Frankly their original pricing was just too steep to expect to attract anyone but a hardcore fan of the genre, which isn't a large enough market to make a large scale project profitable. I generally like adventure games, but the price even after the reduction is still to steep for me.

They're probably better off going for a significantly lower price and trying to get an increased volume in sales. The wadjet eye games typically release at a price half of what they were asking for this and they are pretty good quality adventure games. They were trying to price this like a AAA release and it came back to bite them. They still don't seem to be learning their lesson or they would've cut the price by even more. I don't think the current price point will attract anyone that was on the fence about it.

I got it 10% off on launch promo and played through the first room. Everything was sloooooooooow and the interface didn't quite fit well with the rest of the game; the puzzles were forgiving but full of owmygawd a reference!!! and not terribly exciting. Then a dude made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Because, in games like these, half the fun comes from exploring all options, I refused, lost the game, and would have had to restart the sloooooooooooooooooow room from the beginning (it wasn't possible to save right before making the choice). So I quit instead.

Now, fast walking has actually been patched into the game like two days ago, so I'll try it again. It's probably worth the original price just for the romance options.

great game. I played through and enjoyed it very much. (been a fan of the quest for glory games back in the days and they captured the spirit good enough so I finished it with only pausing for work and a bit of sleep ;) very much unlike quest for infamy which I didn't even finish yet, although it was the second game I bought on gog. on that note I should install it again someday.) Anyway Hero-U is highly recommended from me :) (if anyone cares ;)

I'll get it once it goes on a decent sale (it's only been on sale twice since the middle of last year and only for 10% off each time).

The price is just too high. Better to make a fast nickel than a slow dime.

Maybe it was badly priced at first? Basically, creating another copy of a digital game costs nil, so it's a matter of making as many people buy it for as high a price as possible. The higher the price, the fewer the people who are willing to buy it; whereas the lower the price, the less profit is made per game purchase. Finding the right balance is key, but there is no way to be sure that one has found the golden price point. Maybe most buyers would have been willing to pay a bit more resulting in even more profit, or perhaps lowering the price point would have resulted in sufficiently more sales to more than make up for the loss in per sale profit.*

Shovel Knight is in quite another situation, as the game sold like gangbusters, and thus its easy for them to sit on their high horse(-s ?) and say that one shouldn't cheapen the value of ones game by lowering the price. When push comes to shove, however, either one has to lower the price (or increase the discounts during sales) and hope for an increase in sales, or one may go bust. Then one can try to convince ones landlord to accept ones excess pride as rent.

* As a bit of an aside, the best thing to do (to maximise profit) is to divide ones customers based on willingness to pay and have them pay as close to the maximum of what their willing to pay as possible. Enter the various "editions" where, for some added extra (basically, from a production cost point of view, worthless crap), you have to pay more, so that people with a higher willingness to pay/deeper pockets spend more moolah on what is by and large the same product. Then you can get to the cheapskates pockets during sales, or further down the line, by lowering the price of the product.

Which would make it around like, what, 40 or 50, for today?

Well, if you're only counting for inflation... but if you're counting for how damn cheap digitally distributed games are compared to the 90s and early 2000s, I'd say stick to $20. When I first started shopping at GOG, I hadn't bought a game since 2005 or so -- and even then I was shopping at pawn shops rather than pay full price. So $5.99 for RCT1 was a steal.

Corey Cole did acknowledge this in the most recent Kickstarter update:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption/posts/2392313 He mentioned initially the higher price was to reward the Kickstarter backers with a better deal, to position it as a premium game similar to what QfG used to be back in the day, and to break-even on fewer sales. He did take into account the benefits for going cheaper but conceded that he took a gamble and it didn't pay off. So hence the change in pricing.

Every developer who's game doesn't sell well comes out with this line about the current game market being tough with too many games on sale at the same time, as if the successful games didn't have to compete in the same environment.

Quest for Glory was never that popular to begin with and nowadays it's a series most gamers have never played, if they even know what it is. Also, when they originally came out they were on the cutting edge graphics-wise. Quest for Glory 5 is 21 years old and it doesn't look that much worse than Hero-U.

It's always going to be a hard market if you are trying to sell a game that looks like a mid/low budget indie game, with a premise that doesn't have a particularly strong appeal, for a premium price.

Now, if they only would remove the time-limits from the game, I would buy it. I probably would already have bought it, if it wasn't for the warning that it contains time-pressure. As one of the reviews said: if I want deadlines, I go to work. Having to work against the clock in a game usually removes all the fun and makes it frustrating instead.

The game has time limits? I was on the verge to buy the game, thank you for bringing that up! Time limits are a no-go for me. I like to explore and experience the game worlds free of time limitations. I have enough of them in RL already. ;)

I see.

One can appreciate the respect towards backers, unfortunately it can also be taken as a spit in the face of non backers.

I hope they manage to release another game and wish them luck, this is tough indeed.
This is not premium pricing. Premium pricing is 50-70.

30-35 is midrange.

15-25 is lower.

Under 15 is cheap.

Well, as a matter of fact the time limits that are there are trying to build up a sense of urgency, but in fact it just goes on and on and on. The last 5 days I had already maxed out my char and done everything there is to do and just wait for the game to finally come to the end of semester. ;) so no worries about the "deadlines" they are too long as it is and you can do whatever you want way way before the game ends.

I consider 50 € (for example) for any (good!) game cheap.
In the 90s, I had a lot more time and a lot less money - but games were:
- a lot more expensive (with inflation of course)
- a lot of effort to buy (if I could find them at all)

These days I only buy years after release and in sales. My backlog is just too big - so chances are that I won't even be able to play them all in my lifetime.
I haven't bought hero-U yet, but it seems to be worth the original price.

As someone who bought it close to launch, I found the game to be worth the higher cost and I almost never buy games until they are significantly on sale. At the new $20 price point I recommend everybody with even a passing interest in buying it. The quality of life improvements over the old Quest for Glory games make this a much more enjoyable game to play. The time limits seem really annoying at first, but once you realize they are mainly designed to force certain events and to keep the plot moving they stop being am issue for the most part. You still need to plan your day to get what you want to accomplish done, but you have plenty of days to get everything done so if you don't get something done on one day you can get it done on another.