Greetings!
I'm Nick, an artist and producer at Mutant Studios, and I'm here with big news which will result in a long post so here goes!
We've come to the decision to lower the base price of Questr from $14.99 down to $2.99. This is clearly a big drop in price and a big, permanent decision which we did not come to lightly. Therefore we want to be as transparent about it as possible. From feedback we recognize that we missed the mark on this by a lot and we take full responsibility for any feelings this causes, especially for those who already bought the game. Our goal is always to ensure we are providing a quality experience for the price and we think this change will bring Questr closer to that goal.
First of all, we want to explain briefly about why we made the initial price decision. We spent almost a year on Questr and along the way we were committed to making something that was entertaining and had good replay value. As silly as the premise is, a lot went into Questr. From the design to the art to the hundreds of unique interactions - it went through many, many iterations. It was a full time project for the studio that needed to make back what we spent to make it. From the beginning we were aiming for that price point as a goal for how much content we wanted to provide and our evaluation as we got closer to launch was that we would stick with it and see what happened. We let our invested time and cost influence our evaluation of the final product and as a result priced the game too high. We were proud of the game we made and wanted to value our work appropriately. In the spirit of transparency (and as you can guess from this update) we will tell you that it did not go very well. Our best periods of sales have come during extreme discounts, which told us a lot about the price we want to aim for next. We know a lot of people wishlisted our game based on the concept, which is awesome, and we hope this big change encourages some of you to try Questr!
Since Questr's launch we have made an effort to add new mechanics and content to Questr such as the shops and upgrade systems, new stories, and new art but we still don't think it has added enough value to meet that initial price point. Improving the content of our games is important to us, successful or not, and while Questr is a game that we love conceptually we realize that the value of the concept is much lower than we set it at. That being said, we want to be clear that we tremendously value those of you who gave Questr a chance at our initial full price and want to make sure we show that appreciation in some way - it will come in the form of free keys for our upcoming game: ASTRO JOUST The method for this will be determined soon (Steam doesn't really provide us with a way to accurately track who has purchased our games, oddly enough).
So there you have it. We are taking this next Steam Sale as an opportunity to permanently lower the base price of Questr to $2.99. Along with this significant price cut, this update will also include free content in the form of a new map which includes 3 new story paths, bringing the total to 12 story paths. We are also going to update our Steam marketing assets and share a new trailer which we think will better highlight the strengths of our game. We are always looking for ways to improve ourselves as a studio and this has been another lesson in the books for us. Thank you for taking the time to read and we hope this gives you more reason to Swipe Right for Adventure!
- Nick and the MES Team