Shouldn't TL1 become free?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Hello all,

I preordered Torchlight II because it came with free Torchlight. However, I was wondering if it would still be fair for Runic Games to charge $15 for the original game, as I really don't see why would anyone want to pay only five bucks less for a game that is made entirely obsolete by its most certainly superior sequel. I mean, it's much shorter than TL2, it doesn't feature online play and it was slapped together in less than a year; almost feels like a demo/rough draft in comparison.

Shouldn't Torchlight become entirely free in order to help promoting Torchlight II?

[Twilit]

They still need to charge because they only have 1 game out. And if you did pre-order technically it is free. It's incentive to buy the next game.
If I had a bakery i wouldnt be giving cakes away for free. Buy one get one free is an entirely different matter though.

[Aeydon]

While you do raise some good points, and I do agree in some respects, it
however would not be viable for Runic in my opinion.

Although, a price drop at a price determined by Runic Games would be a better idea.

[Hade3]

Some people will discover Torchlight with Torchlight 2 and a little percentage will probably want to try the first one after enjoying TL2. It is better for Runic to continue to charge for TL1. But it would be wise to slice the price in half (for example) to make it a game worth buying just to try.

[Seer]

It's simply bad bussiness, the price is absurdly low already, people can buy it with their change. If someone deems it is not worth the price, they can simply not buy it. Price drop yeah, but free doesn't make sense.

[Mortal]

I think Torchlight 1 will still have value when 2 comes out.

Lets take Morrowind, for example. Great game, absolutely amazing. It has 2 successors, Oblivion and Skyrim. Still, it`s not free.

[Zidders]

That's like implying a car manufacturer should make older models of their cars free, just because they have all brand new models. They still put a ton of work into the game. Lower the price? Sure, but give it away? No. That's not how you stay in business. Maybe if they're around long enough and have made enough money, they can afford to do something like that but they're only on their second game.

Most developers/publishers who give games away rarely do so for very long. Usually they only do it for a short amount of time. Runic is doing that with the Torchlight Preorders. It's a promotional move, which means they're taking a sizable chunk of their profits as a tradeoff for more word of mouth.

[Daniel]

It's simply bad bussiness, the price is absurdly low already, people can buy it with their change. If someone deems it is not worth the price, they can simply not buy it. Price drop yeah, but free doesn't make sense.

This, and let's not forget that TL1 is not even that old. There are older games selling for more.

[firethetorch]

Shouldn't Torchlight become entirely free in order to help promoting Torchlight II?

TL2 is FP on steam. I don't think they need help advertising a game that's arguably better than D3 at 1/3 the price.

That said, it would be wise for them to drop the price. I got my copy for $3.75 on sale and because I was blown away by how well done it was, talked up TL2 a bit to people who never heard of TL1. I think they'll probably drop TL1 to $8 or $10 (possibly less I guess) once TL2 is out. Once you've played TL1, you're pretty much locked into buying TL2 if you enjoyed Diablo 1/2 at all.

But IMO giving away TL1 is a bad idea. Dirt cheap, fine, but you gotta remember this isn't a bloated studio with loads of cash floating around. Even though they've got a lot of experienced talent, they're setup more like a startup.

[sadron]

Isn't a bottle of coke more expensive by now? XD

[mibuwolf]

Hello all,

I preordered Torchlight II because it came with free Torchlight. However, I was wondering if it would still be fair for Runic Games to charge $15 for the original game, as I really don't see why would anyone want to pay only five bucks less for a game that is made entirely obsolete by its most certainly superior sequel. I mean, it's much shorter than TL2, it doesn't feature online play and it was slapped together in less than a year; almost feels like a demo/rough draft in comparison.

Shouldn't Torchlight become entirely free in order to help promoting Torchlight II?

Check out GoG, you'll freak out how much old games will go for then. I suggest you go over your logic a bit further. What you say isn't logical at all.

[firethetorch]

Hello all,

I preordered Torchlight II because it came with free Torchlight. However, I was wondering if it would still be fair for Runic Games to charge $15 for the original game, as I really don't see why would anyone want to pay only five bucks less for a game that is made entirely obsolete by its most certainly superior sequel. I mean, it's much shorter than TL2, it doesn't feature online play and it was slapped together in less than a year; almost feels like a demo/rough draft in comparison.

Shouldn't Torchlight become entirely free in order to help promoting Torchlight II?

Check out GoG, you'll freak out how much old games will go for then. I suggest you go over your logic a bit further. What you say isn't logical at all.

The funny thing about that is old games used to be in bargain bins until people realized that a lot of indie titles and older titles often have more replayability than many "AAA" titles that get pushed out on the factory system.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Yeah, I meant to suggest a price drop as well. Must have slipped off my mind.

TL1 being only five bucks cheaper than TL2 could misled new players, especially those who buy the sequel first, into thinking there isn't much difference between the two games in terms of content and production values.

As far as I'm concerned, had it not been for TL2's preorder offer, I would have skipped TL1 altogether.

[Zidders]

The funny thing about that is old games used to be in bargain bins until people realized that a lot of indie titles and older titles often have more replayability than many "AAA" titles that get pushed out on the factory system.

\
I used to work for Wal Mart and for the most part, the cheapest you would ever find a game was $5. GoG as well as Steam sell a lot of games that might be $10 retail for $5 or less, so the whole bargain bin thing hasn't gone away, it's just now, instead of someplace like Gamestop taking a game that should have dropped to $5 and selling it on ebay for $50, you actually have a lot of games that are low priced that are going to stay low priced.

The other good thing about GoG and Steam is that there's a greater chance of games not disappearing down the memory hole like so many games have.

And people are going to think '$20? It must be crap' no matter what you do because a lot of people seem to be stuck in 1995, when a 'good' game was usually $50 and most $20 games were meh and $5 and $10 games were bargain bin, It's 2012 now, there have been so many inexpensive but GOOD games out there over the last five years or so that that's no longer really a truism.

[mibuwolf]

And people are going to think '$20? It must be crap' no matter what you do because a lot of people seem to be stuck in 1995, when a 'good' game was usually $50 and most $20 games were meh and $5 and $10 games were bargain bin, It's 2012 now, there have been so many inexpensive but GOOD games out there over the last five years or so that that's no longer really a truism.

I guess that's true. Although I have my love for a lot of AAA titles, I usually wait for huge sales on those (at least >25% that is) , and insta-buy anything that is a good seeming title that is well within an appropriate amount (say $20 or less).

[gold163]

Almost every AAA title that I have bought within the last like 3-4 years with the exception of Valve games has been out for a significantly long enough time such that the price is reduced to half or less. So I'm picking up games that were originally $60 at launch for like $20 anyway. It's worth it then.

At this point the price doesn't really mean much to me if it's low enough for me to purchase. If the game really surprises me in a good way on the other hand, I like to see if there's anything I can do to support the devs. I bought Killing Floor on sale -- that game's already cheap. Realized what a great game it was, and proceeded to buy every single DLC for that game. A bit sad I can't spend more money on it now short of buying copies for others but the developers seem to be doing okay for themselves.

[mibuwolf]

Almost every AAA title that I have bought within the last like 3-4 years with the exception of Valve games has been out for a significantly long enough time such that the price is reduced to half or less. So I'm picking up games that were originally $60 at launch for like $20 anyway. It's worth it then.

At this point the price doesn't really mean much to me if it's low enough for me to purchase. If the game really surprises me in a good way on the other hand, I like to see if there's anything I can do to support the devs. I bought Killing Floor on sale -- that game's already cheap. Realized what a great game it was, and proceeded to buy every single DLC for that game. A bit sad I can't spend more money on it now short of buying copies for others but the developers seem to be doing okay for themselves.

Yea, I bought it on sale as well. I buy pretty much anything on sale to support developers of good games that I was just never interested in.

[Jackalhead]

They still need to charge because they only have 1 game out. And if you did pre-order technically it is free. It's incentive to buy the next game.
If I had a bakery i wouldnt be giving cakes away for free. Buy one get one free is an entirely different matter though.

Ditto. People are like, "Oh Torchlight II? I wonder if it's any good. Well, it's only 20 bucks. If I pre-order it now I can play try out the original Torchlight and see how I like it for free? Sold."

[Jackalhead]

I think Torchlight 1 will still have value when 2 comes out.

Lets take Morrowind, for example. Great game, absolutely amazing. It has 2 successors, Oblivion and Skyrim. Still, it`s not free.

Having moddability, as did Morrowind, tends to do that to a game.

[Hade3]

That's like implying a car manufacturer should make older models of their cars free, just because they have all brand new models. They still put a ton of work into the game. Lower the price? Sure, but give it away? No. That's not how you stay in business. Maybe if they're around long enough and have made enough money, they can afford to do something like that but they're only on their second game

Cars are not digitally distributed