hi anders, selling content is not quite the same as selling a title. content pricing can be dependent on how many licensed seats exist of the host software. e.g. it is possible to sell very low price for individual models in daz3d as they have many 100,000's of valid users of the underlying software. it is not as easy in terragen 2, because there is not (quite yet) a very large volume of users.
turbosquid, cornucopia3d, renderosity, daz3d, host our individual plant models as well as our boxes and the OBJ in all those work fine in terragen 2.
what we are trying to offer as a tg2-xfrog bundle is to create something by which both planetside and xfrog can benefit. if we sell small clusters or individuals, on our site or other portal, planetside gets no direct benefit whatsoever. we want planetside to grow because we believe strongly in Terragen 2. that is also why we are in the forum. i hear what a lot of you are saying - you want small clusters for a low price, because you dont need 1,300 models and you can't afford a high purchase price. we are thinking about what to do about this with planetside. the two key issues, i will dangerously repeat myself, are that tg2 has not the largest base of users (quite yet) and therefor there is a downside price limit per individual model, and also if we sell individuals/clusters, we don't directly help planetside grow at all. nor, do we produce a product that can really hit hard in realism. 1,300 plants inside terragen 2 - it gives some realworld options. if you step outside - and count species - from your front door - you can perhaps hit 400 species of plants without looking too hard. grasses alone. i am not saying that any of you want that sort of realism. we are just trying to supply options, and i know - a lot of you are sore about the price and the bundle being so large with no other options. we are looking into a way to give access to everyone the plants and at the same time be symbiotic with planetside. like "walli" noted: we never said this is the only bundle we will ever offer.
one other thing (please), there is no statement of the price of the bundle changing in the press release or in this forum in May. what was stated for certain is that tg2 will go up, and that anyone who hasn't purchased tg2, should consider buying it before late may. bundle pricing is a decision that is open right now between planetside and xfrog. i just want that it is clear that in no terms is the bundle intended as a "gun to your head 30 day squeeze to buy all plants now, or else" as a few people have written. that would be a rather short sighted business idea to go thru all the effort to create a bundle. we have been listening and posting info in this forum, not to upset, but to give you news as it is evolving. whether that is good news or delays. mutual or solo. with that said, we will release some more free plants monday. as someone previously posted in the last thread before it was locked, 18 plants have been released from the 22 libraries in the past, (and you can see whether the quality is interesting for you or not), and more are coming.
i hope this can alleviate some of the issues raised by many terragen users.
Quote from: Anders on April 26, 2009, 04:18:52 AM
Well, acually I had a comment to Walli/xfrog regarding price and sales from Xfrog, but since that topic is locked I dump it here and see if anything happens..... You can't lower the price....Well, maybe you can't with the traditional "sending boxes by mail" sales, have you tried to lower the price for direct download? What experiences do you have on lowered price on direct download? Is your experience built on "sending boxes by mail" sales only?
Let me take an example from the real world:
Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve made some experiments on their download portal Steam with the game Left4dead. At GDC
in San Francisco he told that they increased their sales with 3000% They sold for more money during that weekend then the release, and without affecting sales in stores. During christmas other game publishers had opporturnity to lower their prices and they got the following result:
A 10% decrease in price gave 35% increased sales.
A 25% decrease in price gave 245% increased sales.
A 50% decrease in price gave 320% increased sales.
A 75% decrease in price gave 1470% increased sales.
I think a decrease in price can be a good business for you too, think about it.
Source:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57308