Sparky the Road Clown was going to be an iPhone game from the beginning, and part of my marketing plan was to buy some ads on Facebook.  The more I learned and worked with Unity3D, though, the more I realized that it wouldn’t be that much more difficult to create a Facebook version if I planned it that way from the beginning — so that became the plan.  While I don’t think charging people just to play the game on Facebook would work, charging for extra content within the game on Facebook is not at all uncommon (see: Zynga) and that’s the model we’re going to follow, but only to a degree.

The game will be finalized on Monday, June 28th, and sent off to Apple and launched on Facebook at the time.  It will be $1.99 on the iPhone, but it will be free on Facebook.  Some people have questioned the logic behind this, but I’ve spent some time thinking about it, and I think I’ve got a reasonable model in mind.

As I talked to people about my pricing model, people had questions like:

  • So why $1.99 on iPhone and free on Facebook?
  • Free on Facebook?? How is that fair to iPhone users who pay for it?
  • Will they be exactly the same?  Isn’t the free version going to hurt the sales of the paid version?

For the first point, I think that $1.99 for the iPhone version is a reasonable price.  We’ll probably have a free demo/lite iPhone version before too much longer.  While this is our first venture, there’s a lot of collective talent that’s gone into this.  The gentleman doing the voice acting has been doing radio and voiceover work for over 30 years.  The graphic designer has been doing that professionally since the mid 90′s and doing 3D almost that long.  I’ve been programming professionally since the mid 90′s as well.  And while “lots of time in the respective industries” doesn’t necessarily equate to a good game, I’ve spent a great deal of time over the years working on various games and mods as well as getting input from casual and hardcore gamers on this game.  We can’t give it away on all platforms (we need to eat) and starting it out at $0.99 wasn’t really an option (not interested in the whole “race to the bottom” thing) so we decided to go with $1.99 for the iPhone version.

For the second point — while the iPhone version will cost $1.99 and the Facebook version will be free, the first two sets of downloadable content (DLC) that will be available for sale on Facebook at $0.99 each will be free updates to the iPhone version.  Not to mention that you can take the iPhone version with you wherever you go and obviously with Facebook, you’re tied to wherever your computer may be, which brings us to point #3…

Will the content be exactly the same?  It’s hard to say at this point.  It’s very possible that the Facebook version will not have as many levels or options as the iPhone version, and while I want it to be a full game in and of itself, I want people who bought the iPhone version to feel like they got a good deal.  Why would anyone pay for it on the iPhone when they can get it for free on Facebook?  Well, I think those are really two different markets.  I know that while I have my iPhone and iPod Touch near me most of the time, the only time I fire up a game on one of them when I’m at the computer is when I’m waiting for something to boot/load/compile, and even then, it’s only for a few minutes.  I play iPhone games while I’m out and about, while I’m watching TV — when I want to play a game but I’m not at the computer.  In addition, iPhone specific features like being able to steer by turning the iPhone and swiping for the upcoming mini-game is a lot more exciting than using the arrow keys to drive, I think.  So no, I don’t think that having it free on Facebook will hurt the iPhone version.  I think piracy of the iPhone version would probably cut into sales significantly more than having it available for free on a second platform.

Anyway, I better get back to finishing the game.  It’s going to be unleashed on the world in less than 2 weeks.  Those clowns aren’t going to run over themselves, you know.