Out of interest, how many people here would like at some point to go commercial with their games?
Obviously it requires you to be talented enough to make games that people would wanna pay for, but yeah, how many people have actually considered going shareware?
I'm only asking because I'm doing a course in accountancy/business management at the moment, so in another 2 years if anyone wants a book-keeper and management accountant, they're welcome, lol.
It's basically my job to keep an accurate record of your expenses, incomes, debtors and creditors (people who owe you money and you owe money to) and turn it into useful information (eg: You made £250 more out of arcade games than space games last year, so this year it may be a good idea to make more arcade games instead of space ones. Or perhaps last year you spent £200 more than expected on electricity, so maybe you should ensure all equipment is switched off overnight to save money).
So yeah, how many people would actually like to go commercial one day, if someone could help them with all the mundane financial bits of it?
Being able to makes games with MMF for a living would be ideal for me, but I don't think that I have the skill to keep up with the current standard (I used to think I was pretty great at Click before I came to this site). The shareware market was made popular by companies such as Apogee, ID and Epic in the last decade, but it seems that I've rather missed the bubble.
There is hardly any shareware "community" today. At least not one we hear about? The Shareware market had its golden days in the early 90's when the Internet was still something found in the labs and universitys.
There are some independant game developers, but they tend to sell games of very limited nature on their websites only. Hardly something that gets them rich, but hopefully they do what they like?
I think it would be very difficult to do clicking for a living, you would have to move up to "the real" stuff, eg. c or c+ programming.
Yeah, clicking for a living could be pretty hard, but it should be able to form a nice extra income to reward you for your hobby.
I would probably focus on people selling games over websites. The standard Shareware way of doing things is releasing a limited demo which either advertises the full game, or can be expanded (via serial code) to be the full game. Another advantage of shareware is that you can submit them to download.com and other places, getting them more widely known.
One method of making the process a bit more lucrative is careful use of advertising. This isn't just advertising yourself (eg: paying people to display banners, or joining a banner rotation system), but using your games and site to advertise other people. You can ask companies if they'd pay you to put a little 'sponsored by...' screen at the start of the game. If you ask Clickteam, they may suggest forms of advertising that they would pay you for. You can also follow that with the 'Fueled By Fusion' logo, which immediately saves you having to shell out for MMF Pro.
If several clickers decide to start up commercially, you can probably do an advert exchange, where each company advertises and supports the other.
One other way I've used before is in-game adverts. Billboards in your level can actually advertise real companies instead of fake ones. Even very professional games (the ones you'll find in Game or MVC) do this lots.
As long as a game is professionally made, it has selling potential. People have a predefined concept of what a professional game is like. They associate certain features with a game that has cost them £30. If you emulate these features and only charge £10, they're kidded into thinking they got a bargain, lol.
Those features usually aren't too difficult to achieve - the main one is splash screens. People like to see the names of more than one company pop up at the start, it suggests a collaboration. If you've used this as an opportunity to advertise, then you're also getting paid for it!
A quick loading screen can add a sense of scale to your game, but make sure it is actually loading - there's nothing tackier than a fake loading screen that just waits 5 seconds and then advances. You may choose to replace a fast loop with a normal MMF loop in order to make a 'loading' sign out of a process that should be instant. It actually makes the game less efficient, but your users needn't know that.
Basically, a shrewd designer can kid a user into paying £10 for the right to mess around with a bunch of adverts.
But do people actually make any money from shareware? or do people just hack into it and warez it?
If i felt my game was good enough to sell i might do it but it would probably have to be something like The spirit engine rather than Buzz the squirrel 2.
Many people make living with shareware or indepedant games on the Internet including myself. There is still a market for it, it's possible to get rich and some people have become very rich with games that could easily be made in MMF.
Also there's a shareware community which is much bigger than The Daily Click or the click community.
I don't know. I'm making a commerical online war-time strategy game with some friends, but we're using C++. I don't think MMF games should go to the commerical market.
Fine Garbage since 2003.
CURRENT PROJECT:
-Paying off a massive amount of debt in college loans.
-Working in television.
Cysteine Creations has been going towards commercial games. Theres many games already make using klik products that have sold very well. Cactus Bruce is one example, Coin World is another.
Although some may consider Coin World a bad game (no disrespect to 47/7) it just goes to show theres a wide market for all kinds and quality of games.
Commercial game making often isn't about making the game as it is about doing business. In other words, chances are you won't be working on a game you like too terribly much. But there are exceptions.
BTW, good luck in the commercial sector Hammish
Personally, I think it would be easier to sell a MMF application, because apps dont have those stupid shallow fans that want full 3d pixel shaders. And if you keep to good old battleship grey for 9x, or XP's colour for things you're fine. People just want apps that make their lives easier
I dunno, it depends on your target audience. Usually it's not a good idea to sell an app' if there's a more expensive but better version available. Like selling an HTML editor when there's Dreamweaver available. People just warez Dreamweaver instead.
But when I was at college, I created a whole host of anti-admin tools to get around the college restrictions. When I left and my younger friends joined, I could update and sell these applications to them. You can even charge a bit extra to ship it on a USB FlashDrive. I found a place where you could get a 128mb flash drive for just £8 when most were nearer £20. So I could charge about £20 for the software preloaded onto the disk and they thought they were getting a bargain!
Especially handy in our case, because the college was so restrictive that anyone who wanted to pass the courses needed to have my software, LOL!
I agree with the dreamweaver thing and swindling little kiddies But if you offer something that no other app really offers, or you do it a lot better. Then the people will buy/switch/warez.
I am hoping to release the sequel to Planet wars as shareware. I don't know if it will be any good compared to any competition, but a lot of people enjoyed it so I figure that I might as well go for it and see how it turns out.
Advertisement
Post Reply
Edited by the Author.
But if you offer something that no other app really offers, or you do it a lot better. Then the people will buy/switch/warez.
