Ah pricing, one of the hardest things for artists to deal with.

IMHO, this is an incredible set, and well deserving of a price well beyond your current most expensive set. The textures are amazing, the kit looks like it's got tons of stuff, there are standees and a GAME included, the set was designed to cover multiple genres, it supposedly handles gridless, 1" and 1.5" grids - WITHOUT partial squares for that later, etc. In short, this is your biggest, baddest kit ever.

Don't get me wrong, I'd live to get this for as cheap as possible, but for you to not just stay in business but thrive (and thus create many more ultra-cool sets for us gamers), you need to charge as much as possible, find the sweet spot that garners the most sales for the most money.

I wouldn't hesitate if this were priced at $25, and I suspect that anyone wanting a house of horror (modern, fantasy, horror, pulp, supers, etc) wouldn't hesitate either.

Anyway, good luck finding that sweet spot!

Steve

Realizing up front how supportive our fanbase is but aware that it might scare off new users, what are your thoughts on a $20.00 pricepoint? Personally I think this set warrants that on almost every level but I guess we are more concerned with scaring people off. We are raising the PDF quality bar but some people just don't care about that sort of thing and can't get over the digital delivery nature of the products.

Thoughts, comments and suggestions most welcome. Your input is really important to us.

I just saw the photos.

SWEET MOTHER, MARY, AND JOSEPH! THAT IS WAY COOL!!!!!


...ahem...


Well done Matt, well done indeed!

I like that price very much

My only concern with the price is that if you are including the game with at at X price point, is there a posibility you can make a version at X-n, that is just the terrain, with out the game.

While it may be the best game in the world,, i have to say i am not intersted in getting the game. If the inclusion of the game will be causing a price increase depending on what that raise is to it might push me off. I like to buy what i am interested in, and not extra things.

Denny, I understand that at least a portion of your concern is that some customers might thing "Hey, this is a PDF download, so it's got to be cheap. It's not like I'm buying a book in a store." But they are wrong, and you are wrong to think "in the box" like that.

In the world of 3D paper terrain (in PDFs) there are few major players:

WhiteWash City (45+ individual buildings sold for $3 each, or in larger sets)
Worldworks (30+ main products ranging from $7-$15)
Microtactix (7 main products ranging from $10-$20) (50+ lesser products ranging from $3.50-$10)
Fat Dragon (4 main products ranging from $7-$11, 3 minor from $2-$6)
Stones Edges (3 main products at $15 each, 2 minor products at $7)
Papermodels (2 main products, $12 each)

Those are six I quickly listed out, and you can see that in no time, the number of products offered takes a major nose dive, down to the 2-3 products, after the top few companies are listed. These are not the only PDF terrain suppliers just a sample, although I'd bet it's a very large sample.

Currently the most expensive product is a set from Microtactix which contains 6 buildings and some ground tiles, for $20. I have that set, and I like building "shells" and am quite happy with this set. I paid $20. I like the buildings (they don't hold a candle to your textures) but the ground tiles are piss poor. Still, I paid $20.

Compared to that, this set has far better textures, loads more props, a GAME, standees, and a super-detailed multi-story haunted mansion. I'm guessing the house can be designed to be as large and as many stories as the builder wants.

That has GOT TO BE worth at LEAST what the current most expensive set runs for. I would think more.

I can see that competition with a more common terrain set might make it tough to charge more. Take a dungeon set for example. The main sets are:

Worldworks Chunky Dungeon & Mini-Chunk sets (both at $15)
Stones Edges Dungeons & Dungeons II (both at $15)
Microtactix Dirt Cheap Dungeons & Heroic Dungeons (both $10)

So charging $20 for a super-deluxe dungeon set would be pushing it. But the set we're talking about is a haunted mansion, suitable across many genres, with plenty of props, even a game with figures. I don't think you should even hesitate at thinking $20. Thinking $22-25 okay, I can see some hesitation, but NONE at $20.

When it comes to sales figures, obviously you have the numbers and I don't. But I'm guessing the curve looks something like this:

124 the month something new comes out
25 the following month (20% of initial release)
5 per month thereafter for a year. (20% of secondary push)

So out of 200 sales, 125 are from the initial push. My guess is, that folks who simply "MUST HAVE" this set will buy it at $20, or $22 or $24 or $15 or $10. Makes no difference, you have that 100 in the bag. There are probably a few customers who will think " I want this, and if it were $15 I would buy, but at $20 I will pass". Sure there will be some, but not hordes.

I'm not trying to talk you into selling this for a mint, just don't sell yourself short! I don't want WWG to survive I want it to THRIVE! I wanna know that many more cool sets are on the horizon. I don't think you can keep the lights on and the kits a comin' if you charge bargain basement prices.

Your crew produce top-quality products, there is not a "Dirt Cheap" proiduct line here at WWG. Some sets are larger than others, but they all have first rate A+ texturing. You guys are a class act. Price your stuff accordingly.

Steve

Lots of good points being raised, except the mention of my monkeys being spanked... I keep asking CCotD to come and spank my monkeys, but he is worried that they might spank him back.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, while I agree that the set is worth $25, and it should be priced at $25, I would have no hesitation at the $20 pricepoint (and doubt any one else will) but although I would still buy it at $25, like The Auld Grump, I might grumble about it afterwards. If us rabid fans can see the potential for a little hesitation, there might be a lot of hesitation for potential fans.

I say go with the $20 pricepoint and see how many thousands of sales you get

Arabin

Thanks for the thoughts SG and the considered breakdown. I would just like to affirm what Matt has already stated so that it's clear; the pricepoint is based on the entire bulk of the set not just the mini-game (that's a secondary bonus). Matt's been working on this monster for a very long time and that's really what I'm talking about in terms of price scaling. We'll have a complete breakdown of what's included shortly.

Just as a side note, what do you guys think about releasing the instructions as a free download? This would really show just how massive the set is. Just a thought.

Balancing selling ourselves short and still remaining competitive have always been key areas of concern at WWG. Offering customers value but at the same time validating the work that we've done by offering a realistic price is really tricky. That said, we've started a course change with the company and things are in motion now to take us beyond simple PDF terrain. To stay fresh and to move beyond that into larger markets we have to think outside the box. What this also means is that our efforts have been doubling and we must account for that somewhere down the line with a reasonable pricepoint.

We'll keep bashing the pricepoint around for awhile but I can almost guarantee that it won't stretch beyond the $20.00 mark for this set.

Thanks for the input.