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Why piracy and sales are both dead ...
Why piracy and sales are both dead ...
| Name: | Jeremy Alessi |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Feb 25, 2008 | |
| Rating: |  5.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Jeremy Alessi |
Blog post
In a recent forum discussion I mentioned that piracy was dead. Someone else mentioned Steam as a solution. To a degree Steam is a solution. More to the point though is that content is going free. As some may have noticed my latest game Full Contact Debate is free. I did this honestly for a few reasons. First of all it's not a game just for a game's sake it's a game to promote voting in a free election so charging for it would be a bit of an oxymoron. After conceiving the idea I realized though that I could still monetize this game without selling it.
Most cinema isn't sold directly to the consumer and neither is most music. TV and radio push through more programming than any other source within their respective mediums. All of that content is paid for by advertising physical products. Since games are in their infancy compared to TV and radio we just hadn't hit the point where we needed this segment of the market to open up.
Now the cool part. Games are a better source for advertising than TV or radio. Many people flick the channel or turn the station when advertising comes on in those other mediums. Unless it's cinema with product placement (which is usually only for a split second) people can ignore it. In games however (especially mutiplayer) people play over and over and over viewing the same scenes hundreds or thousands of times. If you advertise in those scenes you've got the best source of advertising yet seen.
The best part about this is that the games still need to be great. If you make a crappy game no one is going to play those levels countless times. So a developer must still make the best damn game they can muster. In fact you'd actually have to go a step further in making sure the gameplay doesn't get old because you'll no longer be able to rely on your marketing, licensing, etc... to push your game along for you. With Ad supported games it's all about how good the gameplay is. If it's not long lasting you won't make any money.
How does this all relate back to piracy? You want to give this game away and just have as many people play it as possible. Gone are the worries about someone copying this and passing it around for free ... instead you want this to happen. Alternative revenue stream supported games turn piracy into a benefit!
Will there still be hackers who do stuff to your game? Sure but with no barrier to entry it'd be more work for other people to use a hack that disables advertising or whatever than it would to just install the regular game and have fun. As I said above the bottomline is actually better games that are longer lasting and less focused on hype (though without some hype or good hook people won't play it in the first place). I have a feeling too that this new model will weed out a lot of clones. If it's all free gamers won't be afraid to take a dive into something different and if that different game is also really fun and long lasting it'll make money.
The gaming landscape is changing rapidly... unless you're making one of the top 15 games of the year selling your game to individuals won't be an option much longer. Someone somewhere will be making something for free that rivals or kicks the snot out of whatever you're trying to sell. Of course on the bright side you won't have to bang your head against the keyboard worrying about piracy anymore.
Most cinema isn't sold directly to the consumer and neither is most music. TV and radio push through more programming than any other source within their respective mediums. All of that content is paid for by advertising physical products. Since games are in their infancy compared to TV and radio we just hadn't hit the point where we needed this segment of the market to open up.
Now the cool part. Games are a better source for advertising than TV or radio. Many people flick the channel or turn the station when advertising comes on in those other mediums. Unless it's cinema with product placement (which is usually only for a split second) people can ignore it. In games however (especially mutiplayer) people play over and over and over viewing the same scenes hundreds or thousands of times. If you advertise in those scenes you've got the best source of advertising yet seen.
The best part about this is that the games still need to be great. If you make a crappy game no one is going to play those levels countless times. So a developer must still make the best damn game they can muster. In fact you'd actually have to go a step further in making sure the gameplay doesn't get old because you'll no longer be able to rely on your marketing, licensing, etc... to push your game along for you. With Ad supported games it's all about how good the gameplay is. If it's not long lasting you won't make any money.
How does this all relate back to piracy? You want to give this game away and just have as many people play it as possible. Gone are the worries about someone copying this and passing it around for free ... instead you want this to happen. Alternative revenue stream supported games turn piracy into a benefit!
Will there still be hackers who do stuff to your game? Sure but with no barrier to entry it'd be more work for other people to use a hack that disables advertising or whatever than it would to just install the regular game and have fun. As I said above the bottomline is actually better games that are longer lasting and less focused on hype (though without some hype or good hook people won't play it in the first place). I have a feeling too that this new model will weed out a lot of clones. If it's all free gamers won't be afraid to take a dive into something different and if that different game is also really fun and long lasting it'll make money.
The gaming landscape is changing rapidly... unless you're making one of the top 15 games of the year selling your game to individuals won't be an option much longer. Someone somewhere will be making something for free that rivals or kicks the snot out of whatever you're trying to sell. Of course on the bright side you won't have to bang your head against the keyboard worrying about piracy anymore.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 08/26/08 - Games Demystified: Portal 03/27/08 - Games Demystified, Super Mario Galaxy 03/10/08 - Statue of Liberty Size Up 03/10/08 - Big Weekend, Low Spec PC Port Coming 03/06/08 - Full Contact Debate Mac Build is Up ... 03/04/08 - Full Contact Debate Mac Port 02/29/08 - The Polls... 02/25/08 - Why piracy and sales are both dead ... |
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Submit your own resources!| John E. Nelson (Feb 25, 2008 at 19:01 GMT) |
He planned on making money through advertising revenue. The only hitch is that the advertising groups and organizations that are willing to sign an agreement with him require a large amount of active gamer traffic to already exist.
So he has the choice of releasing the game for free, or selling it for a value price.
He could always wait till the number of players hits the high numbers that advertisers require before they will sign an agreement. Of course if the number of active players drop below that high number they have the option to remove their clients. All games have their peak, and then they hold at a much lower active player number for a period of time till there are almost none left.
So this in-game advertising market is a lot tougher than people realize, and it is probably why there is not as many people doing it.
Edited on Feb 25, 2008 19:02 GMT
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 25, 2008 at 19:10 GMT) |
| Kevin McLaughlin (Feb 25, 2008 at 19:26 GMT) |
1) Ding, dong, game sales are dead!
No, they aren't. They are up. PC game revenue has consistently gained on console game revenue for the last ten years. More people have broadband in the USA than ever, and that number is skyrocketing right now as millions of new users switch to cable TV and buy into cable internet as a package. WOW and Sims have brought PC gaming into the mainstream in a way never before seen - around one in thirty Americans has played World of Warcraft.
2) Ads will save the world!
No, they won't. People thought that a few years ago... Then we had an internet bubble burst, and millions of virtual dollars vanished overnight. Ads are ephemeral income. They are helpful. They should not be counted on as a trend, however - sooner or later, companies will realize that their ads are not netting them as much sales as they'd like. How big a crash that will cause depends on how much games rely on ads by then.
My educated guess is something like this:
Most people hate ads. If they can avoid ads, they generally do.
People with money can afford to buy games that are ad free. Because they hate ads, they tend to do this.
The people remaining to play the ad-ridden games tend to largely (not universally) be young, poor, or both. Either kids whose parents won't buy them the ad-free versions, or people without a lot of spare cash to buy games.
Neither group is an ideal advertising demographic.
Therefore, most game ads are reaching individuals who have little or no purchasing power, and are essentially wasted advertising dollars.
Now, I might be proven wrong... But in a lot of ways, I am seeing parallels between the gaming ad boom today and the internet ad boom of a decade ago. Now, lots of people made tons of money on that boom. But lots of people LOST lots of money on the bust, and it happened for reasons that are very valid in the game ad market as well. Don't put all your eggs in this basket.
Edited on Feb 25, 2008 19:27 GMT
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 25, 2008 at 19:32 GMT) |
I'd like to point out that the stars of Friends were getting $1 million per episode toward the end of that show's run. That was for free content albeit based on a much more mature industry. The money will be there for games.
| J.P. Berry (Feb 25, 2008 at 21:35 GMT) |
When I buy a game, I want that: a game. No strings attached. I don't want any percentage of my screen or processing power being geared towards ads. This is why the good games cost money, and the ok ones have advertisements/ free based.
I have no problem with separate versions, where there is a free version with ads, and a paid version without. However, I would not play a game that forced me to view ads.
| Donald \"Yadot\" Harris (Feb 25, 2008 at 21:45 GMT) |
This portion is coming from my own opinion but take Minions of Mirth cool free concept that would pause the live action and put a commercial in your face for 20 seconds or so (I don't remember exactly) but I thought it ruined the game. My other option was to buy it which I did... actually bought two copies which killed the ads for me. My main motivation was to kill the ads.
Now lets look at a good example. Burn Out paradise is littered with BestBuy adds and other stores. But they are not intrusive they are bill boards. You can bet they are getting money for that and it doesnt interupt game play.
If you look at non-game software such as AIM or ICQ people would simply hack them remove the ad portion and keep using the product. If the game you are making doesnt connect to the net and do some kind of check its a good bet that some 15 year old with to much time on his hands will remove your ad and pass it around.
Again the only way I can see this really working is by sending the ad to the user in a 'real world' method. If your game involves TVs or radios then play the ad that way. Make it feel like this game is really immersive.
| Terry (Feb 25, 2008 at 22:18 GMT) |
I see forums and community areas doing the same thing. Ads sprinkled around in the forums and on the site can be removed for a monthly "membership" fee.
The main thing is that Jeremy hits on a point that no one can argue with - if there's a way to advertise, companies will target their audience and use it. If that weren't true, Google would still be a background search engine. There was one thing that brought Google its success, and that was it's ability to capitalize on targeted advertising. When you pop in a rented DVD what's the first thing you see? Ads for other DVDs of a similar genre. Look at the back of your new car.....an ad for the company that sold it to you (whether it's a tag, a sticker, or a plate frame).
People have argued the point for ad content in games for a few years now, but it will get more prevalent as time goes on. Real time ads pulling content off the net as you play, so it can be changed periodically. And it's not a new strategy. Printers used to cost a fortune and ribbons were $2-$3 apiece, then they figured out they could sell the printers for $40 (or give them away) and make a fortune on consumables (ink cartridges at $40+ a crack). The idea of giving something away in order to pull in revenue isn't new, and it seems to be a growing philosophy. Check out the use of America's Army as a recruitment tool.
Right now it's hard to get companies to place ads in your game without some guarantee that the game will be popular, but I think over time it will get easier. Still, it has to be one crackin' good game. None of us like ads, or the intrusion of ads into our entertainment experience, but it's going to happen to games just like it happened to TV. You all remember off-air TV, where they give you FREE shows to watch. Another venue where advertisers decide if a product will have enough audience to place their ads on it.
We don't want ads in games, but they're coming...
| Brian Wilson (Feb 25, 2008 at 23:01 GMT) |
| Jay Barnson (Feb 25, 2008 at 23:07 GMT) |
I think it can work for a few games. But as a sole source of revenue, it's a fickle beast and is unlikely to support major game development. I mean, the top ad-supported games I know of were making 8,000 dollars a month during their heyday. I don't know how long that rate of income went on. Sure - if you are a solo game developer and can crank out one of the top flash games on the Net every six months or so, you could do very well by that. Maybe some games do even better. But won't keep a team of five indies alive full-time working on larger games... unless they live in Siberia or something.
As a supplemental source of income, that's another story.
Remember - radio revenue paid for the radio stations. It was still the record sales that kept the music industry thriving for four decades or so.
Television - remember that for many years advertising-based revenue was only able to support three TV networks. Is that okay for you, Mr. Indie, if you aren't one of the three?
The one thing you are right about, IMO, is that one person's obstacle is another man's opportunity. But going ad-based isn't thinking outside the box... it's just exchanging boxes.
| Donald \"Yadot\" Harris (Feb 25, 2008 at 23:08 GMT) |
| Terry (Feb 25, 2008 at 23:31 GMT) |
But as Jay said, most people that look at game dev as a source of income are always going to be looking at the options available. Even as a supplemental source. I personally won't (at this time) play and Steam based games because I just don't like Steam. Bad experience with HL2 back when.
That being said, if you couldn't get a game except through Steam I guess I'd have to rethink. And if you can't get a good game without ads, you rethink or don't play. As someone said earlier, well placed ads in the right environment (TV sets, etc.) aren't too bad, but nothing that "intrudes" on the game.
I just don't see that we're going to have an option, and anyone who depends on - at least supplemental - income from game dev, and fights it to the end, will simply lose out. Again, we don't want it, period, but that won't stop it from coming...
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 26, 2008 at 00:29 GMT) |
| Kevin McLaughlin (Feb 26, 2008 at 00:33 GMT) |
And yet, both Shadowbane and Anarchy Online have managed to not only support that, but support a live team as well, for years. On just ad revenue, for SB, and on ad revenue for most players in AO's case. That speaks to likely ad revenue in the realm of at least 4-6 times your best case.
That said, it is interesting that TV ads were brought up, since TV advertising is in a decline, and the entire TV industry is in serious jeopardy right now. With DVR and Tivo becoming more and more common, people are SKIPPING ads now. A rather large chunk of the viewerbase is using these features now, and that number is increasing annually - probably quite rapidly now, with the cheap DVR bundles cable offers and the massive move to cable with TV digitalization becoming mandatory.
Ad-placing companies are noticing these trends. The likely result is that TV stations will not be able to charge as much for ads, which will result in a potentially dramatic reduction in advertising revenue. It's not a crisis yet, but the potential is definitely there. I'm sure you're noticing an increase in product placements INSIDE shows these days, right? Any Stargate fans notice how Dell laptops were appearing in every show for a long time, for instance? ;)
That route has continuity for TV, and I expect to see more examples in the future as this ad format begins to take over for interruption advertising. Likewise, I see a strong future in games for product placement ads, but not for interruption ads, which tend to breed resentment instead of building loyalty.
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 26, 2008 at 00:56 GMT) |
| Leroy Frederick (Feb 26, 2008 at 03:48 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Personally, I think it works best in the situation of games that simulate the real world (burnout, splinter cell etc), because essentially your enhancing the realism and it doesn't annoy the user.
The problem for the traditional method of 'try and buy' is 3 fold.
1. Player must find and download your game
2. Player must trust and decide to (or remember to) install your game
3. Player must trust and like your game enough to purchase it (assuming they have your payment method or are old enough to buy or get mum to) as well as decide not to look for a nice crack/torrent for a enjoyable game!
That's a lot of processes and variables for the standard windows/mac game 'try and buy' method.
This is where something like ad-revenue and the Flash platform wins. With an ad-enabled trial, all the user has to do is steps 1 and 2 (and click an ad if it's ppc). On the flash side of life it gets even better, you practically only need step 1, no "is it safe to install", no uninstall hassles or purchase worries and no "I get it from torrent*****.com, I need to try the full version first!".
I'm not really saying anythings dead or that flash is the be-all-and-end-all, the fact is regardless of your strategy(ies), if your products crap, it will fail (unless you can generate immense hype and hustle). All I'm saying is that the easier you can make things to getting to that generating income step (without compromising your game) the more options you can give yourself in this crowded digital space!
Edited on Feb 26, 2008 03:49 GMT
| NUTS! (Feb 26, 2008 at 05:11 GMT) |
@terry
I am an avid linux fan and is my choice of development (I use the word development loosely). I think that ad revenue fits very nicely with that community. Can't tell you how many times I clicked a link when a linux blog had helpful information. Personally I don't think this comes down to specific community, or operating system, for that matter. But for peoples personal preference. As with all things in life you will see some try and do the right thing and others be greedy and ruin it.
Edited on Feb 26, 2008 05:20 GMT
| Ori Cohen (Feb 26, 2008 at 09:54 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
as an indie developer myself i know i cant fight piracy and if someone steals my work.. i can only say "oh well"
its better off to use piracy as a way to reach more people out there. maybe make a "product" and actually send it out as a fake pirate good, fake a crack a keygen or whatever and that way to make lots of people know about you and maybe support you in your other products.
advertising in such a fake pirated software will be a killer :). its like that movie the blair witch project, everyone knew it was not a real documentry but they still thought it was...
| Thak (Feb 26, 2008 at 18:19 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Doesnt impact your game experience at all.
Sure it wont work in a fantasy game. But any game with modern setting can use them effectively without bothering the player I don't think.
I do however no know what/if Gatorade actually paid EA for that
| Terry (Feb 26, 2008 at 21:57 GMT) |
I think the point I was making up there is that there will always be generous people making games to give away, and this won't affect them. Anyone considering generating any type of income from game dev, however, will eventually have to consider ads as a source of revenue whatever platform they use. At least that's my belief. Hope that cleared up the Linux thing.
@Thak: Good examples...
| J Sears (Feb 27, 2008 at 02:15 GMT) |
Just as more and more MMOs are looking at new ways to bring in revenue then flat out subscriptions, PC games are looking for more ways then just selling. Like many people said however it is very game specific, a modern day game in New York city, could have ads everywhere and that would only make it look more like New York city. But a game in the Dark Ages can't have Ye Olde Coke Classic.
But there are other possibilities as well, take Instant Action for example, if you have a game running in a browser you could just have an ad banner above or below the game so it's not actually interfering with that game.
And saying TV ads are on their way out isn't completly true either. Just last year major players like Comcast struck a new deal on working ads into the OnDemand programming so that the networks could still make money off of their programming.
On thing I wanted to add. I still to this day think the real way to make it as an indie isn't any new type of revenue such as ad based, but to do something off the beaten path. All the successfull indies from days past had games that played in a different or even daring way then mainstream games. But now most people who are trying to do an "indie" game are trying to almost completly recreate AAA games but as their own. How many posts do you see about "How to make a BF2 style game?" and etc.
Edited on Feb 27, 2008 02:20 GMT
| Flybynight Studios (Feb 28, 2008 at 19:49 GMT) |
- Alot of small gaming companies and most indies scream about how there is no money to be made.. World of warcraft makes several hundred million dollars of profit every month.. I fail to see the argument that there is no money in gaming ;)
- Then people say that only the very best games make money.. (Or the top 15 in this case) again I say phooey. Look at the stinkers like Asherons Call 1.. The MMO that never sold more than 50k boxes and never updated it's graphics engine is still kicking after almost 10 years!!! Look at the massive stinker that is Horizons.. Another MMO that is somehow still around after countless years of complete idiocy. Take your non MMOs.. Games like Elder scrolls, Ultima, Halo, Your EA Sports franchise games like NHL, NBA, NFL..., Take your rally racing games.. Take your 1v1 fighting games...
No I would have to say I disagree hands down.. The money is still out there and piracy is NOT the problem. (Although piracy is an everpresent monster pillaging a good percentage of gaming revenue which really hurts small companies hard.)
So whats is the problem? Quality folks.. It's just as simple as that. Quality. Sure it's a little bit about debugging but not even so much debugging anymore as the simple casual regard people have for putting out half baked crap and calling it a game. Memory leaks, texture tears, bad animation.. Sure all those things add up but the #1 biggest crime I see comitted by indie game developers is not making "good" products.. but instead settling for products that are "Meh, good enough".
No point in making examples of specific games here in the GG community as this isnt about calling out someone. We all do what we want with our time and when we release something it shows the community what we are about. Personally I don't enjoy showing work that is broken or crashes constantly or makes me look bad because it simply doesnt play.
On the flip side of this, take examples of games that DO work. Take Minions of Mirth for example.. Josh didnt have a multimillion dollar studio backing him to make MoM.. HE busted his hump for 12 months with the help of his wife and they produced a working MMO in just over a year of development. And it plays well.. One of the best if not THE best (And it has been awarded as "The" best more than once) indie MMO of all times. What sets Josh apart? Attention to detail and working at the job untill it's done, and done right. Not settling for "Good enough" but looking at it and saying "Yeah it's good, but how can I make it even better."
I see so many indies sitting back and telling each other how hard it is and how there is no money in it. Hey, news flash.. You show me a job where you can roll in with no experience, no skills and no education in and have it make you a hundred thousand dollars and I'll show you an indie studio that can do the same..
It's all about effort vs reward. (Well that and setting realistic goals for ones self. Sure an indie can build an MMO but you better bloody well know what you are doing). Dont just use a level editor and make a race track, insert a dune buggy with a new skin on it and wonder why no one is buying your great new "game". Now take your platform a little further.. Add in variances for different tires, suspensions, chasis adjustments, engine adjustments... Now add in driver customizations and a website with online scorekeeping and a points race and all of the sudden you have a very active and eager base of players.
Consoles have the same pircay issues to deal with as PCs. The PS3 mod chip is almost done and the rest of the consoles are already 100% hacked. Being a low budget indie doesnt make you more or less of a piracy victim. If your product is good it will sell.. If your product is "Meh, good enough".. it will sell less. People pay $150 a year for a wow account.. double that for the majority of folks who have more than 1 account. People pay EXACTLY the same ammount to play Horizons, arguably one of the worst MMOs ever to launch. (from a technical standpoint) IMO it's not about the money but what you are getting for the money..
Give a consumer value and they will play. Do you have to make a WoW clone to make money? No, just go to Horizons to see what peopel are willing to suffer through and still pay for. I dont say that indie devs are lazy, maybe the tweaks and design changes needed to make their venture profitable are beyond some of them.. but thats just nature and the cruel fact that we cant all be genius game developers. Dedication and a thirst to learn and become the best will always be met with success. If you want to make money.. focus on your drive to be successful and never settle for "meh, its good enough". It's not good enough untill it's done right.
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 28, 2008 at 20:16 GMT) |
| Flybynight Studios (Feb 29, 2008 at 04:03 GMT) |
My argument is that people are still paying for trash games like Horizons.. enough people to keep the game afloat.. and they are paying the exact same ammount (if not more) for it than they would for WoW which, like it or hate it, is the measuring stick for financial success. So my argument isnt that your game has to be "Good" but it does have to be playable. The concept has to be solid and there has to be something there to make people want to play it more than once or at least have the demo leave them hanging.
So many indie games are barely what would be considered alpha level. I agree completely that the game industry is changing. The face of the game industry is totally changing. I said this 5 years ago that the power of the Internet and freeware/cheapware engines (like Torque) were going to revolutionize the gaming scene.. and they have. Now we have hundreds of thousands of brilliant minds out there creating with very affordable engines. Of course that means we get a directly porportional level of crap coming out of the indie scene but it also means that the consumer now has the power to choose. They can choose your racing game .. or they can choose the next guy's game. Now if the next guy has got a better "hook" than you do you arent going to make any money..
So again it boils down to taking a close look at what you are trying to do with your game. To date all of my game programming has been a learning experience. I've got to work (unpaid as nothing more than a rabid fanboi) directly with closed testing teams from Verant, Mythic and Turbine. The reason I can get in with those people is because I can talk about things I've learned during my hobby developments and apply them to their platform. I am not sad because I havent made any money at it. I would love to work for a development company some day but it'll be another 10 years before companies actually "get it" and stop having idiotic physical offices and start workign in a virtual office space. I've got a sweet house and a great setting with my family and I aint giving it up:)
So many demos/betas that people post here are so badly setup that they'll never get any playtime or respect. 90% of the games I download from here (not out of the commercial store mind you those are nice) barely run (if at all) and when they do run either the network lag is completely and utterly unplayable (because they arent using the datastream properly) or the graphics are literally from 1980. Throw in a core concept that has been done to death a hundred times already and it becomes painfully obvious why no one will buy those products. Why would I buy a game today that basically ammounts to Duke Nukem 3D that I gave up playing over 15 years ago? Where is your hook? Where is the ingenuity? Where is the effort to show the consumer something that makes them WANT to give you money. And better yet why not make it EASY for them to give you money? Now all of the sudden your problem is what the hell to do with all that friggin money :)
No offence, but the Candidate game is not even ready for alpha IMO. I have tried it from 2 different PCs. Two totally different rigs with diff processors one AMD one INTEL, diff vid chipsets one NVidia and one ATI and it is just unplayable. For no apparant reason the game starts in windowed mode (even after I tried to force to full screen), It takes about 30 seconds before I can even start moving and then when I do start moving it locks up at zero frame rate whenever the grass object activate. I can appreciate that it was done and released as a beta test but about 1 minute into the game (on both rigs) I started getting yellow whitewashes and tearing across the screen. To me that is an example of something that isnt worth even downloading. It's simple the default capture the flag game from the torque engine with the buggies added from the driving demo with new skins.. Thats it. and it just doesnt work. I am not saying this to bash your game or your work but to shed some light on the problem for you..
You mentioned that you made the decision to make the Candidate game Free.. Umm yeah.. that's because there is no market for that game. Legal issues on using the character likenesses of the potential president of the United States aside... It's a poorly done capture the flag that has a short term public intrest hook due to the current political debates. Now redo the game abit... Come up with a better hook and a less illegal IP and you could have presidential debates online till you are blue in the face :)
I am sorry for coming down on the Candidate game but I think it is a good example of something that some people might see as an "indie" level release and TBH it isnt anywheres near ready for people to be playing it. On my first rig it locked up after about 15 seconds of trying to run through the grass (Afterwards I traced this down to a huge memory leak) and on the second rig I couldnt play it because the constant "yellow" screen blackouts. Even the bugs aside.. it's the default Torque game with different models/skins.. It's a simple capture the flag that isn't even at the level of Tribes which is now some 15+ years old.
Come up with something that works and somthign kithy and you can sell it. Come up with somethign that has been done a thousand times and yeah.. I agree you are going to have a tough time charging money for something a person can play with much more entertainment value as a javascript game on any free gaming website.
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 29, 2008 at 20:39 GMT) |
It sounds like you were running the game on two sub-standard systems for TGEA. There is a TGE port in the works so that will probably suit your needs better. TGEA is a bit unwieldy right now but it makes for the best screen shots and pleases the hardcore folks who create a great sticky center for a grassroots game like this.
In addition, I've done a game out of the Garage Games game store called Aerial Antics so I know how to make a nice product spend a year working on it and get next to no sales. You can check the game out on Reflexive where it's currently published:
http://www.reflexive.com/AerialAntics.html
We did a lot of testing on FCD and a lot of people have been playing it with few hiccups. There are a lot of issues with TGEA that have some adverse effects on the game right now but without getting the community up and running testing out the back-end as well as the game on a lot of machines it would never go anywhere and it's far too big of a concept to try to make it as an indie without an active community around the development. I call it beta because that's what most people understand to mean "still in development".
Edited on Feb 29, 2008 20:42 GMT
| Jeremy Alessi (Feb 29, 2008 at 20:52 GMT) |
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