Sale season!

When Dan (the business side of Axiom Verge) and I discussed our pricing strategy, we decided that come hell or high water, we were going to keep the price as is for at least 6 months. Although this flies in the face of conventional wisdom (and we may have lost out on some sales as a result) we felt it was important to do for 2 main reasons:

Respect for early adopters – I don’t want our customers to feel like suckers. We’ve all felt that sting of buyer’s remorse when we buy something at full price and then find it on sale (or free!) just a couple days later. I really appreciate everyone who believed enough in Axiom Verge to buy it in the beginning and didn’t want anyone to feel like a sucker for not waiting a couple weeks for a major discount. I want to be as transparent about pricing as possible so that anyone interested in Axiom Verge can make an informed decision about when to buy and for how much.

Combating the race to the bottom – As you may know, times are tough for indie developers. There’s incredible pressure to slash prices right out of the gate, and the race to the bottom has been making indie game development unsustainable. There have been several extremely talented game developers who have had no choice but to leave game development as a career and instead do it as a hobby. Many developers slave away for years to make great games only to have people demand that they be sold at a 70% discount. As a professional indie developer I think it’s important to apply the brakes to this race to the bottom. In the long run, this will mean a healthier sustainable marketplace where great games will continue to be made.

Given all of that preamble, I’d like to announce that the 6-month window has passed, and I will be putting Axiom Verge on sale off and on throughout the holidays. In fact, the first sale – 30% off in the EU PSN Store – is going on right now! The other places where Axiom Verge is sold, Steam and the NA PSN Store, will be getting similar discounts later this month. If you have friends who have been holding off on getting Axiom Verge, you can let them know that now is a good time to get it!

T-shirts!

Thanks to everyone who voted in the Axiom Verge t-shirt design contest we did with We Love Fine! We got a bunch of amazing entries, and it was really tough to narrow it down to our favorite 3 designs. But we did, and now they’re all available for purchase. Here are the designs: