As the market for games gets increasingly crowded, I suppose it’s only natural that marketing gets increasingly weird and gimmicky. Remember when Square wanted you to “augment your pre-order” for the new Deus Ex? I suppose it’s only natural that this sort of Byzantine marketing gimmickry would move into the world of indies.
Frozenbyte (the makers of the lovely Trine series) has launched a demo for their new third-person stealth title, Shadwen. The gimmick? Playthroughs of the demo contribute to a community score, and as that score gets higher, the game’s launch price drops. It’s currently sitting just shy of $35.
My hot take: No sir, I don’t like it. The issue of game prices, particularly for smaller, independent titles, is so contentious right now that this sort of tomfoolery is bordering on offensive. Developers (rightly) assert that games are expensive and difficult to make while players (rightly) demand a strong value and great games for their money. Pinning a price on something as ephemeral as this feels completely disingenuous. Obviously, Frozenbyte can massage the numbers in any way they want and ultimately price the game at whatever they want, but the perception issue is still there.
That being said, the stunt is obviously effective in that I’m now writing this article, and in all honesty Shadwen looks pretty cool. The Trine games were mostly wonderful, and this title’s focus on laying physics-based traps for hapless guards seems pretty entertaining. Plus the choice to kill guards or not is baked into both the game systems and the story itself, which is a wonderfully innovative sort of ludonarrative synergy. (Even though I’m a bad person and should feel bad for using a phrase as contrived as ludonarrative synergy.)
Maybe I’m an old man who’s totally out of touch with what the kids are into these days, but I don’t foresee this pricing gimmick being well-received by the community. You can watch the price tick down at the Shadwen’s official site, or play the demo yourself via the game’s Steam page. Alternatively, you could be cranky like me and sneer at it from a distance (while secretly wanting to play it because the game looks alright).
