GP2X Publishing Your Game?

[MiniMoose]

I know most of you guys are homebrew people who give your games away for free, but have you given any thought to how you would publish a game for the GP2X?

Let's say you managed to develop a game that was pretty professional looking and fun to play. I figure there are three options for you if you want to actually sell it:

1) Distribute the game via the internet using the GP2X hardware ID as a seed for some serial number generation function. The user sends you their GP2X hardware ID, pays you $10 via paypal, and you send them a serial number along with the game.

2) Find a source for cheap SD memory cards, print up boxes and manuals, and sell the game via the internet with paypal and through your local independent game shop (doubtful because you're probably the only person in your town with a GP2X.)

3) If your game is really good, approach GPH with your game and see if you can cut a publishing deal with them. If you've managed to get a following through independent distribution, you may be able to keep the intellectual property (IP) rights and take a cut in the profits. Most likely you will have to give up the IP rights and only get royalties after X number of units have sold.

As for #2, does anybody know of a good source for "bulk" SD cards in the 32MB-128MB range? I wonder what the per-unit cost would be in numbers?

With regards to #3, I wonder what GPH's plan is in regards to publishing games? Are there other GP32 game publishers out there who are planning on publishing GP2X games?

What are your thoughts on this? It seems to me that the GP2X is great for emulation but it could also be a great shareware platform as well.

 

[V3X]

but then u'd be like sony, microsoft and nintendo, greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches!!

i think itd be better to keep it donationware. if u really like it, donate sum money to the dever(s)

 

[digitaljez]

Craigix is looking for devs / software to promote.

but then u'd be like sony, microsoft and nintendo, greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches!!

​

Yeah right, programmers are a special breed of people who don't have the right to earn a living from their work, unlike everybody else. They should have to depend on the generosity of people and never know if they will be able to pay there bills each month. I am sure the uncertainty spurs them on to give more of their time and expertise.

Actually, thinking about it, they probably have less time as they will have to be earning a living in other ways. Shit! That means less deveolpment and less goodies for us. Duh!

 

[Axeman]

but then u'd be like sony, microsoft and nintendo, greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches!!

i think itd be better to keep it donationware. if u really like it, donate sum money to the dever(s)

​

The only "greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches" as you put it are those who expect everything for free...

The coders are generally generous enough to do that, but its not something we should expect as a matter of course.

 

[Kojote]

but then u'd be like sony, microsoft and nintendo, greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches!!

i think itd be better to keep it donationware. if u really like it, donate sum money to the dever(s)

​

unfortunatly this doesn't work out at all - we tried it ourself with a well known jump n run sequel for gp32... hardly any ppl give feedback so why do you think they will donate at all which is two steps further? creating games is a nice thing, but we all have our expenses and can't life from air only.
if the donationware way doesn't work out... you hav to go commercial. i rather earn less than nothing... unfortunatly there seems to be no other way

 

[Dreamstate]

but then u'd be like sony, microsoft and nintendo, greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches!!

i think itd be better to keep it donationware. if u really like it, donate sum money to the dever(s)

​

Wow, I sure hope that V3X posted before thinking. This is a horrible attitude. :angry:

 

[Aimless_E]

IMHO I see nothing wrong with making a little money off of a game that you have created. Granted I don't think you should charge much if any for a game thats sub par or a game thats graphics are barrowed from another game. I think the shareware idea is the way to go or maybe you could charge for expantion packs or something of that nature.

What might be cool is a quarterly CD that contains new and updated homebrews plus demos of professional games, and maybe even user submited music and videos. That way GPH or whoever can charge a subscription fee that could be redistributed to the developers of the Homebrews.

any thoughts?

 

[Hanz™]

but then u'd be like sony, microsoft and nintendo, greeday-ass-sons-a-bitches!!

i think itd be better to keep it donationware. if u really like it, donate sum money to the dever(s)

​

Wow, I sure hope that V3X posted before thinking. This is a horrible attitude. :angry:

​

Yeah that was a very stupid thing to say in the "Developers Corner", some people forget that Programming is a job, and that people should get payed if they put enough effort into things.

 

[skeezix]

Its one of the worries I have for the platform -- the GP32 is almost entirely homebrew, and all freeware .. since it was so little known, it was just do it for fun, to support the platform and scene; but now that GPH is growing up, peopel should expect some of the freeware to become shareware -- it encourages more quality development and potentially attracts software houses/people not interested in, or who can't afford, to work for free. A mature platform has freeware, shareware and costware.

But if the GP32 folks who move to GP2x aren't interested in paying for anything, it keeps it back to freeware and costware, and keeps the platform from growing as much as it could.

Now, that said, I really do think gp32 folks will pay for quality apps, or even low priced goofy apps.

As to..

1) Easily done; I use esellerate -- very good, reliable payment.

3) GPH says they're interested, and have a low take rate (15 or 25%?) -- very doable.

2) Is harder, but doable; there are a number of low cost SD duplcators, but I myself haven't looked into it.

jeff

 

[reaper79]

I think the shareware method would be a good idea. I believe that all emultors should be shareware (yes it is a personal choice), because I believe that 1) Devs deserve some money for their hard work, and 2) that a lot of people in this scene would gladly spend $10-15 to purchase the full version of a good emulator like DRmd. Some would say that you have an ethical obligation to donate to a dev, but we don't always live in an ethical world. This isn't to say that other programs shouldn't be shareware, it is just that emulators are sort of the "holy grail" of programs for these systems.

Remember the glory days of shareware? You would buy doom or some such program for $10 and get a bunch of floppies by mail. Or go to a computer shop and fill up a floppy full of shareware for $3.

 

[Digital Awakening]

GPH have said that they will be selling games from their site. Anna couln't be specific about how it will work but people will be able to pay for and download DRM protected games from their site. I don't know what GHP will take for this service as I've not gotten an answer on the forum or through email. And I don't know what demands they have on the games.

I want to develop good games and sell them. I put in a lot of effort into my games to make them as good as possible and also to complete them. It's no easy task and takes a lot of time. Unless the game is really simple or lacking in some ways I wouldn't give them away for free.

The problem with emulators is that I don't think you legally can charge anything for them without permission from the creator of the original hardware.

What worries me about developing for GP2X is that most owners only want to run emulators and other free stuff and won't bother about commercial games. That's a bother because GP2X is the perfect platform for indie devs. Developing for a 2D handheld is much easier then other platforms and here we also have the chance to get noticed and the distribution is cheap.

 

[skeezix]

You can _of course_ charge for an emu; it has nothing to do with the creator of the games you play within it. (Take it from someone who sells emulators

Most emus are ports, so the question is really.. charging for porting is usually lame, since ports are easy; if a tonne of time is invested and the emu itself improved, it should be okay. ie: $$$ == effort.

jeff

 

[Goity]

Costware and Freeware are great, but I hate hate hate shareware!!! It gets mixed up with the freeware and is soooo annoying when you download something then find out it fills things full of crap and then you have to pay anyways!!!

 

[MiniMoose]

IMHO I see nothing wrong with making a little money off of a game that you have created. Granted I don't think you should charge much if any for a game thats sub par or a game thats graphics are barrowed from another game. I think the shareware idea is the way to go or maybe you could charge for expantion packs or something of that nature.

What might be cool is a quarterly CD that contains new and updated homebrews plus demos of professional games, and maybe even user submited music and videos. That way GPH or whoever can charge a subscription fee that could be redistributed to the developers of the Homebrews.

any thoughts?

​

Why not send the CD along with a magazine full of reviews, cheats, and ads? This is a good idea, I seem to think I saw something like this somewhere...hrm...

Seriously though, this is a good idea. Maybe we should organize a developers guild/group. Not only would we organize our efforts but we could also police the quality of the games that hit the CD.

 

[MiniMoose]

What worries me about developing for GP2X is that most owners only want to run emulators and other free stuff and won't bother about commercial games. That's a bother because GP2X is the perfect platform for indie devs. Developing for a 2D handheld is much easier then other platforms and here we also have the chance to get noticed and the distribution is cheap.

​

I think if the game is good enough people will pay for it, even on a mostly freeware/emu platform.

As for 2D, I actually hope to make 3D games for this handheld.

 

[Digital Awakening]

Mini:
3D is possible but seems to be a lot of work for something that may not run fast enough. 2D is quite simple and can be made to look really good. If you aren't planning to sell a lot or earn much per game then it's best to have a short development time but without quality losses.

 

[MiniMoose]

Mini:
3D is possible but seems to be a lot of work for something that may not run fast enough. 2D is quite simple and can be made to look really good. If you aren't planning to sell a lot or earn much per game then it's best to have a short development time but without quality losses.

​

The GP2X is more than fast enough to do 3D. It has more RAM and more horsepower than Pentium 1/2's that we used to play all those 3D games on (e.g. Quake 1 & 2, Descent, Rise of the Triad, etc.)

 

[Digital Awakening]

We have yet to see Quake running at a decent speed so don't get your hopes up too soon.

 

[Dark_TB]

about quake, it's not that the gp2x can't handle quake, it's the way it's coded... If quake was design for the same CPU family that the GP2X has, it would allready run full speed. (maybe even on a gp32)

 

[MiniMoose]

Now that we've reasserted that capitalism is ok, back on topic.

Has anybody thought about how they would go about distributing their payware games?

I wonder if GPH is interested in setting up homebrew devs as "licensed developers" that have access to their DRM system. If not, I was planning on having paying customers enter their GP2X system ID's into a web page that will then generate a serial number for their specific unit.