Free game transitioning to paid.
As you may already know, LASERS released on Steam as free-to-play. After much deliberation, we’ve decided to change this. From February 29th at 10:00 AM PST, LASERS will be priced at $2.99. If you already own the game, you will not have to pay anything to continue playing.
Brilliant idea devs. Your game is sitting on 68% positive so instead of making it better you change it to a paid game.
They've determined that having it F2P and supported by paid cosmetics is not making enough revenue to cover server costs, so instead of shutting it down, they're trying to make it work by making it $3USD. Seems fair to me. You're speaking as if they make the game 10% more positively reviewed it will magically become financially viable.
68% positive also means that two thirds of reviewers like the game - which is also not bad. Not everything is for everyone.
Their reviews have slipped into "mixed" territory. I guarantee that once a game hits "mixed" that even less people consider buying it. Instead of trying to fix it so that it's back into "positive" reviews and then putting a price on it they're going to discourage even more buyers by now charging for it prematurely.
They've made a business decision that they believe will work for them. A lot of the negative reviews are pretty low quality and I wonder if making the game paid will actually reduce the nonsense ones. Pure speculation. Hard to say exactly.
You also can't just "fix it" (whatever that means) and guarantee it will result in an uptick in review sentiment - so it may just be a whole bunch more good money into bad. Steam reviewers are extraordinarily fickle and love to pile on for the heck of it.
Meanwhile Helldivers 2 has sold something like 4 million copies on Steam with mixed reviews.
@johnno07: 135k reviews
95k positiive, 45k neg due to server and copy protect issues?
but this is bankrolled by sony and 'influencers' dig it
everyone heard of helldivers though, good or bad and that's enough to get traction
@tonyjzx: Understandable capacity-related problems aside, Helldivers is actually a great game. Core gameplay loop is fun, Starship Troopers vibe is a just the right amount of silly, and it's a cracking co-op experience. It's not just that "influencers dig it".
Yeah tell that to Helldivers2
…so instead of making it better you change it to a paid game.
Good thing it's free right now then…
And please explain EAs mentality of releasing game in beta state and charging not AAA but AAAA costs then offering additional DLC with stupendous price tag…… Hang on, this seem to be what nearly all devs/ publishers are doing these.
That's just EA's standard policy
A crap game with no-one playing is guaranteed bad reviews. A last ditch effort at increasing the playerbase by telling people it's only free for a bit longer might help improve reviews and maybe encourage people to spend $3 on this for some reason in a couple of weeks time.
you are the type of person who thinks everything should be free and money grows on trees for every company
Yeah my 500+ Steam library of almost exclusively paid games agrees with you.
This sounds like an infinite amount of the worst part of any game.. my nightmare.
Still added it though lol.
Add to the infinite backlog of titles that will never be touched.
Is this a Steam trend to get player numbers and the steam algorithm to showcase your title. Start out free then incrementally add a small cost. The barrier to publishing a title is only $99 so I guess it works.
This is not a deal. The game released as free. It's still free.
![[PC, Steam] Free - LASERS @ Steam](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/03/832503.jpg?h=48618897)
"Laser"
-Dr Evil