I think that trying to shut down conversation with "well, until you've done X Y and Z, your opinion is worthless" is kind of BS.
People talking about price points that they think are reasonable for various elements of a generic homebrew is not a "graceless" or rude discussion, IMO.



EDIT:  and besides that, I suspect this thread was presumably started by Dave to get price feedback for the Famicom game he is currently selling.

So someone seeking market feedback for their own use seems like a completely legitimate place to discuss what price points people think are appropriate  

 

Home brew I try to go around $30-$40 cart and $50-$60 for a cart box and manual. Maybe more than that if it's limited edition and includes like a poster or stickers or something.

edit: I wouldn’t pay money for a repro, not my thing

Some stuff I wont pay for period. But some stuff I will pay up to 200$+ depending on what it is and who sells it.

The homebrewer market is small and niche, and garbage sold for 85$ wont be sold if nobody wants to pay for it.

Saying "all cart only should be 35$ and all CIB should be 60$" is pretty short sided.

Average prices for currently available homebrew (culled from the updated list of currently available homebrew I just posted):
Cart only (34 examples): $33.71
Cart with instructions (11 examples): $39.73
Complete in Box (44 examples): $48.70
Famicom cart only (2 examples): $40
Famicom cart with instructions (1 example): $38
Famicom complete in box (12 examples): $48.58

I removed things like Free Cell ($225 LE) and 2017 XMAS (much more tech than a regular cart) from the averages.

The main problem lies in that we're lumping homebrews and repros together, which are quite frankly apples and oranges.

I see Nutter's point (and his homebrews probably had the most fair price points over the years), as I believe homebrewers are justified in setting their own prices depending on the amount of work involved.

That's where it was nice to see the run of 10 or so LEs auctioned off; that's a nice reward in one chunk and you can sell the rest of the run at a more consumer-friendly price.

Besides the repros that are of an unreleased game that hasn't seen the light of day (especially if the guy selling did the legwork of buying and ripping the proto, etc) and ones that take some rare board, I don't get the higher price tag on some of the repros of the last several years.

 

It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference.  Seems appliable in this situation.

It's been a while since I got in a good Nerd Fight, so here we go.  haha.  I'd be interested to see the value that someone who's never made a game puts on the following.  It's been a minute, so I'm sure I forgot something.  

Supplies to Purchase:
Doner carts + ~10% for dead carts and fuck ups.
Cart screwdriver bit.
Bucket.
Camp fuel.
KY Jelly.
Rubber gloves.
Towels.
Plastic cleaner.
Paper towels.
Desoldering station/equipment.
Wash cloths.
Rubbing alcohol.
Chip programmer.
Chips.
Soldering iron.
Solder.
Label sticky paper/paper & glue for front and back.
Paper Cutter.
Scissors.
11x17 paper.
Ink by the assload.
Staples.
"Book stapler".
11x17 printer.
Boxes and paper inserts or Papa Tusk style boxes.
Shipping boxes.
Bubble wrap or eq.
Shipping labels.
More ink.
Not to mention anything that you'd need to build special inserts or LE editions.

Generate Game:
Learn how to program.
Come up with a game idea.
Generate graphics.
Program game.
Learn to program music.
Come up with music.
Beta test.
Beta test.
Re-program because the damn thing won't work on hardware.
Figure out how to use chip programmer.
Figure out how to, you know, put a game on a cart.
Solder chips into boards.
Test each and every one on real hardware.
Re-work fuck ups.
Put boards back into carts and reassemble.
Design manual.
Design front label.
Design back label.
Design box art.
Print manual.
Cut out the manual paper.
Assemble the manual pages & staple so that it actually folds properly.
Print front & back labels.
Cut out the front & back labels.
Apply them so it looks like a 2 year old didn't do it and they actually stick for at least a week.
Print box art.
Cut out the box art.
Install box art in the boxes (or assemble them if you use an actual "box").
Assemble the cart, box, manual combo.
Print inserts or other swag.
Cut them out.
Insert into CIB game.
Bubble wrap games.
Put games in shipping boxes.
Figure out how to sell games.
Assemble all of the shipping addresses.
Change several addresses because people suck.
Kiss ass to NGD at the post office because you're dropping off 100 boxes at once.

Complete the above 100+ times depending on your production run and how many errors you make.

As I said, I'm sure I missed a few things.  I stand firm on my statements.  Once you put a value and a # of man hours towards each of the above and how much you value your time, pretty much any price that a homebrew is sold for is a loss.  Personally, I'm pretty sure I didn't even cover the cost of my production runs with my price point.  So, yea, have some respect to the folks that do this. 

 

^old man way - (even going to INL or members for hardware is expensive)!

and let's not forget about colabs- you pay your music guy? well, you should. graphics lady? damn straight! also, give a free cart to the boxes/lables dude? one for Dain? well, that's at least one more cart for the shop   ... all of that's peeling off $$s.

And yeah cap, this is homebrews we're talkin'... i also hate when people throw brews in with repros.

I think you're seeking insult rather than taking the point of the thread at face value.

The thread was a question about what pricepoint BUYERS think is reasonable to pay for a finished product.

What went into the production isn't generally how a buyer determines the worth of the thing, with relatively few exceptions.
The end product (either its final "look" for the box, or the playability of the game itself) generally is only thing the buyer cares about.
(granted, with LE's, you're getting into other factors of collectibiliy/investment that drive bids/pricing -- whole other discussion there)


In your case, you essentially ONLY made limited releases, and you priced them really competitively.
So it is no surprise to me that you never hit any kind of economy of scale in the process.

And I am sure that there are plenty of other brewers that faced the same situation, over the years.


But unfortunately the underlying efforts aren't what really matters to how buyers decide what they are willing to pay.

That isn't an insult to you, or the time and money you invested in the process.
It is just a marketplace reality of what motivates someone to part with their cash.


This isn't exclusive to homebrew games, obviously, this is just a topic where that market reality feels more personal.

I'm sure most artists bristle about the issue in the same way, since knowing how much time (conventional) artists put into their work, very few are making a good return on their time.  




Nowadays, it seems like more releases are successfully going the kickstarter route, as well as pre-selling ROM-only releases as part of it (usually $10/each with an embedded emulator via Steam or some other service).

I suspect the numbers have flipped and now THOSE kinds of releases (successful kickstarters) are more adequately compensated for their effort and at lower risk.

It also provides a "I support this brewer" price point for a larger mass of people that feel good about chipping in what may actually MORE money than the brewer would earn on the fabricated cartridge, anyway at a lower "risk" to both buyer and seller.






 

He gave freebies to the test team, as well.

I'm sure we could dig back and find his selling threads for a better sense of things, but he definitely had the most favorable "LE"-type arrangement back in the day.
(though at the time, some of it was because he was making 100-150 copies, all numbered, versus guys like Sivak only making 33, or more commonly, some only making 10 LEs)



And you know I hate brews getting mashed together with repros as much as anyone (and given his common venom on the issue, it is pretty ironic that is how Dave chose to title his thread)

 

Yea, Zi, I forgot a few things.  The music man def deserves some compensation.  Especally when he makes the tunes I come up with sound like sticks banging on rocks, ha.

Arch, yes, you might be right, it's hard not to take it personally or as an insult.  But, by ranting about the old man way (which is MUCH cheaper than the other ways, though a little more labor intensive) is to educate people on the $$ behind the production and generation of games.  Unless one has an idea about the amount of time, effort, and pain that goes into making a homebrew (or even a repro), bitching about price points or stating what they think is reasonable is really just uninformed rants. 

And that's fine, but when most people learn what goes into making them, they realize that they've been complaining about THAT they're expensive as opposed to WHY they're expensive.  I'd imagine that said info would probably help them to revise their opinion.  That said, personally, I agree that a lot of homebrews (and, to a significantly higher extent, repros) are priced higher than they need to be.  But, that's the brewer's option.  I don't tell them they're charging too much and kinda shit on their work, I just say silent and don't buy it.  



Kickstarter and ROM only releases aren't really my style, so I have no frame of reference to really argue the point.  

I think MRN's point can be distilled to the end user might think (s)he has a say, but really price setting is the last part of a very long process that doesn't include anyone but the producer(s) involved.

this is indicative of gamers in general- they believe they have ownership because of the personal experience with the IP, but really they're a sales metric.

and, let's not forget the context of this thread, as is the common equation of dave threads = gasoline + fire + troll

I'm not bringing up buyers in the sense that they have "ownership" of the process or IP.

But I have a different take on "price setting" than you do, at least as it comes to how a marketplace matches buyers and sellers.
You're taking some amount of "buyer sentiment" into account if you're picking a price that sells 100% of the product you produced, whether you realize it or not.