So...what makes a game "commercial"?

[MRollins]

I know the obvious answer is "if you charge for it" but what makes a game worth paying money for? What aspects do you look at when determining whether to buy a game or not?

(Obviously this is subjective so I'm looking for opinions rather than "that's up to you". Just curious what people think.)

[mouthuvmine]

I stack said game up against other commercial games. See if it has the kind of features I look for when making the decision to download, or otherwise aquire, a game that costs me financially.

More than anything I have to want to play it, not just try it out.

And also, I'm a big fan of physical releases. That last bit of polish, after all files have been saved, all EXEs and READMEs zipped up, is extremely enticing to me. I can give someone money, and I will have something in my hands.
It's not a requisite, but it feels nice   

[paolo]

It's not essential, but replayability is probably a strong factor. One reason that commercial adventure games fell out of favour is that once you'd completed them, there was little point in playing them again, unlike other formats of game (such as shoot 'em ups) where you get a different outcome every time round.

Things like randomness, multiple paths through the story, subplots, side quests and Easter eggs all help to make the game replayable. Even with these, the number of times you can replay the game and have a different experience is still limited because adventure games necessarily have a fixed main storyline and a fixed goal.

So if your game can get round this inbuilt problem, it is more likely people will want to pay for it.

[Nostradamus]

A commercial game need to be long. Not something you finish in a couple of hours.
The replayability factor as said before is a problem, so you have to have a really great plot, great dialogues. So after I finish it I feel like I will wanna play it again down the line because it was a great experience. Another way (and genre) is to have really great humor that I would like to experience again and laugh again.

[Nikolas]

In all honesty I look for most/all factors/fields in the game.

I will never deny that I like good graphics (even in low res.)
Good audio is a must, sfx as well, not so much the voice acting (I simply never cared enough for that).
Good story is essential as well, even if gameplay is not amazing.
Replayability always works for me, since I like the art in the game, so I will replay, even to repeat only for the art and music.
Coding, well, it's not obvious, but I care about a bug free game.

Since I am from the other side of the wall (creating games, as many in here), I do confess that sometimes I go "Bliah! Why did they do this this way? Couldn't they... blah blah". Like I would do it better. 

[Stupot]

It has to be quality.
I'd never pay for a game that looks like it had been knocked up in a few days, even if it was actually quite enjoyable.
If I was to pay for a game it would have to have signs that care and consideration had been taken over every single aspect (from character design to scripting) and that it had been tested for bugs.

What separates a free quality AGS game from an AGS game I'd be willing to pay for are things such as:
*Are there spelling mistakes in the dialogue? (has it been proofread?)
*Are the characters believable/fun/interesting (is it another bland detective/pirate or is there a memorable character such as Guybrush or Sam n Max?)
*Background Interactivity - Does clicking on stuff generate interesting/funny responses, or is everything unclickable unless it's important to the storyline... I enjoy clicking on everything.
*Depth - things like mini-games, sub- plots and easter eggs etc are always handy and can separate a really good free game from a blinding game I'd be willing to pay for.

[Leon]

I don't make the games, I play them.

Since I like the adventure style, exploring, trying out, no rush thing (timed games and keyboard-wrecking shoot-em-ups are not my cuppa). See it like escaping the real world, leaving enough for the imagination. The non-violent escape. So it doesn't have to be too graphical, although it does help if there are graphics, they are good. I even like the text-adventures. Creating your own pictures in mind. It's like an interactive book. Enough to read and you even have an (sort of) influence on the story.

The price does help as well. I personally don't want to pay lots of $ for a game that doesn't hold your attention for more than 5 minutes or if it takes more than everything out of your PC. When I need to upgrade my PC just to play a game, it's a no go. So low-level system requirements are always good.

I see a good game as a book. Pick it up for half an hour if you have some to spare, drop it and keep it in mind. Keep thinking about it: what would be next, how could this be solved, where would that lead to, etc.

Even off-screen the game has to keep my attention. Sounds funny but most solutions I find for games are when I'm not actually playing the game.

Replay isn't alway necessary. I hardly ever read a book twice. But if the story's good, it was worth it's money.

But then again, what I think is a good book, doesn't apply to others. Like you already said: that's personal. So that's what I'm looking for in a game: I have to feel like it's personal. Like it's unique, just for me. That some attention was spent on the production. And that goes beyond the game itself. The presentation, the packaging, everything. Demo's do help in that respect.

And that's the most difficult part for the creator of the game. How to make a game unique for everyone and make everyone feel unique about the game. Easy for me to say. I'm just the player... ;-)

[Dave Gilbert]

What makes a game commercial is if you charge for it. 

What makes a game sellable/marketable is entirely subjective.

[Radiant]

I know the obvious answer is "if you charge for it" but what makes a game worth paying money for? What aspects do you look at when determining whether to buy a game or not?

Amount of play time.

By which I mean true play time, and not artificially lengthened play time through e.g. excessive mazes or boring cut scenes or anything, and not counting award medals you get for outrageous or ridiculous deeds on the XBox / Wii.

Since it is practically impossible to get a decent amount of play time without some sort of replay value, this by definition rules out nearly every adventure game. For me, at least. Games I'd be interested in buying would be either strategy games with lots of maps, puzzle games with lots of levels, or (very rarely) large sandboxy metroidvanias.

[Emerald]

It's mostly story for me. And I don't mean simply 'well written'. Schindler's List is well-written, but I wouldn't like to play the game, necessarily. I want a story that entices you, grabbing you by the throat and forcing you down into its world until it's all you think about at night.

Gameplay might be able to get my attention (such as Assassin's Creed, Oblivion or Splinter Cell, which I enjoyed despite the repetitive, bland stories) but it's rare (especially with adventure games).

I don't part with my money very easily...

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

What makes a game commercial is if you charge for it.

I'll respectfully disagree with Dave even though I worked with him on his first for-money game!  To be fair, though, let's look at a definition for Commercial:

Prepared, done, or acting with sole or chief emphasis on salability, profit, or success: a commercial product; His attitude toward the theater is very commercial.

Commercial, to me, is not merely charging for services but adherence to some kind of unwritten standard.  As individuals, we all tend to expect a certain level of quality from something we buy, whether it be zap-pow graphics from an FPS, an engaging, well-thought out story and lots of loot/quests in an rpg, or clever, intuitive puzzle design in an adventure game.  When people pay for a game and there's a substantial lack of any of this, I say you've failed as a designer to make a commercial product.  Now let's look at some alternate definitions for commercial, which tend to support my view:

Able to yield or make a profit: We decided that the small oil well was not commercial.

Suiitable or fit for a wide, popular market: Communications satellites are gradually finding a commercial use.

What these are saying is that substandard things rarely have commercial value, and that things fit (designed for) a certain market do.

So a game like Monkey Island, for example, has production values that made it a commercial success in the early 90's, but how many would argue that the very same game would be commercially viable against games like The Longest Journey?  One could still argue (out of nostalgia, perhaps) that it would still do incredibly well today, but even if Lucasarts were to personally push it out the door I don't think it would do nearly as well now as it did then because the standards of the average computer gamer have raised, and this ties into the whole concept of commercial viability.

Now I'm not saying that independent games like Blackwell Legacy are doomed; on the contrary, the production values and overall design of the game are considerably higher than, say, The Shivah, and that makes it a more commercially appealing target for consumers. 

I reject the notion that you can slap a price on anything and call it a 'commercial game', however.  I think there's more to it than just accepting money.  It's also about fulfilling some expectations.

[Emerald]

I always thought calling something (especially a work of art) "commercial" was quite the insult. Hell, I'd be insulted...
For me, it has 'phony salesman' connotations...