The auto-shooter survival game Vampire Survivors can captivate players for a long time. However, initially, the developer Luca "Poncle" Galante didn't think that about his project.
Recently, in a conversation with GamesRadar+, he shared his vision of a fair ratio of price to gameplay. Explaining his position, he talked about how he got drawn into his own creation.
There is no clear formula for evaluating "pleasure per dollar", so Poncle conducts a "comparison with a movie ticket." He argues as follows:
"...if I pay for a game as much as I would spend on a movie ticket, and get at least one \"evening of entertainment\" playing it — I will be happy.
That was the original plan [for the price] for Vampire Survivors. I didn't expect anyone to play the game for more than two hours. Although, looking back, I myself have already spent I don't remember how many thousands of hours in it. Now, I think, I probably have about 3000 hours in Steam alone, and that's three thousand hours of playing and testing, not counting the time spent on development. Therefore, it is very difficult to understand what this ratio should be."
Now, premium add-ons are being released for Vampire Survivors, and the developer has kept the base version at a low price, which makes the project more accessible in different regions.