You think this would work?

[Accname]

Hi guys.
I am developing games in my spare time, its fun.
And i have been thinking what i will do once i finished my game. If i should "sell" it, or upload it for free, or what.

And i came up with the following concept. I would like to get some feedback from you guys:

Everybody can download the complete free version of the game, no drm, no anything.
But, when somebody goes to the download page there will be a text saying:
"Please download this game and play it and if you enjoyed the experience and had a great time please consider paying for the game. You can pay any amount of money you deem justified.
Paying for the game will help the developement of other great games in the future.
Thanks for your support."
And at any point in time the players could click a "donate"-button and pay any amount they think would fit for the game.

If the game was really good, would you pay for it? Do you think this would work in the long run?

Because i would not like to pay for a game which i dont know anything about. If the game was bad and i paid money for it I would be pretty frustrated. But if it was genuinely great then maybe i would.

 

[Varine]

Not unless it had some level of major replayability and then your only income is going to be from a small core of fans, and then you might even be paying more for the credit card services than people have put into the system. For a first game developed in your spare time you probably would maybe make enough to pay for hosting; your best bet would to not sell it at all and create more of a project page with a donation option for people that frequent it and release a variety of applications for free long before going down the road of trying to sell a product in that fashion.

 

[Accname]

I never even thought of "starting" with this concept.
It was more a thought for much later, when the game made a name for itself, or maybe if other games have been released as well.

 

[KaerfNomekop]

Because i would not like to pay for a game which i dont know anything about. If the game was bad and i paid money for it I would be pretty frustrated. But if it was genuinely great then maybe i would.

IMO people should play games for free, then support the developer with however much they deem is deserved for it, much like the way "free" music sales work on Bandcamp. I'm totally with you on this one.

 

[Accname]

IMO people should play games for free, then support the developer with however much they deem is deserved for it, much like the way "free" music sales work on Bandcamp. I'm totally with you on this one.

But would you pay for it after you have already played it through? Nobody would know you played it without paying, nobody would blame you.

 

[KaerfNomekop]

But would you pay for it after you have already played it through? Nobody would know you played it without paying, nobody would blame you.

I would. It's the reason I seed all my torrents for a few months at least.

 

[Varine]

But would you pay for it after you have already played it through? Nobody would know you played it without paying, nobody would blame you.

2D Boy did something like this with World of Goo. I don't know if they let you play the game first or if you had to pay first, as I didn't participate when they had this promotion going. But basically you had to pay SOMETHING, a minimum of one cent I think, so a lot of people put that down, but then there were also a lot of people that paid way more than the game sold for at regular price because they liked it so much. I think some people paid several hundred dollars, but I have no source for that.

What we've decided to do with AED is put out free games for the time being incorporated into a mutual network, but we're going to put ads into them (like between each level an ad will play), and you can buy it to shut it off, or we'll have micro transactions on some of them like the Facebook games. Only we're trying to make them all run with each other, so if you buy like ten dollars of credit, you can use them on anything we developed that uses transactions like that. So either way we make some money, either because you had to watch a thirty second ad, or because you paid us to shut it off.

 

[Accname]

[...]

What we've decided to do with AED is put out free games for the time being incorporated into a mutual network, but we're going to put ads into them (like between each level an ad will play), and you can buy it to shut it off, or we'll have micro transactions on some of them like the Facebook games. Only we're trying to make them all run with each other, so if you buy like ten dollars of credit, you can use them on anything we developed that uses transactions like that. So either way we make some money, either because you had to watch a thirty second ad, or because you paid us to shut it off.

Yeah, i know thats a good and fair concept. But i hate it. I hate watching ads and i would hate to see ads in my games.
Its a really good idea though and the only reason i hate it is a personal one. There are no objective arguments i have against it.

 

[Varine]

Then you can pay me a few dollars and have them deactivated. We're not in this for the purpose of making art or whatever other bullshit indie devs like to throw out. We're doing what we do for money, and if it's not there, then we'll drop it and move on. Yeah it pisses people off but that's not our problem, we have costs to make up and want reimbursement for our time and effort just like everyone else. I don't even LIKE game design that much, it's just fairly easy and have low barriers of entry into a market with a lot of money circulating through it.