Topic: pricetags and commercial adventures

[selmiak]

[Victor6]

I don't think just sticking a price tag on something helps. You're just as likely to get good PR for releasing a free game (if it's good), although it might come from different sources.

Dave Gilbert ended up publishing Da New Guys, so he could probably shed a little light on the subject. Based on some of his posts he does a fair amount of promoting, which probably includes providing review copies \ press releases to prominent blogs. I'd assume Dave takes his cut for these services.

Having a publisher (with a decent track record) probably helps a lot, because everyone and their grandma can make a 'game', but no-one wants to go wading through all the shit looking for gold. Major sites probably get bombarded with amateur PR from indie game-makers who want to get their names in the spotlight.

[Dave Gilbert]

I spend a LOT of time pushing the games I write and publish. It's incredibly important for a commercial game, because there is so much more at stake. If you just make a game, put it on the AGS forum, and leave it at that -  nobody is going to care.  Especially if it's from a designer who hasn't released anything before.  It's true that putting a pricetag on something gives it a lot more mainstream attention, but I wouldn't say it attracts more players. Freeware encourages more people to download and play, because they are risking nothing. For commercial games, that's a lot less likely. Nobody is going to buy your game without reading about it first. A commercial developer NEEDS to market it and push it.  Especially if they want to make mortgage payments that month!

That isn't to say freeware games don't require you to do any marketing, it's just that most freeware developers don't bother or even need to. Marketing is practically a fulltime job in itself.

-Dave

edit: One other thing to probably note is that it's a lot harder for a commercial game to get attention, so it NEEDS all that publicity. This forum is a prime example of that in action. Check out the Game Announcements forum, and look at the threads for any commercial games. They are significantly shorter than the threads for most freeware games. It's not that the commercial games are bad, or the freeware games super awesome, but the commercial games have a heck of a lot more to prove before someone will give it a look.

[Eric]

Based on some of his posts he does a fair amount of promoting, which probably includes providing review copies \ press releases to prominent blogs.

Major sites probably get bombarded with amateur PR from indie game-makers who want to get their names in the spotlight.

You'd be surprised at how much of a journalist's time is spent saying, "Oh god, I need content and I need it now. Quick, grab the closest thing at hand and shove it into the slot," and how little is spent, or even available, to seek out quality things worth writing about. When someone with a proven track record comes along with some fairly ready-to-publish / review material, that's very appealing to a content producer.

[Victor6]

You'd be surprised at how much of a journalist's time is spent saying, "Oh god, I need content and I need it now. Quick, grab the closest thing at hand and shove it into the slot," and how little is spent, or even available, to seek out quality things worth writing about.

Even a desperate journalist will rationalize his\her choice. If you've got 40 games from indie producers (indie being pretty far ranging, if you include half a ton of apps, flash games, gamemaker trash etc.), you'll gravitate to the ones from (indie) publishers \ producers you've heard of first, because A. your audience has probably heard of them, and B. you're not taking as much of a risk of having your time wasted.

[Eric]

Yeah, you're dead on. That's what I meant to say above. I realize that my previous post looked like it was arguing against you from the way it started, but for some silly reason, I decided to quote you and then refer to the OP in the second person. Made things confusing.

[selmiak]

@Eric: But, but good journalists do research, don't they?!

@Dave: Thanks for these interesting insights
I see what you do with the resonance demo there, I hope the same demo or even a better one will be available once there is a release, as a good demo convinces me more than a thousand positive reviews. But I think resonace is already bought by me anyways.

Back on topic: But isn't getting mainstream attention, like 20x the people hearing/reading about your game attracting more players? Or maybe the word is spread even more with mainstream attention, think about reblogs, reposts, retweets, etc of popular gamereviewers. But the question is, if one was to post a Game on the AGS forums for free, and noone cares, but after some weeks put a 1$ pricetag on it and sell it via some indie dev channels like indievania and then send the link to the 'commercial' title to say rps and kotaku. Would they rather feature it if it was free or with a 1$ pricetag.
About the players: of course more people will play it if it is available for free, but on they other hand, if they don't know the game exists if it is free they won't play it. Now I'm confuzzled. I need statistics now! 

[Dave Gilbert]

Well let's put it this way. You put a free AGS game on the AGS website, you could get thousands of downloads/players. You put a commercial game on the AGS website, you might get a few dozen (if you're lucky). So it's just a matter of numbers. But putting a pricetag on it doesn't automatically mean that it will make the press rounds. The developers have to push the game to the press themselves.

So yes, if your game is free less people will KNOW about the game, but more people will actually be PLAYING the game. For commercial games, the opposite is true.

[Victor6]

Slightly off topic question for Dave;- How much of a hassle is it when a free title switches to commercial? Does all the 'not-for-profit' (as opposed to public-domain) material used go through clearing or get replaced to avoid any copyright issues?

[blueskirt]

Would they rather feature it if it was free or with a 1$ pricetag.

There's also plenty of sites that would cover it without the price tag: Indiegames, TIGSource, JayIsGame, PlayThisThing, Pixel Prospector, if it's truly awesome, RockPaperShotgun, Kotaku and Destructoid might pick it up too, and if they do you may also try bigger gaming sites. And the indie adventure game community is much bigger than this forum, there's plenty of forums dedicated to adventure games out there where you can announce your latest game.

The problem is most indie creators just create their game, announce it on this one obscure forum they happen to hang out at and call it a day. That's not how it works, you want your game to find its players, you gotta advertise the crap out of it, talk about it everywhere you can, adding a price tag won't magically make it desirable, nor will it make it on everyone's lips and computer screen.

[Eric]

@Eric: But, but good journalists do research, don't they?!

In a perfect world. But our world is imperfect, and so I'd say the situation is that journalists either work their way up the ladder until they earn the time and resources for proper research, or they work freelance on spec, hoping their research will net a big enough story to sell to a publication.

[Babar]

With commercial games, it becomes necessary to advertise and spread the word. Which is how they become more "famous". Advertise your freeware game as much, and it would probably become just as famous (if it was any good).

[Eggie]

Lately I've been buying a lot of games and feeling really dumb because I'm ignoring equally good freeware ones. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
But yeeeeah, like people say, it's just because an effort was made to make me know about them.

[Dave Gilbert]

Slightly off topic question for Dave;- How much of a hassle is it when a free title switches to commercial? Does all the 'not-for-profit' (as opposed to public-domain) material used go through clearing or get replaced to avoid any copyright issues?

I did this once, back in 2006, with the Shivah. It was originally freeware, but then I decided to sell it as a way to see if this whole "selling games for a living" thing was even possible. At first, I had both the freeware and commercial version available, but it wasn't long before I realized that I would have to take the freeware version down.  If I was serious about doing it for a living, I couldn't give it away.

As for the assets, as long as everything in the game is original than you are fine. But if you used any copyrighted stuff (music or images), then you are in trouble. That's the main reason why I couldn't bundle the original freeware "Da New Guys" alongside the new commercial one. The original had way too many copyrighted things in it. The game even starts off with the characters watching Teletubbies.

-Dave

[SSH]

As for the assets, as long as everything in the game is original than you are fine. But if you used any copyrighted stuff (music or images), then you are in trouble. That's the main reason why I couldn't bundle the original freeware "Da New Guys" alongside the new commercial one. The original had way too many copyrighted things in it. The game even starts off with the characters watching Teletubbies.

As I'm sure Dave is aware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV6efwQPdS4