Commercial Indie Games On The Gpx2


OrR

Corporate games suck.
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I already said in some other threads that I'd like the GP2X to get many commercial independent games. Some people seemed to like the idea, some seemed to dislike it and most of you are probably going to misunderstand me if I don't explain further:
What I do NOT want is that everything on the GP2X costs money or that emulators cost money.
I want games that cost money, though. The GP32 had few of these, I'd like to see more on the GP2X. These games are what I enjoyed most on my Zodiac.
Now you might think "What a stupid guy, he wants games to cost money!". Well, here are some reasons why I think games that cost money are a good thing:
Of course only games worth money should be sold for money. Selling a rather boring Tetris clone can and should not be forbidden but you should not do it for two reasons: 1. Nobody will buy it anyway. 2. It will damage the community spirit if suddenly everything is only availiable for money. I also don't think emulators should be sold and also not ports of other's games. (Well, most of those cannot even be sold I think.)
However, if someone makes a high quality game in his free time in his basement, why should he not sell it for some bucks? It does not hurt to pay for a good game and it brings a few good things:
-the developer will get a reward for his hard work
-he will be able to use more time for development
-he will be more motivated to further polish and improve the game and offer support
-he will make more and better games
I don't know how big the GP2X scene will grow and it also depends on if commercial games are accepted but maybe some people would even be able to earn a living with GP2X development which sounds pretty awesome to me. It's like kicking Sony and Nintendo in the balls and saying "Hey, we can do it, too!".
Commercial games also have another great side effect: They tend to be taken more serious by the gaming media and might give the GP2X the press exposure it needs to succeed further.

Of course, money always brings trouble. Based on my experience with the Zodiac I can give the following rules that would in my opinion ensure a user and developer friendly market:
1. Always make demos. A user has to be able to try a game before he buys it. If you buy a game and realize it's different than you imagined, this only creates anger.
2. Never take preorders. Preordering downloadable games makes no sense. If a game that people have already preordered is delayed, this creates a lot of hate. There is also the possibility of the developer running away with your money.
3. The highest acceptable ESD margin should be around 20%. Everything above that has to be boycoted by developers. ESD means Electronic Sales Distributor and it means a central web company that sells games from different developers at a central source. An example would be GPH themselves and they are the only ones that an exception of the 20% rule could be made for. An ESD margin of 20% means that 20% of the game price goes to the ESD, 80% to the developer. However, the best thing would be to avoid the creation of ESDs since they can go bad very easily. It has happened in the Palm market where Handango and Palm Gear take away half of the money you pay for a game and only give half to the developer. They can do this because they have gotten so big that they pretty much control the market. The best possible scenario would be that every developer sells his games himself.
4. The game price should be from 5$ to 30$ depending on the quality of the game and the work involved. Most games should probably be priced between 8$ and 15$.
5. Never pirate independent games. Well, this should be a given anyway, I don't think I had to mention it.

What do you think? Is there potential for a small commercial market to be established on the GPX2? Would you like to see some commercial Indie games? Or do you hate the idea of having to pay for your games?
 
The GP32 had several games that I would easily pay money for, they were highquality and almost all were made by tiny production houses... this unfortunatly is what lead to a lot of the other potential games that were already in the pipeline never making. These developers didn't have the money to finish their projects and ultimatly gave up from the looks of things.

I'd still pay for a great game produced for a GP2X as along as the production value was high. They've expressed interest in building a lineup of game content for the GP2X and the man that created the Demo game Blood Cross apprently works for GPH from what I read in a previous post so prehaps his games will see a return. and I'd hope that the other smaller creators can do so as well.

All that said I wouldnt pay for a tetris clone, there are alread a dozen in the archive I can play on the GP32. I'd pay for a long RPG, Action or Adventure game, something with a begining middle and end and a story (doesnt even have to be a great one as long as it occupies a hour or more of my time). Puzzle or mini games would have to be extrodinary. I would not pay for an incomplete game, find a few beta testers give them a free copy of the game once competed but complete it first and foremost before you try to charge people for it. I'm not a big fan of DRM but it seems we'd have to deal with it unless you can distribute boxed copies. I prefer a box with an instruction booklet and nice art work heck you can hire Me to do it for you, Or Poloo2, since he kicks my art ass throughly, I'm just saying it beats the alternative or a DRMed game that you run a bigger risk of loosing due to Internet queerness. I'd Pay 30 bucks easy for a good boxed game.

I do appreciate free games though and if you'd rather create them freely and post them with a modest request for a donation I've already gone on record as saying I'd donate for a good complete game in the Giana;s thread.

I love free emus and stuff and I'll play them any time I can but that dosent mean I'll turn my back on a well made game at a resonable price and I doubt there are too many people in the GP32 community that would dissagree with that sentiment.
 
I can see your point, but the most hard-working developers have been rewarded by the GP32 community in donations and advert money from google. That is, in my opinion, an even better way.
 
I think if anyone makes a really high quality GP2X game, people will buy it. But it has to be available for a reasonable price.

Take Blue Angelo for example - it was very expensive, IIRC it would've cost me ~$75 to import it, and that's just too much. But I did buy several games frm JoyGP, even some that weren't that great because they were priced low so I was willing to take a chance.

I think $20 - $30 is fair for a boxed game, and $10 - $20 for a downloaded game. BUT more consideration needs to be made for downloaded games this time! People shouldn't lose their games if their console needs to be replaced. Perhaps GamePark should allow people to physically return a GPX2 if it's no longer working, and then reset the online software purchases for the customer to work on his new unit. Something like that.

And yes, ALWAYS make demos. If the game really plays well, nothing will sell it better than a good demo. Just be smart and don't make it too long. ;)
 
@Talyz: The thing is that some of the most hard working devs are the emu devs and they are often working with ported code etc so they simply can't sell the emulator. Also I still don't really like the idea of paying for emulators at all. Somehow that just doesn't fit together... The conclusion is that emu devs have to be payed in donations if you appreciate their work.
 
Yeah I think it's pretty much the only fair way. I think most people think that way too... except for those bastards over at Magic engine with their 30 dollar TG16 emulator! *shakes fist angrily*
 
Alpha2 posted on Sep 2 2005 at 02:55 PM said:
Yeah I think it's pretty much the only fair way. I think most people think that way too... except for those bastards over at Magic engine with their 30 dollar TG16 emulator! *shakes fist angrily*

it's criminal what they charge for that thing
 
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I'd pay for games, but i'll be realistic. I dislike paying £34.99 for an Xbox game, and most of the time i'll wait until it's hit the second hand racks for around £20, before i buy. If i'm not paying £30 for a game with a full production team, lots of time, testing and hardware, i'm not paying £30 for a game that someone created with their free afternoons.

Sorry. I know that sounds awful, and i'm all for supporting people's efforts (seeing i want to get into the games dev market one day, i'm going to be on the recieving end too), but £5-£15 sounds totally reasonable. With a box and manual, and the game lasting a good amount of time (with support, patches, maybe additional content etc) maybe £20.

The other thing, is i won't pay for something i can get free. (although it doesn't count when it comes to World of Warcraft vs Guild Wars... guh!) If someone markets a Sokoban clone and wants a fiver for it, they can go spin, because Sokoban clones are available for free all over the place, and if i have to i'll make one myself. Also, if say someone creates a "rogue/nethack" game, with ascii characters and dungeons, and then wants £20... i don't care if he/she rewrote lord of the rings for the instruction manual, and got marvel/DC artists to do the box artwork, i won't buy it.

Sorry if it sounds negative... I'll probably get flamed... "I've created a hello world program and i damn well deserve one meeellion dollars for it!" etc.
 
OrR posted on Sep 2 2005 at 06:38 PM said:
...
What do you think? Is there potential for a small commercial market to be established on the GPX2? Would you like to see some commercial Indie games? Or do you hate the idea of having to pay for your games?


I would pay for the games as long as I could use them on any unit. If they are DRMed up the wazoo then I am not interested. I refuse to have to ask any companies permission to use the game on any unit I want, be it a replacement to a broken one, a backup unit etc.

The Zodiac should be a prime example. If your z breaks now all of your games that you PAYED FOR are rendered useless, even if you got another zodiac as they wouldn't work and TW is bust.
 
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Muzzaro posted on Sep 3 2005 at 01:00 AM said:
I'd pay for games, but i'll be realistic. I dislike paying £34.99 for an Xbox game, and most of the time i'll wait until it's hit the second hand racks for around £20, before i buy. If i'm not paying £30 for a game with a full production team, lots of time, testing and hardware, i'm not paying £30 for a game that someone created with their free afternoons.

Sorry. I know that sounds awful, and i'm all for supporting people's efforts (seeing i want to get into the games dev market one day, i'm going to be on the recieving end too), but £5-£15 sounds totally reasonable.
Hey, that's still 10-30$... ;)

DaveC posted on Sep 3 2005 at 01:11 AM said:
OrR posted on Sep 2 2005 at 06:38 PM said:
...
What do you think? Is there potential for a small commercial market to be established on the GPX2? Would you like to see some commercial Indie games? Or do you hate the idea of having to pay for your games?


I would pay for the games as long as I could use them on any unit. If they are DRMed up the wazoo then I am not interested. I refuse to have to ask any companies permission to use the game on any unit I want, be it a replacement to a broken one, a backup unit etc.

The Zodiac should be a prime example. If your z breaks now all of your games that you PAYED FOR are rendered useless, even if you got another zodiac as they wouldn't work and TW is bust.
I wouldn't loose anything since I could not buy from Tapwave in the first place... But you are right, nasty copy protection can make a game awful. I did not get Half Life 2 because you have to be online to play it.
 
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Talyz posted on Sep 2 2005 at 09:13 PM said:
I can see your point, but the most hard-working developers have been rewarded by the GP32 community in donations and advert money from google. That is, in my opinion, an even better way.
Thats my opinion too.
However I would buy quality GP2X games. But only if I really thought they were miles better than a homebrew dev could do...

Most of the time on the GP32 scene, it has been the other way around. ([opinion]) :p
 
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Its harder to make games that sell on something that runs of of a memory card unless you sell just the file and put it on ur own memory card. the price of an optical disk to an actual memory chip is a big difference. I would definatly buy a good rpg or acting game for the gp32 and the gp2x but I think production costs would stay down if it could be a download purchase.
 
Muzzaro posted on Sep 2 2005 at 11:00 PM said:
Sorry. I know that sounds awful, and i'm all for supporting people's efforts (seeing i want to get into the games dev market one day, i'm going to be on the recieving end too), but £5-£15 sounds totally reasonable. With a box and manual, and the game lasting a good amount of time (with support, patches, maybe additional content etc) maybe £20.

Doesn't sound so awful tbh; I have a very similar attitude myself. Don't forget, in the UK, gaming companies frequently charge us the same number of pounds that they do US people in dollars (although there's more VAT here too - but not THAT much). I will usually buy my games from Gamestation or CEX, at 6-10 quid if its a fairly oldish one, and no more than 20 quid for a new, and only if I'm *really* excited about it. At that rate, I can easily afford to play games... at the rate of buying them new, I just can't (except the budget ones) and the same applies to GP32 or 2X stuff.
 
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Yeah you Euro-gamers get screwed royally price wise so I can understand the hesitance to drop money on a non-big-name game.

I just feel like if a single person spent his time to create something that actually rivals a true professional game he deserves recognition and if it has to come in the form of buying the game I'd not have anything against supporting his future efforts by paying for his game.

If anyone has played Cave Story you know what type of quality can come out of a single man who just wants to create a game. This could have easily been a $30 GBA game but it's free for PC and Mac (the only expense being the 5 minute download and the 15 seconds it takes to install the english patch).
 
If some of you want to help with commercial support please contact development teams and also we want to go after good but unpublished titles from other systems, GBA etc. - there are hudreds of unpublished quality, original titles lost every year. They are welcome on the GP2x.

Commercial support will happen, but you guys can help in a big way.

Thanks,

Craig
 
Muzzaro posted on Sep 3 2005 at 12:00 AM said:
If i'm not paying £30 for a game with a full production team, lots of time, testing and hardware, i'm not paying £30 for a game that someone created with their free afternoons.
I agree, £30 is too much for most games, but I think it's wrong to compare how a game was made, how long it took, and how many people worked on it. I've seen far too many games that have taken years to produce by many 10's of people that I wouldn't pay £2 for, and quite a few games that I would happily pay £20+ for that have only taken 1 person a few weeks to create. You should pay for the gameplay and entertainment value, not for the amount of effort that went into the game.
 
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I would deffently pay a few bucks to play some quality games.

Hey thanks for the info on Cave Story, I was just playing it and it ROCKS! Just like metriod, I think someone should port it to the gp2x.
 
There are a lot of talented gamemakers that never make it because they're too small and unknown a company on for example pc software, they should find a market that suits better, like the gp2x. =)

If the quality was high enough, I wouldn't mind buying it. I'd like to have more of those korean games, like mill, looked great. Or that wannabe wizard or something game. :)
 
Talented and dedicated programmers/designers should be properly rewarded, no arguing here.

My only question is, if you have a commercial downloadable game, what would stop people from just file-sharing it with other GP owners?
 
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