AGS games being sold! (more or less...)

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Re King's Quest in that site - oh, there's all SORTS of abandonware and old warez on that site. It's just waiting for a lawyer to come in, I'm sure.

[MillsJROSS]

Kings Quest is no longer Abandonware, they're selling it again, along with a few other Sierra collections.

-MillsJROSS

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Which is why I also said "old warez".

[Jozef]

The owner of the site is a 23 years-old kid from the Czech Republic, not any sinister "they".Ã,  That doesn't make his actions any better, but it allows for an alternative to a Denial of Service: breaking his legs.Ã,  He's been known for years to load his download tool with a trojan that hijacks the computer's HOSTS file to redirect the computer to his advertising servers.Ã,  According to some, the tool also infects the computer with pop-up ads.

[Akatosh]

Okay. Get the russian mafia in place.

[m0ds]

This also annoys me, they're selling Little Big Adventure 2!

http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/adventure/games_k_l/little_big_adventure_2_a_k_a_twinsen_s_odyssey_.html

[Ghost]

Heavens, this really makes me think... But what if someone put an info panel in his AGS game STATING that it is freeware, and that whoever paid for it was being ripped? Could be done with a simple message display, and it couldn't be removed by anyone... If such a game was found on that guy's site, would that justify (and enable) legal action?

[auriond]

In my opinion, that's exactly what SHOULD be done, and people making new games should be encouraged to add that into all their free games - just to prevent this kind of thing from happening. =/

[m0ds]

Teen Agent, Two of a King, Pleurghburg, Perils of Poom and many many more, all for a payment download. This is ridiculous. Time to email them when I get home I think...

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I've seen that site before, and it's not special or uncommon.  I've seen many websites that sell warez and free games to morons.  I blame the people who actually would buy something from a site they haven't researched as much as I do the crooks who are selling it.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

You're right, of course, ProgZMax. What I really disliked was that when I tryed Googling for a game I was looking for (ok, so actually I "Altavista'ed" - same principle), the first hit I got was that page. When searching, the first couple of hits always seem to be the best, don't they? On average. Most people probably go with the first couple of hits.

...no, I tell a lie, what I REALLY disliked was seeing a place where you had to pay for free games. But what I said above comes close second!

[Akatosh]

When searching, the first couple of hits always seem to be the best, don't they?

Nope, the order depends on how much the website owner pays the website 
Never trust the first few hits.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Tell that to the whole wide world.

[EagerMind]

I blame the people who actually would buy something from a site they haven't researched as much as I do the crooks who are selling it.

I think the issue here, at least with this particular website, is that they're using legitimate sites' bandwidth to perpetrate fraud.

I'm with you: it doesn't really bother me that people are spending money for games that they could get for free if they took the few extra minutes to shop around. It would bother me if someone was making money off of bandwidth that I'm paying for.

Freeware liscence: ... I think they can get around charging, because they're not charging for your game, but the service they provide. So if an author liscences his game so that he/she is the only distributor, than regardless of the service fee, they are definitely in direct conflict with your freeware liscence.

Thinking about it further, I'm sure there's a way you could word your license to include the type of activities this site is doing. I guess my thinking is, if you assume that honest people will follow your license and dishonest people will ignore it no matter what it says, you might as well write as unrestrictive a license as possible. I don't really see any reason to restrict legitimate sites like download.com or HotU from distributing your game when someone like this guy will sell it on his site regardless of what your license says.

[CaptainBinky]

Hello.

Some posts in the Dave Gilbert Congrats thread got me thinking, but I figured this was a more appropriate place to respond since it all went a bit off topic in that thread :p...

What I was wondering is how much money an AGS (or indeed any Indie game) would need to make in order for it to be worth selling?

What I mean is... say 1% of people who download your demo actually buy your game. That means that 99% of people who would otherwise have played your game are never going to experience it. How much is that worth?

So say 1000 people download your demo. that means 10 people buy it and play it and 990 people don't buy it (for whatever reason) and don't play it. If you sell the game for say $10, then is it worth $100 for 990 people to not play your game? Considering all the time that's gone into what is presumably a labour of love, does $100 really justify 990 not playing your game? Would it not be more rewarding for 1000 people to play your game?

I dunno, I'm just curious what people's opinions are on this.

With our game it is much more important to us that people play it than us make any money. If making money means that you can guarentee that most of the people who find your game aren't ever going to buy it, then I'd rather it were free and guarentee that most people who find the game are going to play it.

Perhaps my feelings would be different if I'd already made a bunch of free AGS games... I dunno.

What do you guys think?

Cap'n Binky

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

4 things:

1 - I think you're right;

2 - I think it's a fresh perspective on the whole issue, which has had much consideration before;

3 - I think there must be *some* reward for games who go that extra mile and provide us with quality voice acting, quality storyline, quality everything. If some people want the reward as money and some people want the reward as players... they aren't as mutually exclusive as you make them sound, though you make a very valid point.

4 - I think this issue is actually worth a thread for itself!

[Nikolas]

Let's go off topic a little. A moderator will move my post as well if needed...

Binky, for me going commercial means 1 thing, that you can get people to devote better (eg. pay them). It's rather simple. I'm not sure if Dave, or anyone else did it for profit, but for example I do know that Geoffkhan has paid quite a lot to make the soundtrack and sfx for The apprentice III. One of the main reasons for SJM to go commercial, was to find the money for the apprentice III. Same way probably with other games.

(Un)Forthunately some things in life cost, and 95% of the times, free cannot substitute commercial (in software, in sounds, in graphics, in whatever), although very god attempts have been made. You can get free sfx, but, frankly most of them are in bad quality, and it takes real guts to make them work. But you can also get sfx from Hollywood sites (like I've done some times), which does cost (around 8$ per sound!) Where can I get the money to do that?

Of course this whole thing will advance the creators studio, need, experience and everything else but it's just an extra thought, that the profit will return to a new game. I really don't think that Hercualean efforts and Dave, are trying to even pay the bills through AGS games.

Other than that you are perfectly right. But let me ask another kinda dangerous question:

When is a good time for a commercial game to go freeware, or abandonware (by the author of course)? Too soon, would betray all of those who bought the game, too late would make the game obsolete...

[Akatosh]

I think the "best time" for making a game freeware is when the 4,99â,¬ budget version releases, it lands in the "Pyramid" or a "Green Pepper" version is released.

Or about two weeks before the sequel is released, especially if your game ends with a cliffhanger .

To the 99%-don't-play-thing: Sure you'll loose a lot of potential players via choosing to selling your game instead of releasing it as freeware. But you don't have to go the EA Games (tell them I say hello) way and charge 59.99â,¬ (>60$) for a bug-plagued Battlefield sequel when even Battlefield 2 doesn't work properly (and is still sold for about 49.99â,¬ (>50$)) - that is the best imaginable way of loosing 99% of your potential players.

And then there is the Trackmania producer's (forgot the name) and Introversion Software's way: Releasing great games for a hell cheap price, patching them thrice a month, no matter how minor the issue may be and (in case of Trackmania) even constantly upgrading old games and releasing mostly-usable Trackmania sequels as freeware. I guess way more than, let's say, 50% of those who played any demo/ freeware equivalent to these games will buy a full version. For example, I did that with both Uplink and Defcon (alas, not with Darwinia, bringing my record to 66%), and my grandpa did with Trackmania and Trackmania Sunrise.

Tell that to the whole wide world.

If I started with these things, I'd have to tell them about stuff like Echelon, The fact Microsoft continued with Palladium, The fact magic actually works and everything else too.

(while we're at it, did you notice you can get to a Nazi-Related Wikipedia article from any other Wikipedia article via just clicking on the links? With less than five clicks?)

Click on the links... fast. I fear the CIA will be here to pick me up soon, and my AK has only 28 shots left 

/EDIT: Or just on my sig's link.

[CaptainBinky]

Hmmm...

Re going commerical - yes I realise that quality costs money but here is where you hit the problem. Say I make a game and it takes me about a year and I decide to sell it to raise capital to produce my awesome game that I have in my head that requires me to hire professional artists, musicians, coders, etc... well my first game is going to have to be pretty damn good to raise that kind of capital which means I probably don't need to hire those staff members after all, since I would have proved I can already do it myself. If the game's not so hot, then it isn't going to generate nearly enough income to fund my masterpiece.

So to me, going commercial means stumping up a load of cash yourself, taking a risk, hiring staff, producing a masterpiece, and hopefully making a tonne of money as a result.

So basically, back to what I was saying before... Seperating comercial ventures from the sort of scenario where I decide to make a game myself and sell it... How much do I need to make for it to be worth the drop in the number of people who end up playing it? Enough to fund that masterpiece? Well we're talking $10,000s here. Freelance artists alone can earn $100s a day (obviously there are cheaper people about, but we're talking about a masterpiece here, right?).

Oh... and re: abandonware. Well technically, it becomes abandonware when there's no real market for it anymore which means by definition it's probably obselete. Cinemaware, for example, made loads of their old games downloadable from their web sites (DOTC with a swanky new web version) to garner interest for their PS2 and XBox remake titles. So although they were obselete they served a valid marketing purpose.

Binky

[Nikolas]

Going commercial, the sequel

The thing is that in the case of SJM, there are 2 members in the team, who are brothers, and do everything. Funding SJM, will make a better quality apprentice, without having to pay external artists, or coders...

The thing about commercialism, is that it requires an initial budget. I asume that Dave, gave in some money to make the Shivah deluxe (or maybe just percentage??? dunno...), but he hopefully has goten back that budget, plus something else, which he put into Blackwell. This practice does not produce profit really, but it can work after some games...

For me the above is the only reason to go commercial in AGS. Unless if you really can put down 10,000$+ (rather above...) and get pro artists to work (devotion issues, more than quality ones... maybe experience as well, don't get me wrong), and go for real marketing venues, which also can cost... But the AGS market alone is rather small (the adventure market, rather the "old fashioned" market, withouth saying that there cannot be any exceptions, furthermore that I dont' enjoy or believe that AGS games can be sold, heck I've bought most of them), so the profit will never be big enough.

In the end of the day it depends on what you want. In my case, personally, I'd love to make a game, but can't find people to work with. The only way I can think of is to actually "lure" people by paying them. But I would be a "sucker" not to try and take at least that budget money back... Either way all I want (honestly) is to make that darn game. But being in audio, does not help. Being an artist could produce screens and move on, being a programer could produce the script and everything else, but being a composer does nto really help :-/ And this is turning fast into a tiny personl rant, which has no place here...

Still, Binky, you are right. The price of commercialism IS small audience... Free is the best marekting device really.