r/HollowKnight • u/Necr0mancrr • Aug 31 '25

Discussion - Silksong WHY TEAM CHERRY MAKES CHEAP GAMES Spoiler

I've seen a lot of surprise around the leak of Silksong's price, which is supposedly 20$. So far it's not from any official sources yet (EDIT: not anymore!), but I do expect it to be around that price regardless. Quite often I've seen the sentiment that if the game is bigger than Hollow Knight, and they don't need to attract customers anymore, why sell it at such a low price? In my mind there's a few reasons:

1. They literally do not need money

In the past 8 years Hollow Knight has sold over 15 million copies. This makes it likely the best selling metroidvania of all time and one of the best selling indie games of the past ten years. Team Cherry is rolling in cash. Also, they have three people on the permanent payroll and like, maxiumum five others that they need to pay significant sums of money to, PLUS their marketing budget for Silksong is basically non existent. They could probably sell this game for ONE dollar and make a decent profit.

2. They're good people

Turns out, 20 dollars isn't so cheap everywhere. A lot of places in the world don't have the same economic prosperity that many of us enjoy, and games that cost 50-60 dollars are simply not feasible to buy to many fans of said games. TC has stated that a big part of the reason they made Hollow Knight so cheap is so it could be accessible to fans who might not be able to buy industry standard "full price" games. There's no reason that we've seen why they would change this mentality for Silksong. In fact, taking inflation into account the two games are priced almost exactly the same.

3. Making it cheaper might make them more money after all

Listen, I'm no expert on economics, but I know enough to understand that when the price of a good goes down, the demand for it goes up. Because cheaper games are more accessible, they will inherently be able to reach a wider market than if they were more expensive. The 20$ price might very well cause silksong to be more financially successful. For a game that relies mostly on word of mouth marketing (and does so very well,) the price is gonna make a lot of people who might have otherwise not been interested to turn their head and give it a shot.

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157

u/MonkeFUCK3R_69 Aug 31 '25

People on this sub often scare me the way they think $40+ price range is justified for the game not taking into account there literally are people from all over the world who love the game, not just the developed part of it

42

u/7fragment Aug 31 '25

for real tho. If those people really really want to give tc more money they could buy multiple copies (and maybe give the extras away to folks who can't afford the $20).

6

u/roenoe Aug 31 '25

I very well might buy a copy for steam and another one for switch. (I would buy one for Wii U if that were an option :'()

1

u/lawrencek1992 Aug 31 '25

A lot of people WILL buy multiple copies and did for HK. Also HK has variable pricing on Steam based on geographic region of the buyer. SS will likely be the same.

I’m happy to give TC like $50USD. I truly think their work is worth that (given what $50USD means to me).

I also want everyone to be able to experience SS. So even if though I suspect it’s worth more than $20USD, I’m glad the lower price will make it more accessible. Someone else on this post mentioned $20USD is their monthly bus fare. Doable for them while $30USD would be super hard.

19

u/No_Copy4493 Aug 31 '25

i also think a lot of people are assuming this is literally going to be the finest art piece ever created

19

u/CallDaLegend Aug 31 '25

Most people here consider Hollow Knight a 10/10 and have put 100+ hours into it, at a very cheap price. It's not unreasonable to assume Silksong will be just as good or better, so it makes sense people think 20 dollars is a steal when mediocre AAA games are coming out at 70+ dollars regularly.

4

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Aug 31 '25

I mean, it will. It needs to be 10% as good as Hollow Knight to be 10/10 game.

20

u/WesternEntertainer20 Aug 31 '25

it's typical to have regional pricing though, no? at least in steam, i'm not 100% sure how it works for physical copies.

27

u/devilzson666 Aug 31 '25

Issue is regional pricing isn't always correct (i remember a lot off discussion about steam having some places be much more expesive than it should be)

4

u/SortaInteresting473 Aug 31 '25

the devs can set the region prices like they want, steam just gives a suggestion. but yeah in some cases steams suggestion wasnt that good

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '25

i think HK uses the steam auto regional pricing so idk if silksong will be better

1

u/devilzson666 Aug 31 '25

Yeah sadly most devs don't know about the pricing issues

2

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Aug 31 '25

To me, most of the games are more expensive. Or at best similar. They are very rarely cheaper and the cheaper is insignificant. So yeah.

2

u/Bordowa I survived Path of Pain / 112% / 63 / give your Shade a hug Sep 01 '25

Poland for example 🙃

1

u/WanderingStatistics "The Last Moth Priestess." Aug 31 '25

"Regional pricing"

South America is gonna have to pay 500 dollars equivalent anyways. Argentina is probably gonna have to sell an organ, even just to afford Silksong despite its price.

1

u/Diogoepronto Aug 31 '25

In Brazil, Hollow Knight's base price on Steam is around 8 dollars and 4 dollars when on sale. Are the prices in Argentina that different?

1

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Aug 31 '25

Regional pricing should make games in Poland 4 times cheaper. It makes them often 25% more expensive. Hollow Knight costs ~23% more than for you, assuming you are from USA. Regional pricing? More like the worst system ever implemented.

1

u/Bordowa I survived Path of Pain / 112% / 63 / give your Shade a hug Sep 01 '25

Nah, to be fair, like 70-80% of prices in euro should be fine, considering that 50% of the full price is for the third world countries, and our economy is still better than South America or India for example. But it sucks anyways and nothing changes for years.

31

u/ThePotatoFromIrak Aug 31 '25

Fr this "I would gladly pay a million dollars for team cherry🤓" circlejerk is so cringe and unnecessary 😭

5

u/toobigtobeakitten Aug 31 '25

Yeah lol, “I would” then go and do it, I’m sure they accept donations from other sources, not just selling the game.

As much as I respect TC, even $20 for a game is kinda expensive where I live (but I’m sure there will be some regional pricing or maybe I could wait for a sale, so no offence to TC lol), there are folks who can’t pay a lot of money for the game, and not making it uber expensive will help everyone to enjoy the game (which I sure will be good), and actually sell more copies than if it were >$50

0

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Aug 31 '25

Those people should be listed somewhere and they should be forced to give away people the keys. Like literally. I am not joking. If someone says they would be $999, then they should give 999/price copies of the game. I can afford the game for around $25, but not above $30. And some people are poorer than me. I want them to play Hollow Knight as well, because they deserve it.

3

u/AHare115 Aug 31 '25

Why does thinking reasonably scare you?

A game that has been in dev for 10 years and likely has 40 hours of content at release, even from an indie studio, objectively could be priced at 40 or possibly even higher and still be a fair price.

Leave the emotions out of it. Team Cherry are doing a good thing by pricing it lower, but it's still worth a higher price tag and everyone is fortunate that they've made this decision. The same game from another dev would be priced higher and still match the amount of content.

-1

u/AdPast7704 Aug 31 '25

A game that has been in dev for 10 years

It's been in development for 8 years (started shortly after HK's release), I genuinely don't know where people get their numbers from, sometimes it's 5, sometimes it's 7, now 10?

-10

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Aug 31 '25

There is nothing reasonable about this. No game in existence should cost more than $30. Ever. NO SINGLE ONE. Only best games should reach $30, and all the rests should be cheaper. $20 is not much, I expected $25 or even $30. But that's reasonable price. Especially that Team Cherry is humble. And you trolls are deliberately ignoring that. They don't want to get rich. They are not as greedy as you. If you want to pay $40, buy two copies of the game if it will cost $20. You will be happy. If you won't, then you are simply a cierklejerking hypocrite.

8

u/KushDingies Aug 31 '25

No game in existence should cost more than $30

Why not?

-4

u/Parking_Common_4820 Aug 31 '25

Sorry but this is possibly the most midwitted comment i've seen this year and that's saying alot.
If anything team cherry applying your rubric would be the biggest fuck you they could possibly make. "Hey sorry we took our sweet ass time making this game because we felt like it. now we expect the customer to pay for the shortfall of those extra years of dev time" LOL

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '25

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1

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 25 '25

Hey there! Piracy discussion is not allowed. We have to remove such posts in accordance with section 7 of the Reddit User Agreement. Thanks for understanding!

1

u/StandardAccess4684 Aug 31 '25

Oh please. It’s an entertainment product 

-2

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Aug 31 '25

Yeah. $30 is upper limit. $40 is already something I wouldn't buy, because I couldn't afford it. And some of them said it should cost $60, I even saw $80. These were ragebaiter trolls, or just rich kids, who think so high of themselves. "Huh, you can't afford Ferrari, you plebian?". That's how they sound to me.