evilandy

Hi,

I'm studying for an MSc in Video Game Technology (I know, sounds like a lot of hard work - Not!!!) and I'm in the process of developing a game that I was planning to distribute as freeware/shareware and encourage players to pass on to their friends. The objective of this is two-fold:
- to get my name known in the industry
- to make a little cash $$$

My questions are that if you happenned upon such a game that you found fun and spent upwards of half an hour playing:
- how likely would you donate some money to the developer of the game, and if so how much?
- have you ever given money to such "worthy causes" in the past, and if so how much and what was the factor that swayed you into parting with your hard earned cash?

Thanks for your future replies.

Andy

Irishsean

IMO you might get enough to buy lunch, given enough time, and if the game is mind blowingly awesome and targeted at older people. Most younger people don't appreciate the time it takes to put something like that together outside of a mainstream company. Some will, but the majority look for the eye-candy the main corps put out, not the ingenius gameplay you get from some small time publishers.

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jamessh1

you have to think about your target audience also. if the game is aimed at kids/teens/adolesence then good luck getting any of these age groups to donate. I think you'll have a hard time getting donations, but you could develop a decent fanbase if the game is good. For your first game you might want to try and make a game that will leave people wanting more, and maybe cash in on a sequel. Good luck.

mkultra

Freeware/shareware is nice, but I think anymore people that are looking for games are either looking for 1) really nice full production games that they are willing to pay for, or 2) short play time-wasting I'm-bored-at-work games that they can get for free on various flash sites. However, there is some market for games like this if you get into a good niche market, and you have a truely unique product. I haven't ever payed for web games personally (mainly because when I play games I want to escape for a few hours, not kill ten minutes at a time; not that games like that are inherently bad, just not my thing personally), I do have friends that have. They are all pretty major 'gamers' and payed because the games appealed to them enough that they would drop $20 to have extended play / no time limit. i guess my point is that if you can fill a niche and find an audeience for what ever specific type of game you are selling shareware can still work on a small scale, but its unlikely to reach the mainstream anymore in the way that say, Doom did back in the day.

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oblar

doubtful you will get any cash.. I spent 10$ as a child (~14 yrs old) to purchase LORD and Planets (me and another kid spent 10$ a piece and shared the license.. we talked to the guy and he said it was fine).

as far as anything else.. I dont think I have ever purchased any shareware, although, I have been very tempted as of late to send some money to a few people who made games I loved.. but, keep in mind I have played those things a lot longer than anything else... we are talking about 10yrs or so here... (Othello game and DND games I used on my 286 and of course Scorched Earth).

overall, I would say, put out the game, enjoy your time you spend on it and be proud of what you put out.. Be happy if people use it and get your name spread out.. don't expect any monetary benefits just yet...

just my ideas.

evilandy

The responses so far are in line with what I was expecting.

To expand on my "plans" a little further, I am developing a fast paced "shmup" (soot-em-up). Not a flash based game, but a full blown windows executable. Whilst I realise this will limit my target audience I feel that the Shockwave based games in this genre have been a little dissapointing. Not that they haven't had great production values, but more that they haven't had great playability or much fun value. These are obviously very subjective measures.

I agree with the comments about putting out a game to be proud of and enjoying my time spent developing it. Exactly my feelings. The monetary thing was more of a future thing, to do with investigating alternatives to going the big publishing route.

To be honest, I've downloaded some fantastic games myself (e.g. gridrunner: gwww.lamasoft.co.uk) but never paid for the extended version. And if I'm not tempted to pay for a Jeff Minter game then why would someone want to pay for one of my efforts?

Anyone have any experiences of downloading a most faantastic game that blew their mind yet still not felt the urge to dig deep? Or are freeware/shareware games not of sufficuent quality yet?

AngelicVampire

Only paid for one game... pontifexII, www.chroniclogic.com , or google search for bridge builder... three games. Bridgebuilder is a 2d bridge building game, pontifex moved into 3d and pontifexII is great for different materials and moving bridges... really fun though it sounds really sad...

thefictionweliv

The best way for you to make a little money would make a great offline game, that would get people in, and then charge a little for multiplayer, or if you integrate multiplayer into your website you can charge for advertising. There is many games that I would have donated some when I was young had I had the cash to however that is the main problem with targeting a younger audience. They would be more likely to get a small monthly fee out of their parents for a game they would play alot every month. Bassically I would say the way to go is make a good first executable and provide subscriber based content.

hulk

It's been shown that the market for shareware/independant games is bigger on Macs than PC's. The guys at GarageGames will only publish indy titles that are cross-platform. Macs make up 60% of their sales, and that's from a sub-5% market share.

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Sargeman

I downloaded a few games a few years back: Exile-escape the pit, Exile 2-Crystal Souls, and Exile 3-(I don't remember what it was called) You can play approximately one fourth to one third of the games. They are role playing games and I really enjoyed them. Eventually I ended up buying all three games in a package deal from the guy himself for about $25.


Very good games I might add.

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Pellaz

for a shootem up, make sure you have the following criteria after a donation is made:

-New .exe to download
-New weapons
-New baddies
-New levels

If it's a fun game, make sure that the shareware version is very beefy on it's own. I think one of the better examples might be Crimson Land, a game which I'm sure has made a little change. Keep the price cheap-most of the time, a 20 dollar price tag is obscene when I can go to the store and get a copy of Bladurs Gate 2 for that price, while five dollars seems more like nothing for a decently fun time occupier.

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