Last week I stumbled on this video that made me reconsider the way I treated freeware games up until now and I figured some of you might find it interesting. Those of you who visit TIGSource have probably watched it, for the rest, here it is: http://www.destructoid.com/rev-rant-donate-141041.phtml
How did you treat freeware games before?
Like free games and that was it. Now I'll donate something for freeware games I think are great rather than only open my wallet when a game is sold or when there's some sort of bonus for donators. I'm also going through my folder of indie games for games I previously played that I think deserved something.
I think I recall a discussion on this before, and some fairly successful AGS game creator talking about how he accepted donations for a free game he made, but that people shouldn't accept donations and except to receive money from it. I think he specifically said that the most he got was in the month of the game's release and it wasn't enough to cover his server costs.
I'm open to the idea of donations. Some people see it as begging, some people say it's hardly worth the trouble if you're expecting to make actual money off it.
If it's just something you have on your site, forget about, and then one day notice "Hey! I've got $72.63!", and spend it on smokes and porno, I don't see the harm in it.
You won't get rich, but you won't be any poorer either.
S...spend? On porno?
I donated $30 towards the DOSbox project... they helped me with a client years ago.
I think it's a fantastic trend and I wish more game creators did it. I love donating to creators of great games as both a thankyou for what they've given me already and incentive to create more.
These days, 95% of the games I play are indy games and that number wouldn't be much different even if I could afford a bunch of consoles. More often than not, it's where the games I really enjoy are and I want to support that creativity.
I don't agree with that guy. I think Assasins Creed is a nice casual game. :)
I have actually done this with even commercial products in the past. I've used them and then figured that this is actually a valuable program so why not pay for it too. :) I haven't donated anything to anywhere though, because I didn't have a paypal account before.