A most-asked question about Whispers in the West is why we decided to offer the cases as DLCs instead of offering a one-off-purchase game. We totally get that this pricing is unconventional for Steam, and we truly accept all the criticism. Whispers in the West is more of an experiment than a commercial project. We are humbled by players’ preference to purchase all the cases at once - we truly didn’t expect this. So, we feel it's important to communicate our thought process, and we hope to deliver more value to our players in the future. [h1]The team behind this little game [/h1] How the team behind Whispers in the West was formed is a story in itself. In 2021, in an already competitive job market, the hiring freeze, as a result of the pandemic, made it challenging for graduates to get started in the games industry that year. So we formed Team Dissonant - almost all the team were recent graduates - and we wanted to make our own game. Here came another challenge, we all work remotely and we had never met in person. Fortunately, we had games - we played many online multiplayer games together, as well as traditional murder mystery games over Discord. We loved murder mysteries and were surprised to find out there were very few options to play this type of games online, in particular, without the need for a game master (GM). So we decided to take on this challenge - creating an online multiplayer murder mystery game that can be shared among friends and can be played without a GM. This is not a typical "first quest" for a group of graduates - mostly for the challenges that come with multiplayer games, even experienced teams don't easily go down this path; not to mention the fact that there were so few multiplayer narrative games. The team did such an amazing job in making Whispers in the West a reality. And we are so grateful for the help we received along the way, namely, UK Games Fund and Wings. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41825657/0adfcb6faec9728bb7ee057752fe6aba1ebf19fa.jpg[/img] [h1]The pricing of Whispers in the West [/h1] The core game of Whispers in the West is priced at $4.99, which includes all the content of the free demo plus an hour-long case, The Break-in. All the subsequent cases are offered as DLCs, each priced at $6.99 - however, you can get all the DLCs in a bundle at a massively discounted price, about $25 depending on where you are, which offers 6 - 8 hours of gameplay - and your friends can join the game completely for free - a much-loved feature. If you play a case with three more friends, after the bundle discount, the cost to each player is ($6.99 - 38% bundle discount) / 4 = $1. We firmly believe games are better when shared with friends, that's why we make sure "Friends always play for free" in Whispers in the West. Whether it's the core game or the DLCs, as long as a case is owned by one of the players, other players can always join the room for free (using the demo). So, if there are two or more friends you like to play games with, the cost of each case for each person is no more than a cup of coffee. A lesser-known Steam tip is that, the type of bundle of Whispers in the West is called "Complete The Set" - meaning that even if you own part of the content in the bundle, you will only pay for the content you haven't owned when you purchase the bundle. So, for example, if you have bought the core game and a DLC, and now you want to buy the full bundle, you will only be charged for the difference. You will never end up repaying for what you already bought. Each case in Whispers in the West is an hour long - some players like this, some don't. We can probably talk about the inception of this game in more detail another day. In short, we purposely made the game short and digestible for players. Honestly, it would be much easier to write long dialogues (although there are already 17k words in each case on average because of the non-linear nature of the story). But we cannot expect friends who come to play a game together to spend hours and hours reading the lines. We want to offer quality time for players, by focusing on the deduction and debate. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41825657/d6b7e4f5a40560ab07379e16c6ad5dc76d84dc5c.jpg[/img] [h1]So, why DLCs? [/h1] It's important to mention that, however uncommon it seems for Steam, it's quite a standard practice to offer murder mystery games on an episodic basis. Indeed, the average pricing for traditional murder mystery games is around $20 per case (if delivered electronically, physical copies are more expensive). And the typical length for a case is 2 - 3 hours. One of the reasons is that, unlike for single-player games, players need to find time to organise game sessions for multiplayer games. This can be challenging for some of us who are only able to play games like this once or twice a year. So, we did not price the game in an attempt to hook or scam the players - quite the opposite - we don't want to force players to pay for the content they don't need. Another idea we have for Whispers in the West is that, if the game turns out to be successful, we want to invite guest writers to create cases for the game. Offering each case as a separate DLC gives us the flexibility to do this kind of collaboration. We genuinely welcome different opinions and we do understand why some players feel uncomfortable about the pricing. We will do our best to deliver more value to our players in the future. In fact, we are working on a custom case editor, so anyone can write their own mysteries, play with friends, upload the cases to Steam workshop and share with the wider community - this will be offered completely for free. Last but not least, making independent games in today’s economic climate is not easy. Every comment you leave on Steam can potentially have an impact on the members of the team. Similarly, if you recognise our values, please do not hesitate to offer us some words of encouragement. Thank you.