Paying for content?

Hi Guys, I have a few quick questions for you :O)

a) Would you will willing pay for any content for a beta product?
b) Would you currently be willing to purchase one of the following content packs?

Domestic Drama ? offers a contemporary lounge, with vibrant, colourful, crisp and fresh , furniture and furnishings. Complete with all new behaviours, costumes and models for both male and female characters.

Romance ? offers contemporary bedroom, with vibrant, colourful, crisp and fresh bedroom furniture and furnishings. Complete with all new behaviours, costumes and models for both male and female characters.

c) If you would consider purchasing a pack how much would you consider paying, £4.99, £6.99 or £9.99?

We really do value your feedback. We need to know what you would buy, when you would buy it and how much you?d pay for it. We?d appreciate your complete honesty to help convince our investors that we will be able to sell the right content, at the right time, to make Moviestorm a commercial success.

So please do let us know what you think :O)

Many thanks, Ann

I'd be willing to purchase both. The key in pricing, I believe, would be the additional behaviors/animations that come with it. Only a few, $5.00 would work. A lot? I'd lay down $10.00.

Thanks, Ann!

Thanks Reptor :O)

The gentleman in the top hat pretty much took the words right out of my mouth.

Although, I believe a case could be made for a trade-off in "physical" content. Fewer behaviors but a LOT of props/costumes/etc., I could see making for a "full price" package.

My suspicion is, the "sweet spot" for pricing is going to fall somewhere in the US$5-15 (or its equivalent) range. Higher than that and you're approaching traditional gaming expansion pack pricing, which begins to "feel" like a little more of a burden, financially, once you establish a regular, frequent, content release stream.

Oh, and judging from the screenshots, I'd jump on both those packages... at the right price.

equinoxx wrote:

The gentleman in the top hat pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. Although, I believe a case could be made for a trade-off in "physical" content. Fewer behaviors but a LOT of props/costumes/etc., I could see making for a "full price" package.

My suspicion is, the "sweet spot" for pricing is going to fall somewhere in the US$5-15 (or its equivalent) range. Higher than that and you're approaching traditional gaming expansion pack pricing, which begins to "feel" like a little more of a burden, financially, once you establish a regular, frequent, content release stream.

Oh, and judging from the screenshots, I'd jump on both those packages... at the right price.

I agree totally.

What great looking sets! I also just looked at Michelle's clip from Dave of the Dead. The Horror pack looks like it holds great possibility.

Pricing: I look upon Moviestorm as a tool to create films and videos. For me, buying content for it is not a luxury, but a necessity towards creating my work. On the other hand, how many things do I spend money on that last only a short time?

I own a car, it needs gasoline - $50.00 a week at least
I go to Starbucks for coffee - $4 to $5 a day
I eat out - $35.00 for two people (or maybe under $10 at a fast food place)
Movies at the theatre - $7.50 (senior discount - not counting the popcorn and drinks $$)

Even if you don't have enough to rub two nickles together, I'll bet that most everyone has a list of questional purcases.

I'm not saying that any of the above can't be controlled so I don't spend any money at all. But I do spend the cash and each provides only a one time experience.

I know that $5 to $15 may seem a lot for a content pack, but considering the value for the money spent at a restaurant vesus a permanent set of content assests - well, the content assets would win hands down.

Also consider that the hours spent by anyone doing anything could be considered as "valuable time" - I'd rather be working with the permanent tools I need iinstead wasting my "time" in some coffee shop or bar.

But again, I look upon Moviestorm as a professional filmmaking tool and not a game. If it were a game, I'd be down at Starbucks having a triple Latte.

Mr Joyce makes many a great point, like always. My issue is convincing my wife that MS is a tool and not a game. Of course I did pretty well when I convinced her to let me get a PS2 a few years back. "It's a necessity for our children's eye-hand coordination," I said. "Don't you want them to succeed?"
Truthfully, though, there have been marketing studies done on price points people feel are acceptable, depending on what the product is. I believe, that for a gaming console, the range is between $300-$400. Any more than that, and it better not be called a game. Sony's PS3 is struggling a bit because of its price tag. Yes, it's a blue ray disc machine but people still see it as a game. They have apparently failed to demonstrate otherwise. (I hope I didn't get off-topic too much.)

mrjoyce wrote:

Pricing: I look upon Moviestorm as a tool to create films and videos. For me, buying content for it is not a luxury, but a necessity towards creating my work. [...] I know that $5 to $15 may seem a lot for a content pack, but considering the value for the money spent at a restaurant vesus a permanent set of content assests - well, the content assets would win hands down. [...] I look upon Moviestorm as a professional filmmaking tool and not a game.

Just to clarify, I agree with the majority of your points. Actually, I think that $5-15 for a content pack is not just reasonable, but an outright steal, given the potential that we've seen in Moviestorm so far. And compared to what other professional applications charge for assets, it's dirt cheap. That said, I think a significant segment of Moviestorm's market demographic is going to end up being hobbyists, who don't necessarily have "professional" aspirations so much as they're in it for the sheer joy of creativity (this, in fact, is the segment in which I would place myself). With that market in mind, I'm simply positing my belief that the $5-15 range is the most attractive, most likely to sustain a fairly consistent revenue stream for Short Fuze and its investors, given the previously stated goals of frequent (monthly/semi-monthly) content releases.

But yeah... if Moviestorm were a game, I'd join you for one of those lattes. And I don't even drink coffee.

Looks like all the great arguments have been said already

Like the others have said, it all depends on the quantity. I would say that a small pack of 5-6 props, 3-4 costumes and 5-6 animations would be reasonable at 5-7$ with something containing about 12-15 props, 8-10 costumes and a 12-15 animations could go for 12-15$. I think that those are reasonable prices and people will not feel scammed or cheated.

I looked at iClone and found it's price point very prohibitive for someone like me who does this as a hobby. Their content packs seem very expensive for the content.

Equinoxx,
You are correct in all your points. I look at the Daz/Poser available content and hope that Moviestorm will fall into that interest group. Somehow Moviestorm has to generate the same interest of a program like Photoshop which appeals to both professionals and hobbyists, instead of a program like 3DS or Maya which ventures into a world which almost says "for professionals only". I even include in this reference other "free" engines like Unreal - which hurts my mind when I try to understand it.

As a consumer I like the price range of what most of the folks in this thread have stated.

Speaking as someone who wants to make add-ons, the price precedent set by officially released packs will determine many aspects of the time I spend on my own.

I wouldn't be able to stay competitive with a room full of people in the Far East cranking out content, so I would have to really specialize my product. For instance, I might want to do a total gesture animation pack (even if y'all write a built-in gesture lab - my dream feature) containing everything from the mundane to off-the-wall animations.

Did I mention that my absolute dream feature would be a gesture lab? Just in case I didn't, my all-time wish is for MS to have a gesture lab where we could record and save character animations. But I digress...

For me to buy a pack, it would all depend on how much content is included with each pack and if that pack had the ready-made props, cosumes and actions I needed for my script. Now, if there was a built-in way to tweak or modify those assets (not for resale, but for use in my own movies), I would pay much more for them because they would instantly have an extended lifetime and usefulness in all of my future projects.

I definitely like the idea of smaller add-ons where the price can be kept down a bit. The $5-$15 range makes it easier for a man with a young family to partake in the fun. I wish it wasn't true but this definitely is "just' a hobby for me. Who knows what the future may hold for this new art form but for right now i would have to say it is a hobby for most of us.

I like Toriel's recommendations for pricing. Unless just tons of stuff will be included, I can't afford the packs over $15. In my mind, I'm comparing your offerings to those of TS2. For $15, I'd expect at least as much "stuff" as they offer (the total number of assets, that is; they generally only offer props in the cheaper add-ons, so including animations would be a big plus for y'all). ...My question, though - if we buy a content pack during the beta phase, will it still work with the program after its formal, public release? I mean, we won't have to pay for the stuff again will we? And, we're not going to pay for it now only to find out it comes free in the program later, right?

I think I would be willing to pay for those two sets, props and animations - probably around $12 to $15 US dollars would be fair. I assume this is the content back that the public beta people would pay because awhile back before beta public came out, we pre-public beta testers were told we would get everything free until the actual non-beta program was released and that we would get all the content in that non-beta release for free also, along with a month's membership in Moviestorm.

You also told us that the price of a membership was going to be $9.95 a month and that would include a content pack a month. And that price of $9.95 a month was for anyone pre-beta, public beta and public for sale program.

Can you clarify this?

Will I pay for the content packs?
The prices are reasonable, the beta status isn't an issue.

I guess the answer is.....I don't know.

If there is a cost free and relatively easy way to make my own stuff then I would be more likely to do that, because I enjoy creating stuff anyway and I'm more likely to end up with something unique that isn't in someone else's movie.

I would be most likely to pay for adaptable/customisable material which saves me time (meshes, animations), and least likely to pay for a 'finished' item which has limited creative possibilities.