A factor against a low price strategy in this case is probably also that you don't get many impulse buys, especially if you market your game yourself, via your own website. I do impulse buys on steam sales (which are heavily advertised in steam itself) and on the App-store, but that's it.
Agreed, which is why I question why his games aren't on something like GOG, which seems to have a very large user base of people that would be interested in his games. Even if he didn't want to put the newest ones on, so he could continue to charge the higher price, if he put the older ones on, he'd essentially be marketing his company to a big user base.
This is flawed thinking as games are consumables. Once you've consumed all the games on GoG, replayed them until bored and realized they aren't being made by the mainstream anymore, you're left in a situation where supply is tiny and economic law kicks in to drive up price.
If the mainstream suddenly started kicking out old school RPGs all over the place, Vogel wouldn't be able to compete. As it is, he controls a good chunk of the supply of new games of that type of experience.
You're assuming that people have played all those games, or even will, and thus will have no choice but to pay what he charges to get that experience, but that is in correct.
I'm in what is probably his target demographic. I like old games. I missed a lot of old games, so GOG really offers me a lot. There are probably more gamers like me out there than gamers who have exhausted the previously existing supply.
I'm not going to pay $25 for his oldest games (or $75 for the 3 game bundle packs or whatever). In this case, Vogel is competing with equivalent to better quality games selling at lower prices.
Put them up at $5.99 or even $9.99 and I'll likely grab them and check them out. If I like them, I'm far more likely to become one of his customers that will pay $25 for the new game when it hits. Right now though, he's set the barrier to entry higher than I'm willing to accept when I have other alternatives. I know he has demos (and I will likely install and play the Avadon one soon), but if I don't like the demo, well he gets nothing. If he sells me his old games cheap and I don't like them, I'm still not a continuing customer (most likely), but he's made some money off of me.
As it stand now, the likelihood of me ever buying all the Geneforge, Nethergate, and Avernum games is about zero. The total cost would be $200. Now say he sold the various bundles at $14.99 and Geneforge at $5.99 (typical prices on GOG), I'd be tempted. I'd at least buy one of them, so that's probably $15 he has from me. If I like it, I'm buying them all and now he's made $51 off me and I'm probably going to pony up the $25 for Avadon, so now he's got $76 from me.
My point is that while his dedicated fans are going to keep buying his games, it doesn't seem like he has been doing much (outside of the iPad port) to increase his user base.
Again, obviously if he's making enough to be happy, then more power to him. As a business person though, it makes me scratch my head. It reminds me of something my dad told me once: "What's the definition of a small business? One that didn't grow big."