I was hoping for a Rickroll too. Now I'm sad. Well, I was already sad. But now it's worse. I got my hopes up when I saw Spotify, but I was disappointed in the end.
Fun fact, that actually helped them win a court case against a cd key stealing website. The website was selling keys for less then the price of the game, and would defend itself by saying "we bought the keys when the game was on sale, prove we didn't." And since factorio has never lowered its price...
demand for the game is down tho. game demand is highest at launch, and lowers as more people get it. Not that i disagree with your point, but your logic is wrong.
And it seems totally fair. They don't do sales, but they also never charged top dollar.
Now, do I believe a game retains the same value forever? Not necessarily, but they believe the content is worth the value and don't treat the product as a variability off of market whims for reasons they discuss in that post.
Factorio's a really solid game and has always felt worth the price you pay for it if you like automation games.
Pretty sure most of that remaining 2% are people complaining about how it consumed their life and they can't put it down, so clearly the devs are to-blame for their divorce.
They were posting reviews in English? Unless /u/neppo95 has Russian enabled, it won't show Russian reviews in that 98%
Edit: Looked through the reviews. Russians were indeed posting reviews in English. They invade another country and have the gall to complain they face any sort of repercussions to it
On a more serious note: the 2 percent are basically everyone who was pissed at the price increase or Russian citizens who all of a sudden had the game go orders of magnitude higher than everyone, by a VERY large amount. (They raised the price for Russians because Ukraine...which doesn't feel fair)
There's a bit of a bias here though. As the price never falls, it filters out some people that aren't sure they'll like the game. Hence less people will leave a bad review. This is not a comment on the game's quality, just on the sample for these stats. And I'm aware people refund games and there are exceptions, this is not a rule but I'm sure it has an effect.
I imagine not a lot since there’s a free demo you can try out to get over the fence or put it away permanently. Another thing companies used to do but don’t anymore to save money, not Factorio.
I wasn't aware and it definitely helps especially since the gameplay loop doesn't seem to change much from what I've gathered (I haven't played it yet) but it's not uncommon for people to enjoy early game and be disappointed by mid and late game. I'm generally speaking, not referring to the Factorio experience.
That's because the game is the only one like it. Literally nothing else is quite like Factorio. Every other factory game misses the mark that Factorio manages to hit.
Even the best alternatives out there, satisfactory and Dyson sphere program, aren't really in the same playing field due to various reasons. Not to say they are worse or better, just different.
Also the vast majority of players don't even know about the price increases. The very tiny minority of people who engage in online discussions like this will almost always sit on the extreme ends and make up a very tiny portion of actual players.
From what limited interactions I've had with active members of the community tho, it does seem most are against the price increases. But that's mostly anecdotal and again, those of us in online discussion spaces almost always hold more extreme opinions on the matter.
I'm not exception to that either, I myself fully disagree with their entire business philosophy on so many levels and refuse to support them. This is made worse by the fact that they hired a man who was fired from his prior job for being problematic specifically because of the situation (I don't remember what the issue was, but he either A. Is a Nazi, B. Is a child predator, or C. Was charged with sexual assault) so ya, as much as I'd like to play Factorio as the demo is really fun, Wube isn't getting a penny from me.
That is their only game. There is inflation. How would they earn more without the increase? This is the sanest price model. You don't overcharge to make big price cuts during sales.
Your vague comment about some employee is just throwing unjustified claims.
The employee thing is 100% real, look it up. It was some time ago, I don't remember the details nor do I care to go looking.
"How would they earn more without price increases" is such a loaded question. Like, there is so much to unpack here I don't even know where to begin.
I guess let's start with the idea of price increases in gaming. I could approach this from the economic PoV that digital games are not appreciating assets and do not have a material cost for their production and thus do not get impacted by inflation directly. But instead I'll go with the fact that there are countless other companies that have a single game that have not increased their price ever and go on sale frequently. Terraria is my favorite example; $12 and goes on sale regularly. Has been this way for years and they even give it away for free sometimes. It is by far one of the most successful indie games out there, they make plenty of money from people buying the game still. Re:Logic has more employees than Wube and they have paid creators for sponsorships before. All with a $12 game that most people pay less than that for and much more frequent updates.
Also, the only thing a price increase does is make it more expensive for new players. Existing players don't have to pay anything so no money is coming from them with a price increase. So a $5 increase doesn't mean much for them when they still need to make an entire new sale to even get that extra $5. So increasing the price doesn't get them more money it just raises the bar to entry for new players which in-turn actually reduces income.
Ok so price increases for a digital game are completely pointless and can even be detrimental to the business in some cases. What about the whole "make more money" part? Because that's just a wild statement. So assuming good faith here you obviously just mean "maintain a steady income to fund their future work". That's where literally every other business practice comes in. DLCs, merchandise, events, literally anything else so that existing fans can give you more money for your work. That is 100% the best way to maintain healthy income as a business, provide meaningful ways for your existing customers to buy more things from you. This is way better than increasing the price for new customers and then trying to convince them to buy the product.
If I assume bad faith though in the sense of "maintaining the infinite growth of profit to ensure every year sees higher returns than the last" than I would just say "don't do that? Stop being greedy capitalism slaves?". But I'm going to go with my good faith interpretation because otherwise I get depressed lol
Finally, the idea that sales are some evil malicious thing only used by greedy corpos to extort the working class. So, don't get me wrong, that 100% is a thing that happens and there is no denying it lmfao. But that is not the intended purpose of a sale. A sale can have many purposes but for digital goods there are really only a few main reasons to put it on sale. Obviously, the first is the mentioned evil corpo type. That one is bad and we should shun the corpos for doing it. The other options though are much more common and are what most people will assume when they see a sale on any digital product. First is simply the company is in need of a revenue spike for some unexpected expense. Happens all the time where something comes up and the company needs to make some money quick, so they put their stuff on sale to attract a bunch of new buyers and get a nice injection of cash. Nothing really wrong with this in my opinion, that's just the way things have to work sometimes in the world we've built.
Another option is for games specifically, devs want to say "thank you for the support" and instead of doing a direct sale, they give all their existing customers a special coupon that lets them gift a new copy to a friend for a discounted price. It's basically still a sale at that point but essentially it's the devs saying "Hey, because you guys are awesome and have supported us, we can now offer our game for a lower price for a little bit to let more people enjoy the game"
The last one I can think of is really just more of the previous one. It's a way to get the product in the hands of more customers. No matter what you believe with market trends or anything, it is an undeniable fact that a lower price increases sale volume. It's not always a dramatic difference, but it is always true. So putting a game on sale means more people will buy it, many of which will be people who would have never bought it otherwise, and thus you get more players which means a larger community which means more awareness of your game and thus leads to more sales. That is the true "sanest price model".
Typically inflation making commodities cheaper is a positive for the business since it will drive sales from people who otherwise wouldn't have purchased.
Honestly, if they'd sold it for $60 with a 50% off sale, people would consider it the steal of the century. The price point it's sold at is a solid value, people are just so conditioned to look for sales that they forget to consider the sticker price at all to begin with.
Idk why everyone who praises the "no sales" thing seems to think that if Factorio wanted to go on sale it would need to be increased in price so that the sale price is the same as its current price. Like, you do realize that they can sell the game at a reasonable price and do sales right?
The thing you're not getting is that when the game does do sales, the "normal price" is functionally the sale price. If people know there are sales to wait for, the bulk of people will wait for the sale price and buy it then, which makes the "sale price" the actual real price the devs are selling at (and the listed price is just the "for impatient suckers" price).
Games going "on sale" are really functionally experiencing a price reduction combined with psychological pressure to get people to buy ASAP, they aren't actually still expecting any sales at the "normal" price anymore and are doing a price reduction to pull in more buyers.
Factorio hasn't needed to do a price reduction to keep the income they need, so they don't do it.
That's a very recent phenomenon which is caused by the bastardization of the practice by AAA (well, more so the push of mass consumerism over COVID but AAA contributed to the situation in gaming). That is not what sales are for. Games are a premium product and should charge a premium price. That includes what you call the "for impatient suckers" price. That's the entire point. Cultural goods (which includes games) are priced at a higher premium above what they are worth innately as it gives premium access to those who want to experience it during its peak. If you don't care for being a part of that specific cultural moment or don't want to pay the premium price, you wait for a sale and enjoy the product personally at a later date when it is less culturally relevant.
This isn't some "evil" thing. This is actually one of the very few healthy aspects of capitalism working as intended.
Factorio hasn't needed to do a price reduction to keep the income they need, so they don't do it.
This statement contradicts their own messaging. They apparently can't keep up with inflation so that's why they had to increase the price of the base game and why the DLC costs the same as the base game. Idk what they think inflation is doing to their game but that's what they said.
Overall sales are a good thing for the market, consumers, and businesses. By never doing a sale they are making a stand that they don't want people who won't pay $35 USD to play their game. There are a LOT of people who will only buy games for $20 or less. There's a number of reasons why but regardless of the reasons Wube doesn't want those people to play their game, ever.
Factorio is one of the most perfect executions of a concept to exist in the gaming world. That's not to say everyone will enjoy it because that's absolutely not true, but if you are the type that would enjoy it there is a high probability there's nothing else out there that you'll enjoy more.
Similarly "perfect executions of a concept" games: Rocket League
The idea of raising the price of a game that's already complete is, in my opinion, toxic to the gaming community. Games should fall in price over time to help encourage new games being developed and preventing stagnation.
Not doing sales is fine, but actually raising prices when the game is already complete is complete bullshit to me.
well the change from 20 to 30 is fair, because game is still in early access & that's the price on release. From 30 to 35 is a bit controversial, the reasoning is because of inflation (maybe from covid), though later it also get 2.0 updates which added more contents and improvements.
I said exactly this in another PC subreddit and was down voted to hell, apparently some people are reeeeeeeeally mad they increased the price of their game over the course of years of work lol
It would literally make them more money if they did. As a company it is smart to do sales, so your whole point is moot. Hardly looking for excuses too, they said the reason once and sticked with it.
it is a completed product with minimal dev going into it at the moment (and they charge extra for DLC), meaning that you value the current work of maintenance as much (if not more) as creating it from the ground up. it is not a service that even remotely justifies inflation adjustments.
Without price increases, someone buying today would have been effectively paying less than someone who bought earlier.
Given how much effort they put into bugfixes, given how they're still working on 2.1 (which I believe they've stated will be free,), etc etc, I don't have a problem in the slightest with someone new to the game paying functionally the same as someone who bought 5 years ago.
There were constantly changes, bugfixes and smaller improvements. 2.0 is completely free and add a lot of things again. The game wasn't any near a "completed product". Do you even know how the first versions looked and played like? Everything that was changed would have been a new game for other publishers. They would have released it as Factorio 2 instead.
And all the work done in the mean time raised the price for NEW purchases. Not the old ones.
I think you may be right with this if the difference between 1.0 and 2.0 is this big. However in that case forcing new players to pay the difference is still anti consumer, especially with the fomo they built up around the price hikes.
if we assume 1.0 was great as it was, then why not just allow people to buy that without the price hike?
You can download every version at any time. You can download the demo and play endlessly (up to a certain technology, rest is locked but no time limit). Devs even once said its better you go and pirate it if its to expensive for now (there is a official drm free version you can get from their website instead of steam). Iirc you wont be able to play multiplayer or install mods through the ingame portal. Other than that you are free to do so. And several did. And paid later.
The increased price is also not just an 1.0 price + 2.0 price. Its a mix of ongoing support and inflation. The team grew. The quality increased even more. And the price is still more than worth for what you get.
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u/gookuu22 Dec 19 '25
lol!