2. There is a much wider selection in the number of video games they can choose to play.
So you have two forces working against you. First, if you raise your prices, there are a lot of other games people can play. Second, if you raise your prices, people can simply choose not to play at all.
Not so with audio engineers. They must have the software to make a living, giving them a lot less choice in the matter. They also probably become more intimately familiar with the software than most gamers become with video games. Finally, the context encourages a level of maturity that recognizes the impact of freeloading and fosters good-customership.
So, that's why you probably won't be able to charge more for a video game. Although they do get away with it in some contexts (rock band, some racing games).
P.S. as much as you would like to believe gamers will pay for quality wherever they find it, there's also this issue that in your industry (apparently roguelike games) there's this huge norming influence toward free-to-play games. That probably doesn't help you much.
Also, gamers are notoriously cheap. Consider WoW players who whine about the servers being down, and their justification: "I pay 15 bucks a month, and they can't even keep the goddamned servers online!? WTF!"
Frustrating, to say the least. $15/mo for (in many cases) 60-80 hours of entertainment per month, if not more for the extremely hardcore.
I don't agree that gamers are cheap as a group. Most gamers I know not only own several consoles and a graphics card that cost more than many peoples computers, they also happily buy $60+ games on the day of release several times a month. If you try to tell them that by waiting 6 month they can get the same games for half the price, they'll look at you as if that was the stupidest thing they've heard in their entire life.
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I can think of two big differences:
1. Few gamers make a living out of doing it.
2. There is a much wider selection in the number of video games they can choose to play.
So you have two forces working against you. First, if you raise your prices, there are a lot of other games people can play. Second, if you raise your prices, people can simply choose not to play at all.
Not so with audio engineers. They must have the software to make a living, giving them a lot less choice in the matter. They also probably become more intimately familiar with the software than most gamers become with video games. Finally, the context encourages a level of maturity that recognizes the impact of freeloading and fosters good-customership.
So, that's why you probably won't be able to charge more for a video game. Although they do get away with it in some contexts (rock band, some racing games).
P.S. as much as you would like to believe gamers will pay for quality wherever they find it, there's also this issue that in your industry (apparently roguelike games) there's this huge norming influence toward free-to-play games. That probably doesn't help you much.
Also, gamers are notoriously cheap. Consider WoW players who whine about the servers being down, and their justification: "I pay 15 bucks a month, and they can't even keep the goddamned servers online!? WTF!"
Frustrating, to say the least. $15/mo for (in many cases) 60-80 hours of entertainment per month, if not more for the extremely hardcore.
I don't agree that gamers are cheap as a group. Most gamers I know not only own several consoles and a graphics card that cost more than many peoples computers, they also happily buy $60+ games on the day of release several times a month. If you try to tell them that by waiting 6 month they can get the same games for half the price, they'll look at you as if that was the stupidest thing they've heard in their entire life.