Cheap Computer Games

Happy With Third Place

Just like direct-to-DVD movies, there are games that are never intended to compete with the Quake, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto. Publishers simply decide that they can't - or won't - commit the resources to compete with the market leaders, so they choose to sell their wares with a different technique.

The sad truth is that, just as it's extremely difficult for a new developer to find a publisher, it's a tough uphill battle for a publisher to sell a game - even an excellent game - without strong distribution agreements and a track record of delivering hit games. Often popular European games (for example, the critically-acclaimed French action-adventure game Beyond Good and Evil and gorgeously crafted adventure The Longest Journey) stumble when they reach American shores for exactly this reason. Their strong European publisher tries to use its weaker American branches to move the game, and fails. Similarly, American games don't always translate to Europe, and certainly not to Japan.

So when an upstart game makes its way to a second or third-tier publisher, or weak publisher tries to conceive a strong low-cost seller, interesting things happen. Desperation creates odd situations and unorthodox methods. And as you'd guess, the three most popular techniques for selling lower-quality goods are powerful and time-tested: price, controversy, and unserved markets.

Money Talks

One of the most successful low-cost attacks on the market recently was staged by the Croatian developer Croteam and their publisher, God Games. They'd developed the twitchfest Serious Sam. It was gorgeous, fast-paced, and solid. On the other hand, it was from a team of unknowns - from Croatia, of all places! - and the game itself featured gonzo combat strongly reminiscent of Duke Nuk'em.

Their tactic: Sell the game for $20 - about a $35 discount to every other top gaming title on the market. Rather than sinking without a trace, as many erstwhile efforts from talented but unknown teams have historically done, Serious Sam won a raft of gaming awards, including GameSpot's game of the year, and sold quite well.

Serious Sam II will be out soon for the PC and Xbox. In fact, Croteam has gotten into the 3D engine market, selling the licensed use of their major code components to developers who want a quick start on a new project.

Bad Publicity, Good Publicity

Another example of an uphill sell was the over-the-top Redneck Rampage series, a hellfire and humor production from the Running with Scissors people.

Running With Scissors had no track record when it arrived on the scene with the first Redneck Rampage, a fairly imitative shooter. However, the game tickled funnybones and raised eyebrows with its hick jokes and bathroom humor. The game performed respectably, didn't cost a mint to make, and continues on in sequelization today.

Finding A Niche

If the general gaming audience isn't buying your cheap game, why not go outside that audience? That's what some developers have done.

Several companies have been founded with the expressed intent of creating games for girls, with mixed success. And another increasingly-sophisticated development community focuses entirely on making family-friendly games with Christian themes.

Cheap Isn't Always Crap

As always, the video game market is changing, and cheap games continue to explore areas of gaming that the mainstream is either unwilling or unable to try. And for better and worse, cheap games will endure.