Vlambeer: Mobile devs mustn’t be scared of charging more

Mobile developers should not be scared of charging more for iOS and Android games, a developer from Vlambeer has said.

Speaking in a Reddit Q&A, developers from the Super Crate Box studio said that indies needed to be sell a countless number of titles at the standard $0.99 (£0.69) price just to survive on the platform, and encouraged more developers to start charging more.

The developer said a race-to-the-bottom had resulted in the prevalence of the free-to-play market, and stated Vlambeer would rather charge upwards of $3 than go F2P.

“We’re not upset – it’s just the way the market works at the moment,” a developer from the studio said.

“We do believe that developers shouldn’t be scared to charge $3 for a game.

“The problem is that at $0.99, you’ll need to sell endless amounts of copies to be able to survive as an indie developer. Most games don’t even get close to that. A direct result of the whole race-to-the-bottom in prices is the prevalence of Free to Play on iOS – it seems to be a safer bet.

“But since its almost impossible to do F2P in a non-evil way and without sacrificing the elegance of your game design, we’ll prefer to charge $3.”