Comments on: How to afford an indie game

By: Yeah right

Yeah right — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:02:25 +0000

I’m sorry but VVVVVV is just plain shit.

You people need to understand is that indie game industry is full of crap too. There are just a few gems.

By: TJF588

TJF588 — Sat, 15 May 2010 04:21:01 +0000

For me, I’ve been scavenging on sales, though/and in cases of “donation” or “name your price”, I try to get around a dollar. I’m a cheap ass, and likely not an aid to the developers, at the least in name-your-price deals. However, I’d imagine that putting such games on sale is not so much about turning profit, but exposing not only the games but also the developers. After the steam (lulz) runs out on a game’s release, its worth to the developer than takes on an advertisement role. “Hey, you remember that game you liked? Those guys are making another one!” By selling them on their previous work, even at such a loss, they might get their purchase on the new venture. I know that I wouldn’t've gotten World of Goo, or even Portal, because I didn’t have an interest that offset the price. But I’ve been enjoying (and getting appropriately mad at) WoG, and now that I’ve had first-hand time with Portal, I have some basis for interest in playing Portal 2, especially since a good friend liekz it.

tl;dr – For games I wouldn’t have bought anyway, offering them at broke-rate prices is good exposure.

(Although, I likely won’t buy anything, no matter price decency. I’m just that cheap, aside from my pre-order swag addiction (I’m trying to break it) and brand-loyalties to SQEX.)

By: relaxed_trader

relaxed_trader — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:44:14 +0000

Quite right! Software is a pain to develop – at least software that is rightfully called software. A decent remuneration is ok!

By: jezus

jezus — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:23:36 +0000

thats all good, except most indie games that i have found on xblive suck because they are short and the quality of indie games fall short to mainstream produced games and latte frappaccinos. I might pay $3 for an indie game.

By: Durf

Durf — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 03:14:44 +0000

But, but, if it’s available on the Internet, it should always be free, just like music albums and blu-ray movie rips. Right?

By: GRAND THEFT AUTO FTW

GRAND THEFT AUTO FTW — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:24:49 +0000

WAAAH SOMEONE INSULTED GRAND THEFT AUTO WAAAAH

I hATE YOU YOU SUCK

By: Tayron

Tayron — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:30:48 +0000

I think this post wasn’t necessarily about the fact that you should spend 15$ on indie games. Let’s be honest…If there’s actual innovation, not rewriting an old concept, it’s coming from the indie zone. of course, some games are innovative, some not so much. I, for one, wouldn’t spend more than 25$ on a game. except if the game was really worth it.

People need to recognize the true value of the indie scene. sure, some games aren’t worth their price. totally true. some games are better than others. but even this is a subjective point of view. Being indie is about trying stuff that hasn’t been tried before, stuff that you would like to see. You may or may not like it.

Indie games are a mirror into the vision of the developer. but indie devs deserve money, because they go to big lengths to do something that they want to see done, even if it’s not the most awesome game ever made. They’ve got courage to try a new concept. You’ll almost never see a big company risk everything to bring out a game that might be a total failure, just because they want to innovate.

In my opinion, every game dev has the obligation of innovating in his life.

In conclusion, support indie games. support innovation.

By: qubodup

qubodup — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:23:21 +0000

Awesome!

By: lolyyupep

lolyyupep — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:01:48 +0000

lol most indie games suck and are hardly ever worth more than 5 bucks much less 15.

By: James

James — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:46:41 +0000

I think this post is plainly ridiculous. I’m not one for indie games (prepare for gross generalisations), I find them very monotonous and after the demo couldn’t even dream of buying the full game 99% of the time.

However, there are many things that indie developers could do to make me personally more inclined to buy their game.
-Make buying it easy
-Don’t make me replay the demo, and make me aware that i wont have to
-Make it a price that isn’t comparable to an album, or a tv series, make it such that i can thing “oh, its only £8, i could spend that on a meal” rather than “oh man £12?! that’s alot”

This comic has almost entirely ruined any purchase from an indie developer in the future. Kudos.

p.s. Big budget game series are not boring and derivative simply because they have a back story, that’s worth considering for your games.