Comments on: Got Dead Wake Version 0.9.8 Out (One More Step To Go)

By: Sargon

Sargon — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:57:02 +0000

Ok, but just so you know… :)
I have downloaded Quake wars: Enemy territory Demo from steam, and it simpley gives one map you can play in multiplayer how much you like.
So basically you can play as much as you want, but its called a demo.

I can understand there is a difference between giving “complete gameplay” and giving “incomplete gameplay”.
If your game is single player and the whole single player campaign is 10 levels, but you give only 5 in the demo. Then you give “incomplete gameplay”.
Because the people that will play those five levels, and then get the “end of demo” message, will feel like they were stopped in the middle of the action.
However, if you give one multiplayer map, and can play against real players over the internet, how much you like. Then you are given a complete gameplay.
Because you can complete a match in this map in the demo, the same way you would in the full version.
Though I find it hard to see how you can implement the same technique in a single player game.
How would you give the whole game, and make players want to pay for something more?

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:45:47 +0000

I’ll write a blog post about this. There’s difference between “you cannot play anymore” and “keep playing, but here’s more shiny things”.

By: Sargon

Sargon — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:55:04 +0000

Cool juuso.
However, what is the different between the freemium plan you have and a demo\full version scheme?
It sounds almost the same to me.

By: Lumooja

Lumooja — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:34:50 +0000

1) It’s good to pay attention to sounds. Many people don’t realize how much different sounds a game needs, and especially with physics, you need also sound physics (=varying sounds depending on impact force and which materials collide with eachother).

2) I blame the dog owner.

3) Regular new releases are important to keep the game development alive. It’s also always a big push to finalize a release, and a great relief when it’s out. That’s what makes game development fun, those finalizations of things and getting something done. That avoids the hypnotizing routine work which kills all motivation.

4) Other people see errors and missing things immediately, which you would hardly see. A good practice is also to try to explain something to someone who has no clue what you are talking about, that shows you what you forgot, and what is not coherent.

5) It’s good to keep in mind the different modes you can get in, when developing a game: The perfectionist mode, the productive mode, and the theorist mode. The productive mode is what drives games to be finished, but the other modes are also good from time to time to have some change in routine, so they support productive mode, which also would fall into routine hypnoticism and fail.

6) Every game should have a free shareware version which includes a few levels of the game. Doom, Far Cry, Crysis, they all did that, and it’s what is expected from a professional game. If you don’t provide a free demo, nobody will even think of bying it. Time limited demos raise doubt in customers, as they might fear that they can’t finish the demo if something comes up, and they can’t continue to play the game for a few months. When I see a time limited demo, I would make sure I can finish it in time, so it might take long time before I even start to play the demo, and then I might completely forget about it when I am sure to have a continous period of time quaranteed.