Interest In Commercial Games Or Free Only?

[digitaljez]

There are, what, 3000 gp2x units on preorder, with another couple thousand coming in the next few months?

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This poll is showing 80% would pay for a game. If there are 3000 preorder units and a quarter(of the 80%) buy a particular game - thats 600 x £10 = £6000. So if a dev can produce a saleable game in 2/3 months they should be able to pay for the rent/tax/food . As the user base increases devs will be able to spend more time on projects and create more wonderful offerings attracting a larger percentage of the 80%.

They might even tempt the "The software should be free - cos if I got a job I would not want to be paid" brigade to get granny to buy it for them for christmas.

The GP32 sold about 30,000 over 5 years - was it ? That's 6000 a year. The GP2X will do better. It already has the community and newbies are streaming in.

If there were 6000 users then twenty percent grows to 1200 = £12000. That is 5/6 months development time. As time goes on this will increase, as will the devs experience of the hardware and the result will be phenomenal games that are affordable. The dev will hopefully make a bit more money so they can take a well deserved holiday.

This assumes the dev sells it himself and doesn't lose most of it to some fat-cat middleman. It also assumes the dev can survive development time with no income. Take out a loan ? Raise money on preorders ?

What the devs need is a co-operative on-line shop that isn't going to eat into their livelihood or force up prices.

Is this being too simplistic ? Sounds feasible to me.

 

[clippa]

Sorry digitaljez, I seem to have rattled your cage, everything you mentioned, I was only kidding, sorry to waste your time.

 

[Goity]

If something other than a sports game / puzzler comes along then I may consider buying, especially if it was 3d.

 

[Digitalrat]

to digitaljez: You forgot one important fact, that people who would pay 10€ for a game would never buy every game that comes out. At first nobody has the money to buy every game, even if they cost around 10€, secondly nobody likes every genre and at last nobody has the time to play 24h/day. I think only 5% from the 80% you mentioned would buy one specific game.

 

[Digital Awakening]

First off £ and € are very different so don't mix them. Next I don't know what GPH will take when they sell games but it may be as high as 50%. If you try to sell your game on your own then not only are there extra work and costs but you won't be selling as many games because people won't find you as easily and they may not want to buy with creditcards from your site and they may not want to bother with PayPal.

 

[digitaljez]

to digitaljez: You forgot one important fact, that people who would pay 10€ for a game would never buy every game that comes out. At first nobody has the money to buy every game, even if they cost around 10€, secondly nobody likes every genre and at last nobody has the time to play 24h/day. I think only 5% from the 80% you mentioned would buy one specific game.

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I suggested only 20% of all users (freeloaders included) might buy one particular game. You may well be right. Perhaps 20% is a bit optimistic. Then again we don't know how many units will be sold, so it is all conjecture.

If 4x as many units are sold then 5% would still do the trick. It also would depend on how good the dev is at creating a game that will appeal to the most people and what the competing titles are when he releases it.

Until I am holding a GP2X in my hands I can't even be sure there will be a device for them to dev for.

Digital Awakening : GPH 50% etc. This is why I suggested you devs should form a co-operative on-line shop. If you catered only for downloads it could be automated. Each dev could upload their own games, screenshots and demos. Once set up it would be pretty low maintenance, especially if the running of it was shared out. It would also remove the external influence of a third party - who might be more interested in box shifting than creativity and quality.

Most importantly it will keep down prices and ensure the money goes to the devs.

 

[Digital Awakening]

digitaljez:
GPH won't sell boxed games, they will sell games for download with DRM protection which is the best solution for GP2X game distribution. I really have no idea how much they will take. They have an interest in keeping their share low because the more games they have for sale the easier it will be to sell units and the more units they sell the more games they will sell.

 

[DaveC]

I would gladly pay $5.00 more for a game if it didn't have that evil DRM in it. This higher price would help offset any sales they lose to those getting them off of "Pirate 2 Pirate (P2P)" networks etc. I know many will say $10.00 is not much so what if it has DRM. Well the problem is say you buy 15 games, now you are at $150 in software. Now your GP2X breaks and nothing will run on your new unit now what? Re-buy everything again and invest $300.00 in the same games? Unacceptable. There is always this nagging feeling in the back of my mind when I buy a DRMed game and it is that I really don't own it. I am only renting it for as long as the current unit lasts. This keeps me from investing in many games. So by doing this they lose sales from many of us that hate DRM. The best solution is to have them sold on a card and have the card copy protected. I know they won't do that so I won't be buying games. I won't give up my freedom to use the game on any unit. So I will stick to donating to developers of the scene that do free stuff. I will be paying but I will have my freedom too.

 

[Digital Awakening]

I don't think there will be many games sold without DRM protection. Simply put it any game gets pirated a lot because most people think that once they have got a game for free there's no reason to buy it. Unless of course they need a legal version to play online. There are loads of people making freeware games and they usually have to pay more in server costs then they earn from donations. DRM will increase profits and profits increases the interest in developing more and better games.

 

[deadlychicken22]

I like having some commercial games, but I really would hate it if the majority of the games became payware. Firstly, I can't afford it. Secondly, thats what I bought my NDS for. The gp32 didn't have as many quality commercial games as I would have liked it to, but I think it would be much better to stay on the low end than the higher end where you have to pay for most of the games.


Also, about DRM, I hate it. I bought 2 gp32 games and I can no longer play them thanks to DRM. I think that a developer would have been perfectly safe to sell non-DRMed games for the gp32 because of the audience that it had, but now that the gp2x is attracting a lot more people, this may not work for it...

 

[DaveC]

I don't think there will be many games sold without DRM protection. Simply put it any game gets pirated a lot because most people think that once they have got a game for free there's no reason to buy it. Unless of course they need a legal version to play online. There are loads of people making freeware games and they usually have to pay more in server costs then they earn from donations. DRM will increase profits and profits increases the interest in developing more and better games.

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DRM also decreases your freedom and increases the possibility that the game that you PAID for will not work at some time for some reason. To me having hundreds of dollars in games that may go POOF at some time is not an option.

What they could do is have the game DRMed for a year then after that offer an unlocked version for you to download if you originally bought it. It would not be free, any newcomer would still have to pay it would just be DRM free. This way you can buy the game knowing that eventually you will actually own it. Pirates that only would copy it wouldn't have bought it anyway. Usually after a year games are mostly forgotten and sales tail off. Also by then hackers will have already cracked the DRM on the game anyway and have it on the pirate 2 pirate networks. This would please everyone, the DRM haters and the developers would have a locked up game for as long as it is viable and still selling.

 

[OrR]

I don't think there will be many games sold without DRM protection. Simply put it any game gets pirated a lot because most people think that once they have got a game for free there's no reason to buy it.

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We have to fight this kind of thinking and I think we can. If we completely kill any thoughts about piracy in the main communities, that's already pretty much enough. It might be possible that a GP2X warez forum or something forms somewhere, just seen that sort of thing happen to the Zodiac. They won't get many visitors but it would still be good if they could be shut down. Anyone up for forming an action group with the goal to kill GP2X warez and to report the details of the offenders to the authorities?

Usually after a year games are mostly forgotten and sales tail off.

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That's not quite true for shareware/independent games, they sell over a long period of time. However, I like your idea a lot, I think it would be a nice compromise. However, it has to be made sure that people understand that removing the DRM does NOT mean releasing the game for free.

 

[DaveC]

I don't think there will be many games sold without DRM protection. Simply put it any game gets pirated a lot because most people think that once they have got a game for free there's no reason to buy it.

​

We have to fight this kind of thinking and I think we can. If we completely kill any thoughts about piracy in the main communities, that's already pretty much enough. It might be possible that a GP2X warez forum or something forms somewhere, just seen that sort of thing happen to the Zodiac. They won't get many visitors but it would still be good if they could be shut down. Anyone up for forming an action group with the goal to kill GP2X warez and to report the details of the offenders to the authorities?

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DRM doesn't stop piracy. Hackers will crack the DRM anyway. The only ones hurt by DRM would be the ones that buy the game. Pirates will be able to use the cracked game anyway they want and be able to use it forever. Legal owners may find themselves unable to use the games they bought.

The zodiac is a perfect example. If your z broke tomorrow and you bought a replacement none of your games would work especially now since tapwave went out of business. The same could happen with the GP2X. The only way for you to get the games to work on the new unit would be to get warez versions.

 

[DaveC]

That's not quite true for shareware/independent games, they sell over a long period of time. However, I like your idea a lot, I think it would be a nice compromise. However, it has to be made sure that people understand that removing the DRM does NOT mean releasing the game for free.

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A way they could do it is to automatically send you the unlocked version after one year from purchase. So if you buy a game 2 years after its release you would be e-mailed the unlocked version 3 years after its release. This way no matter when you buy it you still have to wait a year to get the unlocked version. This would keep friends from sharing it even a year after a games release. This would be handled by an automated server that would just automatically send it to the e-mail address that the game was purchased with. If you change e-mail address you would change it in your account and the old one would become invalid.

 

[OrR]

You are pretty much right and that is why we need to actively kill warez so games can be released without DRM and without any worries.

 

[DaveC]

You are pretty much right and that is why we need to actively kill warez so games can be released without DRM and without any worries.

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I don't know how to say it but there is a place for warez too. While still illegal, if games were never cracked and there were no warez alot of games especially ones for old computers and consoles like C64, Atari 800, ST, Coleco, etc would be lost forever.

It is the new stuff that is sold and stuff that supports a system still like the GP2X should be warez free for as long as it is still being sold.

 

[shinneri]

I plan on covering commercial games in great detail on my Gamepark newbie site. I think that they're very important to give the system an identity outside of emulation. And for the price ($7-12), you really can't go wrong.

 

[judge0]

You are pretty much right and that is why we need to actively kill warez so games can be released without DRM and without any worries.

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I don't know how to say it but there is a place for warez too. While still illegal, if games were never cracked and there were no warez alot of games especially ones for old computers and consoles like C64, Atari 800, ST, Coleco, etc would be lost forever.

It is the new stuff that is sold and stuff that supports a system still like the GP2X should be warez free for as long as it is still being sold.

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Software in general is becoming trapped in a neverending spiral of upgrade or else.
Witness Microsofts relentless releases of OS upgrades, patches and hotfixes.
There are relatively minor enhancements to the OS, but they seem to double the cost with every release, terminating support for the previous version at soonest opportunity. These versions still work & are the only option for some people with older hardware. Yet are unavailable except as pirated software.

Games developers (and I don't mean indies and homebrew people) are following this trend as well. Just bought Star Ocean: Til The End of Time for the PS2 - seems to be an inferior product with little to do with the prior series releases. $70 Canadian
Wizardry VIII - PC - flaky crashed all the time, never did get to play it through - $65

Square soft has released Final Fantasy I for the Nintendo, SNES, Playstation and GameBoy Advance ( I might have missed one or two, natterings from the web say they plan to release for cellphones too).personally I've purchased FF I four times.

Point is good software sells, piracy or no. Bloated, overly upgraded products that have open source equivalents that sell for $300 are just asking to be pirated - it's trendy. (MS Office versus OpenOffice.org, AutoCad versus PythonCAD or VariCAD)

One of the things that attracted me to the GP2X was the homebrew offerings, unencumbered by Big Developer nonsense like above. Also the option to get said homebrew without jumping through hoops to use said homebrew ( ie knife swap trick to use a CDR on Playstation 2, or firmware upgrades killing the homebrew on the PSP).

As for trying to kill warez, that won't happen in our lifetimes. DRM is just another fad in a long list of fads designed to kill warez. Follows in the footsteps of the code-wheel, non scannable manuals, dongles, time limited trials, nag screens, serial numbers, product activation etc.

It too will pass . . . B)

 

[OrR]

There might be some justification for piracy if a game is no longer made/sold. However, there is absolutely none when a game is still on sale.

 

[Empyre]

Follows in the footsteps of the code-wheel, non scannable manuals, dongles, time limited trials, nag screens, serial numbers, product activation etc.

mmmmm lenslock they should go back to that!