@Kumaki: Cool; it's great you are helping Pandora development by teaming up with people to get software made (regardless if it is software that is of special interest to you)! Don't take my post above as being directed at you, just see it as some reasons why it is nice to support indie developers.
With regards to making demo versions, sure this is an option, but it takes some amount of time (both in terms of a little coding, perhaps a couple of graphics 'If you liked this try the full version', some time spent on the packaging (stripping out data not used for the demo), in the case of VVVVVV this would have need to be cleared with the original author. Sometimes the first few screens work fine as a demo, sometimes they aren't as fun as later screens, so the demo needs more work done to get it 'right'. This isn't necessarily huge amounts of time, but is typically uninteresting work. Luckily in the case of VVVVVV a demo is actually available so you are in luck.
From a end users point of view, their decision to download some software typically boils down to something along the lines of:
- Scan software list, typically this will be either 'featured' titles on the store, or the top 10/25/50/100 application/games or perhaps the top games in a specific genre, for Pandora the forums come into play too
- Based on software name, icon, average rating and price decide if the software sounds interesting to you
- If interested, go to details page, immediately look at screenshots
- If screenshots are interesting enough then read first line of description to see if is the sort of game you think it is
- Read a couple of reviews to make sure there aren't any major problems
- Make decisions whether to download game, potentially reading full description and comments if the title costs money
The above applies to both free and paid titles. However at step 6, if it is a paid title, and a free demo is available, some number of people will grab the demo. So there are a lot of steps to get someone to download your game, a demo is certainly an option, although getting people to the point of even wanting a demo is hard work (this is obvious by the fact there is *loads* of free software on the Pandora, which only gets downloaded by a relatively small % of people, so it isn't the price point that typically gets in the way, it's convincing the end user to at least carefully consider your title).
I'm sure some people on this forum will be able to say the above isn't how they 'shop' for stuff to download on their Pandora, but I believe it is a rough break down for the 'average' user (what ever an 'average' user is).
Anyway, I feel I have derailed this thread enough! Lets enjoy some VVVVVV.
I love wb's nub game.... but I WAS talking about purely for profit real indie games like Kami and Super Hexagon... things that are multiplatform
