💛 No Price Increase — I Deleted That Post

Hi everyone,

A few ago I posted that prices would go up in 5 regions after the launch discount ended.

I deleted that post. No price increase.

Honestly, that announcement bothered me from the moment I posted it.

The truth is — I hadn't really worked with Steam's regional pricing backend before launch. I'd set prices based on what felt right to me. After going live, I opened the dashboard and noticed Steam has its own "recommended price" for each region, and a few of my regional numbers sat below that line. My first reaction was"oh no, did I get this wrong? Better fix it quickly."

But watching the past few days — more players showing up than I expected, the ones who showed up sticking around longer than I expected, new wishlists still coming in — something settled:

The price is actually fine.

Players had already voted with their wallets. Me, hours later, scrambling to match some Steam-recommended curve? That's backwards.

I'm holding this price

• All regional prices stay as they are

• After the launch discount ends, prices return to the current low base — no increase

• Normal Steam sales (Summer, Autumn) still apply on top

To anyone who bought early

If you saw the old "price going up" post and rushed to buy —

First: thank you.

Second: I'm sorry I made you think you had to hurry. The price you paid is the price everyone gets going forward. You won't be worse off because of this — that's my promise.

That earlier post was me being uncertain about my own pricing. Today I'm a lot more certain.

Why I'm holding this price

Honestly — being able to make a narrative detective game of this scope as a single person comes down to one thing: the AI tooling dividend of the past few years.

I wrote every line of story. Designed every deduction. Storyboarded every cutscene. Hand-wrote every line of dialogue. The parts that decide whether the game is any good — AI didn't touch a single one. But on the art-asset side, and the more repetitive production work, AI is what lets one indie developer carry the scope of a full-sized game without shrinking the content.

That cost saving from tooling — it shouldn't sit in my pocket. It should sit in the price you pay.

People talk a lot about AI in games right now. Some see it as a path toward cheaper, worse games. I want to offer a different angle:

AI is what lets a regular solo developer ship a full-scope narrative game, and price it so almost anyone can pick it up.

No compromise on content. No upward creep on price. That's what I want this game to represent in the AI era.

At least that's what I'm trying — and what I'm doing.

— Mist Shadow Studio