A very large part of the community was outraged by these three messages from Garry:The main misunderstanding is whether this is a joke or the truth, because if it is not a joke, how will such an insane price of 20 dollars help to increase the number of players in s&box?
This will definitely not have a positive impact on the skins market. Anyone who thinks this is good because it will attract a solvent audience is deeply mistaken. Free projects always have the greatest liquidity. Billions of dollars appeared in Counter-Strike just when Valve abandoned the purchase option for the game and allowed "moneyed" players to try the product for free. The gaming platform isn't even ready for an April release; there's a lot of missing functionality for game developers. A gaming platform that doesn't have anything yet can't cost $20.
These aren't competitive terms at all compared to Roblox, which is free and attracts many 8-15 year olds.
I'm curious to hear what Garry has to say about this. Maybe he's picked a good spot. I'm just sharing my opinion, not trying to make anyone think like me.
s&box has the potential to become the best platform on Steam by 2030.
It could easily have 50k-60k online every day.
It's the only product in the gaming industry that combines a platform and an engine. Usually, you have a separate engine (Unity) and a separate platform (Roblox). However, in December, Epic announced that it was preparing to buy Unity and that Unity would now be integrated into Fortnite.
The f2p model is ideal for it in 2-3 years, but initially at $5-$10. That's the price of a burger.
The burger price theory is very simple: people buy such products on Steam almost without thinking. They are bought by Steam audience that grew up on Roblox, and it is they who will fill 80% of the online in s&box by 2027-2030. If a price is to be set, imo it should clearly be around $10.
I am curious to know what people think and why Garry choiced on $20, even though he previously wanted 10-15 or even f2p
I don't understand why the price of S&Box being 20$ in the early stages scared you so much, did you think that there would be more people when it release as f2p and you want to sell your skins at the top maybe ? :D You say that the platform is not ready for release in April, so how long do you think to keep player base on s&box due to the cheaters that will come when s&box is released as f2p?
I think it is more important how we can put s&box in a better position in the long term rather than aiming for short-term profit.
I don't think cheaters will somehow interfere with the game, after all, each mode is written in its own way, and we'll have to work hard on it. On the other hand, you're right about what players will come to. At the moment, there's RP, which will be in high demand among those who play it. As for the rest, well, we have a lot of games without any depth, and it feels like the same developers are playing them. In my opinion, the engine's capabilities are sufficient to create small games with a clear gameplay loop. Roblox is interesting to children who don't know what video games are, so Roblox will remain so. In my opinion, S&box, which uses the power of Source 2, is still for a more selective audience who may come to S&box to replace itch. I would really like to avoid S&box becoming what gmod became at the start, when unique games were overshadowed by similar RP projects. In any case, the players choose, but if only RP has demand, the platform will not be as attractive to indies.
It honestly makes me laugh when people think that a $20 price tag is going to stop cheaters.
You clearly haven’t played GTA V Online for $30 and, at the same time, free-to-play Overwatch 2. In Overwatch, after hundreds of hours of gameplay, I’ve seen maybe 1–2 cheaters, and even those barely stood out. In GTA, just join any populated server and at least 20% of the players will be cheating.
Will there be more cheaters if the game becomes free? Of course. But at the same time, the number of players will increase in a couple of times. That gives the community more room to grow. Most people would rather play on a full server with a couple of cheaters than on a server with 10 people where everyone is “honest” and paid $20 just to beta test the game.
Cheaters have always existed and always will. Price is not a way to fight them.
The real way to deal with cheaters is to make a game where cheating simply doesn’t make sense, like in many Roblox modes where cheats give you no real advantage. Everything is built around moving around, collecting things here, selling them there, or just having fun with friends. Another option is to make or buy a proper anti-cheat system. Ideally, you do both.
But increasing the price is definitely not the solution. By that logic, you could make the game cost $1000 per copy, then only two people would play it, and sure, there would be zero cheaters.
Cogwork You definitely haven't played GTA 5, which costs $30. Thousands of cheaters are willing to buy the game for that price and cheat, price has never been an issue.
The main misunderstanding is whether this is a joke or the truth, because if it is not a joke, how will such an insane price of 20 dollars help to increase the number of players in s&box?
Not a insane price.
Billions of dollars appeared in Counter-Strike just when Valve abandoned the purchase option for the game and allowed "moneyed" players to try the product for free.
Gambling.
The gaming platform isn't even ready for an April release; there's a lot of missing functionality for game developers. A gaming platform that doesn't have anything yet can't cost $20.
95% of features is good compromise to make a game engine with, engines been in development long enough and we can improve it.
These aren't competitive terms at all compared to Roblox, which is free and attracts many 8-15 year olds.
S&Box isnt meant to be inherently competitive to Roblox, also Roblox has been around longer. (Negative points due to how Roblox moderates their platform)
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S&Box has been the best engine for Developers to work in for the last decade, every other Engine is Convoluted, outdated, or has foundational issues that have plagued them in the past. Developer workflow is the easiest its been, Source 2 is awesome as a underlying engine. FP has built or building wonderful high-quality tools that are on par with really good teams making beautiful games (Arc Raider's DDGI).
You have open channels for discourse directly to the developers via discord; and listen!
People are getting distracted about a price people will pay to get access to a good platform, also this directly incentivizes Game Devs to try the engine out and give feedback to make it better. Cosmetics alone will cover your long-term investment; Play Fund covers your short-term investment.
The Elephant in the room: Its eventually going F2P, its not going to be $20 forever. Nobody complained when Overwatch costed 40$ and went F2P.
