Mossmouth's announcement of the price for UFO50 was a pleasant surprise. The game is known for its 50 games, hence the name. It's reasonable to expect that a new indie release would be more expensive than usual. But no, it's only $25.
I noticed that many people were surprised and pleased about this. I decided to ask the team in a recent interview why they chose the price. The team had clearly thought about it, from the difficulty of selling the item for more to their desire to surprise players with unexpected depth, similar to what Hollow Knight did in 2017 or Elden Ring 2022.
Derek Yu, from Mossmouth, noted that deciding the right price could be difficult. Was this a collection of mini-games and 8-bit videogames in full?
Yu said: "I think that there are people who would pay a great deal more for it, but I also think that there are many people who are pretty sceptical about the concept of fifty games. What does this mean? Are they minigames or full-blown games? I think that there are a lot more psychological hurdles for me to overcome when it comes to understanding what 50 games means to me as a customer. We looked at the landscape and other indie games we felt were comparable. This was challenging because few people make collections of 50 games all in one.
Jon Perry also points out that the concept required the game to have a fairly generous price. "The fantasy we're presenting is that these freeware disks, these pirate cartridges, or your friend's collection from school that you can get your hands on for one hour. These are not situations in which you paid a high entry fee. It's a situation in which you suddenly find yourself with a lot of money. If we charged $250, that would be like purchasing a fancy boxed set. It would change how the whole thing is framed."
(Note that, as a joke and in a way sincerely, I had suggested that the game could be priced at $250.
Yu also brought up an even more obvious issue: the desire of the team to make it affordable for people who want to play. Tyriq Plummer, from Mossmouth, agreed. "At some point, you would start pricing out people who you want to play the games and then what's the purpose? What are you doing?"
Eirik Suhrke, who, among other things, is to be blamed or praised for Barbuta, added his thoughts: Wanting to go beyond a simple surprise. I wanted it to keep surprising me on every level. You can see it in the games. This game has a cutscene intro? What: Does this game have a two-player mode that is different? The price is a great way to get more than you expected and be surprised in a positive way.
UFO 50 is now available. You can read my interview with the Mossmouth Team, where we discuss how this treasure trove was made.
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