Comments on: Would You Get In To This “Spotify for Games” Indie Portal? (Players-Pay-Monthly-Model)

By: Ovogame

Ovogame — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:49:52 +0000

This is already in place for downloaded casual games. And to be honest this is a really bad idea. As a dev, we see very little money coming in from these channels.

As a dev, this only work if your game as a very high replayability. If not, just don’t put it in this kind of channels or you will hurt your incomes.

By: Koen Witters

Koen Witters — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:03:23 +0000

I voted ‘No’ because I don’t think this would generate much revenue for me. And as a gamer, I don’t see the benefit: if I like a game I just buy and play it.

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:23:17 +0000

I’d be very interested to hear “why not”, or any comments why “yes” votes were given.

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:40:52 +0000

Possibly. I feel that there’s already enough portals with freeware games though.

By: Christian

Christian — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:59:31 +0000

@Juuso: No, users are not paying for playing MY game, but for using the SERVICE.

To underline it: I don’t want to blow your idea with my own interests (I’m way away of finishing my current project, though), I just think that a potentially high frequented indie site with tons of (commercial!) games the users pay for should also have a freeware/open source section to keep a certain a “hard core” indie spirit and to give some people a chance who love to make passionated games but don’t care about running businesses or making 10 grand per month ;-)

Therefore, beside the “premium” categories a category like “indie freeware” or even “indie open source” would be a nice opportunity to get A) publicity for the game, the developer and his other games (e.g. his portfolio for interested employees), through users which use your service and extensions like Amazon (people who buyed/played this game also played this game) and/or B) they are able to support these freeware/opensource indies. The freeware/open source developer gets no share like the others, but you could place beside the download button a box with “ways to support the developer of this game”, like a PayPal button for donations, a link to the developer’s Amazon wishlist or something like this.

So basically, the player can decide to download the game and play it, but he can also decide if he invests additional money to support the developer.

The benefits are that 1.) the user does only pay more if he decides to, 2.) the other commercial indie developers (isnt that irony??) are not angry, because the freeware/open source people don’t get their share. You could argue that you have work overhead and storage overhead for the freeware/opensource people, but you could require from them a small fee (like 5-20$) to host their game. This also guarantees that not every crap is submitted to your site.

By: Juuso

Juuso — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:42:22 +0000

@Christian: Well, if people want to pay to play your freeware game, in that case you could consider selling it… ;)

By: Juuso

Juuso — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:41:17 +0000

Yep, like Metaboli – but for indie games.

By: Leroy 'The 1nteger' Frederick

Leroy 'The 1nteger' Frederick — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:06:59 +0000

Do you mean like metaboli (http://www.metaboli.co.uk/)?

I’m in the ‘Hmm, possibly. I’m interested but don’t know yet’ because I think it probably will only bring in money similar to what ads do in flash, but I could be completely wrong here.

By: Christian

Christian — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:38:08 +0000

What if I make a freeware game and put it on your site? Would this be unfair to the gamers?