412 replies to this topic

[jimbob59]

Like everyone else in the forum I think this is a fantastic golf game and want it to go on for many years.  To that end PP need to cover their costs and indeed hopefully make some kind of profit  to keep this game going forward.  Ive no doubt that CF is worth thousands per seat and  the EA cost of the game is a steal.  Ive no doubt that the prices being bandied about  represent good value per minute of game time.

 

The actual price and method of payment  depends not on what certain individuals  are willing to pay,  IMO its not folks ability to  afford those costs.  I could afford a £20 bar of chocolate but I wouldnt be willing to pay that price. The reality is what the market can bear.

The market is not a few hundred or even a few thousand  willing to pay a high price and neither is it those that would like everything for free.

Rather it is the silent majority that don't  necesarrily come onto this forum or even facebook or steam.   Its the tens of thousands of ordinary folk that will ultimately  decide what they are willing to pay  and hence whether PG is sustainable.

 

PP are in a difficult position,  hopefully they have done their research, .gathered telemetry and listened to all opinions before any final decisions are made.  If its overpriced or underpriced than they will have problems financially.

 

Like IanK above Id rather pay an upfront price and buy individual items as needed,  a monthly fee is certainly not my prefered method but that is merely my opinion.   Therin lies the crunch every individual  has a right to their opinion and hopefully PP take it all on board.

 

Good luck PP I hope you get it right.  No point in voicing any more concerns until we  know what the prices and system will be.

[catflap]

 

• Sell the game for 29.99 $
• Sell it with 15 courses included
• Charge 0.99 for every user made course
• Charge maybe 3,99 for every licensed course
• Charge maybe 1,99 for a different looking iron set (we won't have company names in the game but we could have clubs that look like say "Nike" in the game
• Charge 0.49 for each different looking putter
• implement different swings into the game over time (mo-cap) - charge 2,99 for alternative looking swing motions
• etc.

 

and then finally:

• make a season pass available which grants access to online tournaments, country clubs etc. make that  2.99 per month (that hardcore gamers will pay it)

 

This would be a model of microstransaction. You want to play on a good user created course? 0.99 isn't a big deal - 4.99 per month is maybe. When you have, say, 30.000 customers i could bet that you can create at least as many revenue with microtransaction as with forcing them to pay 4.99. And they still have the freedom to decide everytime if they want to buy or not (very important!).

 

And for the passionate gamer it would be certainly no barrier to pay 2.99 additionally to get the right to participate in online tournaments etc.

 

That makes perfect sense to me - I'll never pay a monthly fee for a game on principle, but I've no problem with buying courses I fancy as and when I want them. PP would probably end up making more from me this way, and I'd feel I was more in control of what I bought.

[fungolfer]

So how do the course designers notify all PG game owners that their course is available. Surely this is going to fracture access to courses so much that only a few will ever get to know about them ?

I don't see any courses on my hard drive. Whereabouts would I find them ?

 

So how do the course designers notify all PG game owners that their course is available. Surely this is going to fracture access to courses so much that only a few will ever get to know about them ?

I don't see any courses on my hard drive. Whereabouts would I find them ?

I can't tell you the exact path as this might be different from user to user or system to system. If you install it by the default path it is in the steam folder. There are some sub-folders where the game is installed. So if you have find the perfect golf folder you will also find the courses folder. As Steam has alot of subfolders I decided to install PG in its own folder, so I always find the game and subfolders in it.

From there you can copy the course files to save them.

Sorry I can't give you a complete path but I'm on work atm. When I get home I'll find the correct path for you

[jimbob59]

Like wise with the above by Catflap and the original  post by Frank.

In fact I'd even pay $5+ for a licensed course,    maybe buy  one every month, maybe more.  Add in some coloured balls, an outfit or two and a set of clubs.  PG would soon have my $100.  and I wouldn't be paying for things I  wont use like Country clubs or  tournaments.   

Paying for user courses however may be a bit of a minefield.  If someone uses assets in unity, even free ones there are all kinds of restrictions on what can be used commercially if charges are made.  Maybe better to stay clear of that one  legally wise.

What I would use is  CF so would be happy to pay  a fee for that each year.  Oops Im now up to $120

Other than that like Catflap says it makes perfect sense  rather than the monthly fee which IMO will  loose far more players  than charging for items individually will.  

[frank70]

To make one thing clear: I am in the same camp as the developers - the PG camp. I don't mean my posts as critique at all (i pay my 4.99 per month and am good with it). It's more the danger i sense, that the growth of the player base is hindered by the "season pass" model.

 

It's the first time ever that i compete in online tournaments - and i have great fun with it. We now are playing in a Tour with 60 players over at OGT. I would love that that would be 150 or 200 in the future. But for that we need more customers first of all.

 

But I'm not really sure anymore if a bigger customer base is first priority for Perfect Parallel. As we know, Perfect Golf is only one of their products. And probably they make alot more profit with their other services. It's their company and they have every right in the world to run their business as they like. But maybe they have a different vision of the game than most of us have. 

[remers]

It would be interesting to know how many people World Golf Tour have managed to hoover up over the years because if just a fraction of those people shifted to PG then that would surely make quite a big difference to the situation here.

 

Their Facebook page has over 500,000 'likes' (whatever that means : ) with PG having just over 11,000 currently so there are plenty of people out there that haven't got the PG message yet and they must be paying $5 a month or more already.

 

Perhaps offering all early adopters incentives to sign-up with a very low early season pass offer and maybe an offer directly aimed at WGT players too to get them across too?

[Mike Jones]

Why call TGC an arcade game when quite clearly it is not-sounds like a bitchy comment against the opposition to me.It looks like your going to loose a lot players cos of the pay to play user courses plan-shame really

I don't see TCG as opposition it's a good game and I have played it and enjoyed it. Some of the courses are also very nice however if you're looking for a sim sort of experience it doesn't provide that but that's where PG comes in. You basically just dial in your distance through the loft up loft down which is not at all realistic. 

 

TGC course designer is easy to use but limited in what you can do with it, CF is more powerful and versatile but also takes longer to learn how to use it. Swings and roundabouts.

 

I know many people love both games as they provide different experiences. I'm not a marketing executive trying to be politically correct all the time, I'm a golf enthusiast who has bought and played almost every golf game ever created, now I have a chance to develop one. I also still play competitive pro golf from time to time so it's not like I don't know what constitutes a realistic experience.

[Mike Jones]

BTW no developer has mentioned the $100 costs being banded about. That came from a player of the game speculating about what he would be prepared to pay so if anyone else wants to use that as a quote to misrepresent the cost of the game I will delete the post.

[Mike Jones]

 

 

Paying for user courses however may be a bit of a minefield.

 

Just to be clear, the season pass is to allow third party courses to be played inside of PG. You are not 'buying' any user made courses.

[MimicPS]

To my mind, the game, bought during Early Access and apparently that one-time payment meaning you have the 'base' game and limited course library constantly updated with any new features as and when they come, until I suppose some point when PP want to make Perfect Golf 2.0, represents a great deal. For those who weren't able to make it to the Early Access party, the full-price would still represent the same.

 

I say this because PP are creating a golf sim unlike any other mainstream product, and into the bargain are giving the user an ability to use what must be the most complete (in time, with pot-bunker like terrain tweaks included) course designer.

 

The other half of the revenue equation - which was always going to logically fall between micro-transactional DLC or a licensed use of the game - at least gives the customer the 'smorgasbord' option of purchasing a monthly, yearly or suitable subscription to gain the 'value-added' elements of the game, at discount in some cases, and to 'fill your plate' if you so wish and have the appetite. Not unreasonable, but as with the motto which seems to be held elsewhere with PP's creation, options are always welcome.

 

Frank70's excellent analysis of the marketability of the game and its constituent strata of involvement  was well presented, and would be a sensible alternative to the (as yet unofficially presented) final price-point which I'm sure is still undergoing discussion both at developer and marketing level as well as here and amongst the beta team.

 

There is no reason why a 'pay-as-you-go' model couldn't be adopted alongside the monthly/yearly/other license as an alternative. However, but with a less than guaranteed revenue stream from straight DLC, if I was in the position of having make the decision to run both models of revenue I would ensure that the one which gave the greater stability of income for my company (the all-in licensed-type model) worked out cheaper in the long run than the 'take-it-or-leave-it' straight DLC model, giving discounts to its purchasers on content, as well as carrying certain exclusivity in other areas.

 

To me, the game has developed well enough and continues to improve on all levels for me to want to buy into the future of the game, both as a stand-alone Steam game with no extra content, and further into the world of what its community can create and the game developments beyond the vanilla initial offering.

[Greensboronclion]

I also own and play TGC once in a while. I call it my sit back and have some fun arcade game of golf and enjoy playing it once in a while my PG is my go to game as it is much more realistic.  Nothing against TGC as it fall for me in the same category as TW14 on the Xbox360 Which I break out every once in a while and is fun to play but just to easy for my taste but enjoyable at times.

[RobV]

Just to be clear, the season pass is to allow third party courses to be played inside of PG. You are not 'buying' any user made courses.

Mike, would like for you to clear up something for me...  So let's say in January, pay the season pass and I am enjoying user made courses, how many there are and including my own (hopefully haha).   But then in Feb., I "forget" or did not pay my pass for whatever reason...., I will not be able to play the user made courses I previously played in Jan until I pay my season pass.  Is this correct?  

[zmax - sim]

So how do the course designers notify all PG game owners that their course is available. Surely this is going to fracture access to courses so much that only a few will ever get to know about them ?

I don't see any courses on my hard drive. Whereabouts would I find them ?

 

I might be able to offer up OGT as a central location for latest versions of user created courses.  Can also allow players to rate courses.  

[flyer01]

I tend to agree with frank70 especially the part about most of the player base being casual offline players. Most of these players just want to unwind and relax a little when they fire up the game. When making comparisons between games, specifically graphics and gameplay,  lets not forget the level of hardware it takes to get the full experience out of PG. New hardware cost money as well. With my old laptop graphics and gameplay at PG sucked ! When I played the old TW series and TWO hardware was never an issue. I don't play other golf games but is it an issue with games like TGC and Rory's new game? IMO most players are not going to upgrade just to play PG and will be comparing a less than stellar version of PG to all these other golf games. In my case I did an upgrade just for PG and believe me it was a huge decision with my budget. Now they have  me by the balls and I guess I'm going to pay whatever they ask. The thing is that even with new hardware and using pause render I can still get a swing meter that stutters and get crazy fluctuations in fps. Not a good thing at all after 10 months. Maybe they really are just building the game for themselves and don't need an very large fan base to keep it going?

[NoPutt]

If I want to see Cialis commercials I'll watch real Golf.

Ads would add no Enhancement to the experience, and

is a Flaccid idea...imo.

[IanK]

Merchandising? I wouldn't mind a pair of Perfect Parallel underpants!

[luetze]

I totally understand the need of generating regular cash flow to keep the development running but I’m not sure the whole season pass thing in the way it was presented in this thread is the right way to built up a strong customer base.

 

Most players of PG will probably look out for playing user generated courses while the online tour features seem not to be highest priority for the majority of the costumers. So why not separate these two things from each other? Why not give the customers the feeling they only have to pay for things they really want? It might has some negative connotation if you give the customers the feeling they have to purchase a season pass to get access to user generated courses.

 

From an economist view I’m pretty much in line with frank70s remarks. He has some very valid points and maybe you should take a closer look to his suggestions.

 

Over the past 17 years I’ve spend a lot of money for the Links series, purchased every single course that was published by the developers and also bought almost all p2p courses that were pulled out by members of the community. So I will definitely carry on to support my favorite golf sim which PG has become nowadays but I’m not sure I’ll be willing to pay 5 bucks a month for additional features I'm not interested in. 

[frank70]

@MimicPS

 

There is no reason why a 'pay-as-you-go' model couldn't be adopted alongside the monthly/yearly/other license as an alternative. However, but with a less than guaranteed revenue stream from straight DLC, if I was in the position of having make the decision to run both models of revenue I would ensure that the one which gave the greater stability of income for my company (the all-in licensed-type model) worked out cheaper in the long run than the 'take-it-or-leave-it' straight DLC model, giving discounts to its purchasers on content, as well as carrying certain exclusivity in other areas.

 

You don't know exactly beforehand which model is providing bigger or guaranteed revenue. What if only 1000 customers book the season pass and the other 11.000 leave the game more or less? What if you alienate potential customers with the season pass that had purchased the game if it would have another business model? How many of them?

 

Normally: More customers=more revenue. You are trying to lure as many gamers as possible into buying the game. Therefore PG needs bells and whistles and an very easy beginner mode. Then you give the "casual bells & whistles gamer" an abundance of options to pay for his fun (courses, clothes, balls, etc.). You don't price it too high per item. Your margin is coming with the numbers - because (rinse-and repeat) you were smart enough to establish a big customer base.

 

And then: You milk the hardcore fans (us  ) even more and offer a monthly subscription for features 80-90 % of the rest doesn't even really care about.

 

Sounds hard and calculated......  but it's the smart way of making business. Making a great product (which PP is on the way of doing) and developing it further after release (what PP has promised to do) only helps with this strategy. 

[JTee1]

When the day comes that the actual  PGA players populate are leader board and we can actually play along with them on the actual course. Then i think you've hooked a large population of the golfing community and the number of players will rise dramatically. I know the scores could be imported thru the API at least. You'll see the lobby full thurs thru Sunday trying to compete with the best. But game play physics and scoring would have to be more indicative to real play.  Not that we could actually run with those players in real life, but in a virtual world it would be captivating.  

 

With PG  supplying the flyovers for  TV, I think it would be able to add the shots of the real players in our game as a pre recorded pc player possibly. The simulator (GC2 - Optishot) players would love this. I know  its all possible and that is where the cost factor comes in again.  This would be the Premier Tour.   Gr8 game and possibilities. Would love to see PG being advertised instead of WGT on the PGA site and TV ads.

 

I like the Idea of buying courses only and being able to play at OGT or other Tournament sites with those courses. 

[Volker]

Many arguments. One thing that fans of this game have to fear: This will remain a very small community in the future. It´s a pity!

People like to pay directly for what they want, not a monthly financial contribution.