes from me waiting and getting a cheaper game then those who bought it earlier. As you state
so ideally they would set the price individually for each customer based on the highest amount that customer is willing to pay. Sales after a while are a mechanism for this.
If a game isn’t worth X amount of dollars to me then I will wait till the game is Y amount of dollars. If the game never does then I never buy it, meaning the publishers lose, not me.
Is that not the opposite? Sure I get less buggy version, but you also have how many years to play compared to me. And you are getting the same game I am when I buy it. You eventually get that content, which one could say is added value to the 25 bucks vs the 35 I spend. You got 10 bucks of content from free essentially.
No, you’re forgetting the fact that when I bought it, I didn’t know what I’ll be getting in the future. I lucked out with Factorio, but it could happen that the devs just stopped working on it, I didn’t know at the time.
It’s not the publisher rewarding me. The reward comes from me waiting and getting a cheaper game then those who bought it earlier. As you state
Who do you think sets the price, if not the publisher?
the publishers lose, not me.
And yet, it’s not the publishers complaining about it online.
No, you’re forgetting the fact that when I bought it, I didn’t know what I’ll be getting in the future. I lucked out with Factorio, but it could happen that the devs just stopped working on it, I didn’t know at the time.
That’s the risk you paid for. My criticism is price increase after full launch. If early access game goes up in price when it fully releases that is a different thing.
Who do you think sets the price, if not the publisher? The publisher sets the price. They put a game on sale to make more money. I buy the game on sale. I get the game as the reward. The publisher gets money they wouldn’t have otherwise.
And yet, it’s not the publishers complaining about it online. I’m a random person who has no reputation to defend. I could just as easily start over online and nothing would hurt me. The publisher has a reputation to keep. They need to keep making money. Other then that, complaining is the way to for the consumer to get thoughts out about practices. I don’t like a game going up in price due to “inflation” and a game never going on sale therefor I will communicate that.