Discussion Thoughts on Freemium Games

S

sofaspartan

Guest
Usually, I tend to shy away from freemium games when I see them on the app store or anywhere else for that matter. I am more of a traditional gamer who likes single player RPG experiences on home consoles, so when I play games on the app store and see the pay to win/pay for more lives model, I am always surprised. It seems like it has taken over the mobile game scene and doesn't seem to be going away either.

As much as I don't like it, I can see the other side of it for developers. How can they produce a game fast and make it profitable? Games are getting uploaded so frequently that they can get lost in the shuffle.

Is this kind of game model something that appeals to today's gamers? Am I just stuck in an old way of thinking? What do you all think about this?
 
M

Misty

Guest
Free games just make it hard for hardworking people to earn a living to sell their games. When I see a game thats free, I think either "This game is of low quality made by someone who does not care" or "This game is insanely high quality made by billionaires, but has microtransactions."
 

woodsmoke

Member
I don't like it at all. But I read at gamasutra that freemium (free to play) games account for 11% of games in the appstore, but make 90% of the money on the appstore.
 

Lukasmah

Member
Free games just make it hard for hardworking people to earn a living to sell their games. When I see a game thats free, I think either "This game is of low quality made by someone who does not care" or "This game is insanely high quality made by billionaires, but has microtransactions."
that's a hot take
 
S

sofaspartan

Guest
I don't like it at all. But I read at gamasutra that freemium (free to play) games account for 11% of games in the appstore, but make 90% of the money on the appstore.
Wow... That really puts it into perspective! When given the opportunity people will pay.
At least some of the freemium games that I've seen provide the player the full game experience for free and then focus on cosmetic changes for microtransactions. I feel like that is a good middle ground. At least your progress isn't being hindered by a pay wall. (ex. Fortnite, Apex Legends)
 
M

Misty

Guest
Wow... That really puts it into perspective! When given the opportunity people will pay.
At least some of the freemium games that I've seen provide the player the full game experience for free and then focus on cosmetic changes for microtransactions. I feel like that is a good middle ground. At least your progress isn't being hindered by a pay wall. (ex. Fortnite, Apex Legends)
Good for billionaires, bad for indie games.

Free to play always hurts indie devs. Only billionaires can afford to make complex online games with plenty of microtranscations. Indies tend to make smaller single player games. Whats the indie going to charge a microtransaction for? The asset they flipped from the unity asset store? Lol.
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
don't like it. Potato man seeks the troof is an indie game that does this for extra lives, and i find it a joke. I beat the game without having to spend anything. If they made it too hard, i probably would've not played it, let alone spent money to win. The latter is bit worse imo.
 
S

sofaspartan

Guest
I’m glad that this is only really an issue for mobile games! Let’s hope that we don’t see this creep it’s way in to console games anytime soon.
 

dapper

Member
Well, it kind of depends.

As a player, I've rarely played freemium games- Temple Run is the one that stands out the most, and that's ancient at this point. If I can get a whole, enjoyable game, for free? That's a great proposition, in theory, for me as a consumer.

But, I'm never going to pay for the extras.
  • I'm beyond the point of caring about cosmetics in online games.
  • I'm the kind of person that archives and stores lots of old game. I like long-term retention and retaining access to games as long as possible. Hence, I like to buy/own/backup games and save files.
  • Pay-to-play: When a game decides it doesn't want me to play it (without forking over more cash), that's really not going to fly with me.
  • Pay-to-win: why would I ever want to subject myself to this?
  • Loot-boxes: really, this is gambling. It should be legislated as such.
And, what's more, I really don't like to contribute to the ecosystems of these games in the first place.

And furthermore, most of these transaction implementations usually come at the detriment of actual gameplay or game experience.

I don't like it at all. But I read at gamasutra that freemium (free to play) games account for 11% of games in the appstore, but make 90% of the money on the appstore.
This is really the problem, IMO. It's about the kind of person/game developer you want to be. Human beings have exploitable psychological weaknesses- I don't want to live in a society where actively preying on those weaknesses is encouraged. Freemium games are designed to take advantage of "super-consumers" who make 90% of the purchases, essentially exhibiting addictive behavior. The vast majority of us won't be affected- but just like with any drug, just like with gambling- there's going to be some percentage of the population that winds up addicted.

Maybe it's irrational, but I don't want to profit from somebody else's problem like that. I want to create experiences and tools that serve users, not exploit them. I don't want to develop things that sap people's initiative and agency. And it's a problem with so much technology today- what is best and most useful to the user in the long term != most entertaining or addictive. These technologies are being engineered to extract as much value from you, in the form of your time/attention and money, as possible.

And there's a fine line, right? "Fun" games are also "addicting" games. If you made the best roller coaster in the world, and a select group of people just really liked riding that thing, to the detriment of their wallet/personal lives, should you feel morally conflicted about what you've done? I think I personally would. Like, if they were just always super happy to be on that thing, and if they made great shared experiences with friends, and they gained new perspectives or felt new emotions because of my roller coaster masterpiece, then maybe I've done a good thing. But if they're just on it just to be on it, because they crave it, because I engineered every curve and turn and color and sound and interaction to make it so, and they don't enjoy it so much and just they wish they could stop, but still feel compelled to keep riding my rollercoaster...

So, there's a tradeoff. As a society, it's probably a good idea to look out for one-another by limiting the profit-incentive from addictive experiences, lest somebody figure out how to addict us. One way to do that with games is the traditional games model: you're allowed to charge a set price for a game. If it's addictive and fun- great! If it's not, too bad- but at least it removes the incentive to engineer the experience in such a way as to exploit/charge people indefinitely.

I'm really interested in seeing what comes of the legislative approaches coming out. Nintendo just pulled some games from Belgium because of bans on these exploitative pay-to-play/win models. Meanwhile, Mario Kart Tour has something like four or five different microtransaction currencies.
 
Last edited:
M

Misty

Guest
. If I can get a whole, enjoyable game, for free? That's a great proposition, in theory, for me as a consumer.
Not really, because no serious game dev is gonna put hard work and energy into something for free. But if you want spammy meme games and unfinished fan games, then free is for you. Otherwise, its microtransaction city.
 
S

sofaspartan

Guest
This is really the problem, IMO. It's about the kind of person/game developer you want to be. Human beings have exploitable psychological weaknesses- I don't want to live in a society where actively preying on those weaknesses is encouraged. Freemium games are designed to take advantage of "super-consumers" who make 90% of the purchases, essentially exhibiting addictive behavior. The vast majority of us won't be affected- but just like with any drug, just like with gambling- there's going to be some percentage of the population that winds up addicted.
I think the same thing could be said about loot boxes in video games as well. It winds up getting people addicted as the game never gives the user what they want so they keep spending more money.
 

dapper

Member
Not really, because no serious game dev is gonna put hard work and energy into something for free. But if you want spammy meme games and unfinished fan games, then free is for you. Otherwise, its microtransaction city.
I'm considering the term freemium to mean any free game that acts as a gateway to further transactions, be they gameplay-affecting or solely cosmetic. I don't think many people would consider DotA 2 or League of Legends a "spammy meme game".

To be fair, I don't really have as much of a problem with cosmetic-only microtransactions (that aren't loot-box-based)... it's still kind of weird, in my opinion, to predicate your business on the one percent of users that are willing to buy what essentially amounts to an IF statement, and let them subsidize the game for everybody else...but hey, if they're willing, that's fine with me. I mostly draw the line as psychological tricks (reward uncertainty, artificial scarcity, stimulus conditioning) to hook people.
 
M

Misty

Guest
I'm considering the term freemium to mean any free game that acts as a gateway to further transactions, be they gameplay-affecting or solely cosmetic. I don't think many people would consider DotA 2 or League of Legends a "spammy meme game".

To be fair, I don't really have as much of a problem with cosmetic-only microtransactions (that aren't loot-box-based)... it's still kind of weird, in my opinion, to predicate your business on the one percent of users that are willing to buy what essentially amounts to an IF statement, and let them subsidize the game for everybody else...but hey, if they're willing, that's fine with me. I mostly draw the line as psychological tricks (reward uncertainty, artificial scarcity, stimulus conditioning) to hook people.
Already got you covered on this one. I said "Otherwise, its microtransaction city." Meaning yes there are high quality free games, if they have microtransactions. Game dev is hard and people arent just gonna work for free. Free games are actually kind of unethical because it gives game devs nothing for their hard work. I mean its fine to make meme games just for fun, but its kinda unethical to put hard work into a game and just release it for free, it just drops the bottom line of games in general.
 

dapper

Member
Already got you covered on this one. I said "Otherwise, its microtransaction city." Meaning yes there are high quality free games, if they have microtransactions. Game dev is hard and people arent just gonna work for free. Free games are actually kind of unethical because it gives game devs nothing for their hard work. I mean its fine to make meme games just for fun, but its kinda unethical to put hard work into a game and just release it for free, it just drops the bottom line of games in general.
Ah, I misunderstood you. You seemed to be asserting that there is a dichotomy between free games and games with microtransactions- that games with microtransactions are not and cannot, by definition, be free for anyone, even if I don't ever partake in the microtransactions. I'd disagree.

Edit, at least, that is what I feel like you were asserting with this statement:

Not really, because no serious game dev is gonna put hard work and energy into something for free. But if you want spammy meme games and unfinished fan games, then free is for you. Otherwise, its microtransaction city.
But then, your last post kind of contradicted that.

Either way, I think my point still stands. Even if the game has microtransactions, if I don't partake in them, then a serious game dev has indeed put hard work and energy into a game that I play for free.
 
Last edited:
M

Misty

Guest
Ah, I misunderstood you. You seem to be asserting that there is a dichotomy between free games and games with microtransactions- that games with microtransactions are not and cannot, by definition, be free for anyone, even if I don't ever partake in the microtransactions. I'd disagree.
The more microtransactions it has, the more ethical it is, because it increase the value of the games market for other games. Likewise, if someone releases a great free game, and it has zero microtransactions, it is unethical because it sets the bar too high for free games. Like, if it was 1994, and a bunch of NES games were released for free, with no microtransactions, people would be less likely to buy games, and game devs would be broke and in poverty, and the quality of games would get worse and worse. But on the other hand, if a bunch of NES games were released for free, but had an irritating bunch of microtransactions, it would be ethical because people would have incentive to buy actual games.
 

dapper

Member
The more microtransactions it has, the more ethical it is, because it increase the value of the games market for other games. Likewise, if someone releases a great free game, and it has zero microtransactions, it is unethical because it sets the bar too high for free games. Like, if it was 1994, and a bunch of NES games were released for free, with no microtransactions, people would be less likely to buy games, and game devs would be broke and in poverty, and the quality of games would get worse and worse.
So from your perspective, paid > freemium > free? That depends, of course, on one's ethical outlook. I don't think many would claim that Linux is unethical, even though it sets the bar for new free kernels very high. But, if that is your ethical perspective, the more power to you.

Making things free (maybe with strings attached) can be used to dominate the market (the EU just fined Google for doing just that with Android). But, lots of people participate in open source communities regardless, for many different reasons that they think are ethical.

A great example is Godot- it's a wholly free tool, and it's putting pressure on GM to step up their game. It decreases the value of GM relative to what it was previously, sure, and in the worst case, maybe proprietary GM dies. But, GM will only die if its value proposition is worse than that of Godot's. If it does go out of business, well- yeah, the developers will have to do something else. But somebody else is already doing better work, for free (or at least, for cheaper).

Nothing exists in a vacuum, of course- it's possible to subsidize an inferior piece of cheap/free software to drive better, paid competitors out of the market, which, presumably, is what you're worried about with games. That will naturally create a huge market for better free games- or at least games that offer a better tradeoff between price and value. There's no recognized "right to make a living doing a particular thing" as of yet- if enough people value a thing, a market will be created for it, commensurate to demand.
 
Lots of games are just stuffed with ads where there's not enough game to ad ratio. I played a game recently that within 10+ minutes of playing hit me with their own internal ad that for $50 I can get X character. Wow 10 minutes huh?

I'm amazed so many fremium games centered with ads and obtrusive internal ads for upgrades get such high ratings. Sometimes there's a great game in there, I just can't find it among all the clutter. So many flat fee PC games of fremium games tend to be so much more enjoyable... even if it can take literally 6 - 60 hours to unlock all the content with a flat fee game. Like an RPG... but wrapped up in an Atari 2600 style game, but with better graphics.
 
S

sofaspartan

Guest
It’s all about instant gratification as well. Do you want to play a game and work towards a goal or do you want everything handed to you immediately for a price? It is sad that people would choose the latter, but it seems like that’s the way things are going at least for mobile games.

I think it defeats the purpose of having a game if you can just unlock everything immediately. There’s no challenge, no reward for your efforts and no feeling of accomplishment for achieving a goal.

As far as the ads go, it definitely gets pretty annoying, however, I’ve also seen some apps that manage their ads pretty well and make it so watching an ad yields a reward. Ex. apps that double earnings, offer premium currency, etc by watching an ad. At least it makes it feel purposeful.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
M

Misty

Guest
So from your perspective, paid > freemium > free? That depends, of course, on one's ethical outlook. I don't think many would claim that Linux is unethical, even though it sets the bar for new free kernels very high. But, if that is your ethical perspective, the more power to you.

Making things free (maybe with strings attached) can be used to dominate the market (the EU just fined Google for doing just that with Android). But, lots of people participate in open source communities regardless, for many different reasons that they think are ethical.

A great example is Godot- it's a wholly free tool, and it's putting pressure on GM to step up their game. It decreases the value of GM relative to what it was previously, sure, and in the worst case, maybe proprietary GM dies. But, GM will only die if its value proposition is worse than that of Godot's. If it does go out of business, well- yeah, the developers will have to do something else. But somebody else is already doing better work, for free (or at least, for cheaper).

Nothing exists in a vacuum, of course- it's possible to subsidize an inferior piece of cheap/free software to drive better, paid competitors out of the market, which, presumably, is what you're worried about with games. That will naturally create a huge market for better free games- or at least games that offer a better tradeoff between price and value. There's no recognized "right to make a living doing a particular thing" as of yet- if enough people value a thing, a market will be created for it, commensurate to demand.
Paid games are the most ethical, if a game is free it better be to the brim with microtransactions, or else its unethical because it drops market value for hard working devs.

Open source is communist and self-loathing, its fine that Godot wants to work for peanuts, the problem is, all the sane people who want to not actually be homeless, are forced into being a starving artist by communist people like Godot. Even worse is if Godot are rich people, doing "community service" when its not actually community service because its just ruining the ability of hard working people to earn any money.
 

dapper

Member
Paid games are the most ethical, if a game is free it better be to the brim with microtransactions, or else its unethical because it drops market value for hard working devs.

Open source is communist and self-loathing, its fine that Godot wants to work for peanuts, the problem is, all the sane people who want to not actually be homeless, are forced into being a starving artist by communist people like Godot. Even worse is if Godot are rich people, doing "community service" when its not actually community service because its just ruining the ability of hard working people to earn any money.
How far would you extend this argument? Should every generation be forced to rediscover fire, reinvent the wheel, and re-learn agriculture? People who freely shared that knowledge put a lot of hard-working wheel-inventers and fire-discoverers out of work. But, once they had those tools in hand, they could stop spending their time fire-discovering and wheel-inventing, and start agriculture-inventing and culture-inventing.

Is competition itself immoral? If I run a company, is it immoral for me to undercut my competitors, take all their business, and rehire just half of the competitors' workers at a lower wage to complete the job? If it is not immoral, then how much am I allowed to undercut them? If I offer to do all the work they were going to do for free, just to price some of them out of business, is that immoral? Does every business that wants to stay open deserve to do so?

What if I invent a machine that simply obviates the need for most of the workers in a particular industry? Were the agricultural revolutions of the 1800s and 1900s immoral, when farming went from a majority-population occupation to less than two percent occupation? Maybe a lot of those folks still really wanted to be farmers?

Again: there's no recognized "right to make a living doing a particular thing". Just because you enjoy doing a thing, does not mean you *deserve* to get paid to do that thing.

If the best platformer ever made was released for free (or for very cheap, or even for a huge amount of money but it's just that good and people still buy it), and nobody ever wanted to play or buy another platformer, then quite obviously, we don't need as many platformer programmers as before. They'll have to do something else.

Edit: and is open-source really so anti-Capitalism? Personally, I don't think so.

https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/obj-oss/objectivism-and-open-source/oss_and_capitalism.html

You're only thinking about the "factory" model of software development, where you produce a good and people pay for it. The thing is, once the good is produced, further production cost is nothing. As the link above notes:
Thus, it economically makes sense to distribute software or other bit buckets free-of-charge. The fact that vendors of proprietary software do it for money, does not preclude a costless alternative by someone else. Capitalism has endorsed distributing cheaper alternatives to products for a long time.
Fortunately, software production is only a small part of the value you can extract from software.

Yes, even the developers of Godot are getting paid. The source code is free- and that is part of the reason people pay them to maintain it in the first place.
 
Last edited:
M

Misty

Guest
Making a couple of scripts is fine, or posting some help in the Programming section, but overall you cant expect game devs to work months on a project and not get paid for doing so. Self-loathing communism eventually results in destitute poverty, look at Soviet Russia.

I know people who make free games mean well, and think they are doing a good deed, but they are only hurting people really. If a spoiled rich person makes a great game, and feels guilty about being rich, so they feel they ought to release the game free to "give back" to the community, I'm sure they mean well, but they aren't really thinking through how it will effect anything. What will happen is, self-respecting game devs, who dont want to be homeless, will lose interest in making games, and the only people making games will be clowns who make meme games, rich-people who have a lot of free time, or sickeningly virtuous people who dont care about themselves and just want to work hard and get nothing for it, and expect the whole world to be happy living in poverty like communism.

And yes, capitalism is immoral, if it is too greedy, well tempered capitalism is fine provided it has ethics.
 

dapper

Member
but they are only hurting people really
No, they're also helping a lot of people by providing free entertainment- especially if it's actually good entertainment. Weighing one against the other comes down to subjective opinion.

What will happen is, self-respecting game devs, who dont want to be homeless, will lose interest in making games, and the only people making games will be clowns who make meme games, rich-people who have a lot of free time, or sickeningly virtuous people who dont care about themselves and just want to work hard and get nothing for it, and expect the whole world to be happy living in poverty like communism.
So let me get this straight- you're worried that the whole world is going to be full of terrible free games- but because they are free, no more good games will be made by anybody else, even if people want to pay for better games?

That doesn't seem to make sense.

So, I'd have to say that you're more worried that the world is going to be full of amazing free games that set the bar too high, even for paid games? I sincerely doubt that that would ever happen. As long as people want new games, people will be willing to pay for them, if they want them enough.
 
M

Misty

Guest
I have no problem with free games of low quality, such as meme games or ms paint games. The danger is of misguided rich people, who have a lot of time and resources, to release free games. They believe it is virtuous and helping the community, but sadly, it is merely making it impossible for game devs to earn an living. Such is the story of the misguided communist. The story could also be a poor person, who is talented at games, but releases it for free, due to some misguided communistic virtue. In their heads they fantasize about a world of no money, where everyone lives in huts and loves each other...not the real world. Self-respecting game devs know they need money to exist.
 

dapper

Member
merely making it impossible for game devs to earn an living
Making the (rather large) assumption that a large enough volume of amazing free games were released- then still no, they're just making it impossible for game devs to earn a living making video games. There are still other things that they can do.

There's a big difference.

That said, I sympathize with you in at least one sense- over the next few decades, I fear that AI make put a significant number of people out of work. What do humans do, when there are few if any things they can do better (by some metric) than a machine? How would we adjust our societies to that?

If such a thing really comes to pass I'm sure some of us will spend our boundless free time making and giving away amazing games. Of course, at that point, AI will probably do that better, too...
 

Ihato

Member
Paid games are the most ethical, if a game is free it better be to the brim with microtransactions, or else its unethical because it drops market value for hard working devs.

Open source is communist and self-loathing, its fine that Godot wants to work for peanuts, the problem is, all the sane people who want to not actually be homeless, are forced into being a starving artist by communist people like Godot. Even worse is if Godot are rich people, doing "community service" when its not actually community service because its just ruining the ability of hard working people to earn any money.
Dopper pretty much nailed it against your first argument so I'll just address your idea that open source is communist cause you completely misunderstand the model under which oss operates. Large open source projects are not developed out of some altruistic communist idea like "helping your neighbor" or whatever. It's developed by workers working for companies. Usually multiple companies usually contribute to one project which is the main reason why e.g. Google releases some projects open source. The project basically develops itself. The project itself is the one that benefits. The Godot's motto for example (and why it's named like that) is that it never stops developing. And if you had your own game engine you were selling, but my free engine is killing your business, I'm so sorry. Either create features that would justify your price, or quit and sell something else.

The open source model is inappropriate for game development, since games are build-once works of art. A game doesn't benefit from being massively contributed to after its creation. Also the main purpose of games is to have fun. So paid games are under no threat from free games since free games does not necessarily mean they're fun, nor do they take fun away from paid games. Therefore I don't really know what you're talking about that free games somehow take the value away from games in general. A couple of months ago Sekiro e.g. was a built-once game that costed $59.99 and millions of people bought it even though e.g. Apex Legends was still free.
 
M

Misty

Guest
Large scale advertising. Without Apex Legends, he may have sold it to billions if not millions. This would also scale to smaller indie devs. Indie devs struggling to pay rent due to free games alternatives in market. Of course you dont see it with all the hype and cover stories of the latest millionaiires...I wonder if they'd be billionairres though if no free alternatives.
 

dapper

Member
The open source model is inappropriate for game development, since games are build-once works of art. A game doesn't benefit from being massively contributed to after its creation. Also the main purpose of games is to have fun. So paid games are under no threat from free games since free games does not necessarily mean they're fun, nor do they take fun away from paid games. Therefore I don't really know what you're talking about that free games somehow take the value away from games in general. A couple of months ago Sekiro e.g. was a built-once game that costed $59.99 and millions of people bought it even though e.g. Apex Legends was still free.
For the most part, I agree- but I'd be hesitant to say that it couldn't work. I think it's usually necessary for games to have a strong cohesive vision behind them, so that's a blow against a distributed development style. But, I see all the mods, especially for a game like Minecraft, and can't help but feel like Minecraft would completely flourish as an OSS model- and build an entire ancillary economy of mods and mod maintenance. In fact, it's already done this.

Now, Minecraft might not have made billions of dollars under the model- maybe paltry millions... but the rest of those billions might be a bit "better" distributed. Look at the way Minecraft has been monetized today- profits come largely from services and hosted servers.

Edit: and to try to get back on topic:

I'm amazed so many fremium games centered with ads and obtrusive internal ads for upgrades get such high ratings. Sometimes there's a great game in there, I just can't find it among all the clutter.
Maybe click farms? I also get the suspicion that a lot of mobile gamers don't really have experience with anything else. I don't see people I know who play on traditional consoles and PCs playing mobile games. It feels like there is a real dichotomy.

I think it defeats the purpose of having a game if you can just unlock everything immediately. There’s no challenge, no reward for your efforts and no feeling of accomplishment for achieving a goal.
I'm not so sure that cheating/laziness is the motivation here. The thing about games like that is that "unlocking" is just artificial busy-work that requires dozens or hundreds of hours of repetitive gameplay. I'm not sure that there are a lot of folks that want to invest the kind of time that not-purchasing things would require. They'd rather have the fun that having full unlocks gives, and then move on to the next thing.
 
Last edited:

Ihato

Member
@Misty
Again, I'm saying I don't see the connection between the two. Apex Legends is not a substitute for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. They are different kinds of games that provide different kind of fun. One is which you play with friends and buy skins to brag, other is which you play alone to get better and become invested into story. I think you're talking about gaming too broadly, since there are apparent gaming niches that apparently don't compete.

And I think you're wrong to think in world without free games, a game like Sekiro would sell in billions. You're ignoring the fact that without free games, the total number of people playing games overall would drop dramatically and the market itself would be much smaller.

Although I get that you're that you're mostly talking about indie devs. You're saying, if you make a simple mario-like platformer that costs $4.95, and I make a similar platformer for free, people are overwhelmingly going to play my game and not buy yours. So how is that fair? Well I would argue that it is fair, cause you're the one who should justify the price of what you're offering. E.g. your platformer could be design to evoke a certain kind of emotion (like LIMBO). That way, even if there were ten million other platformers, yours is kind of unique and worth paying money for. If you just make a generic restyled platformer, then seriously - why should I pay money to play it?
 
M

Misty

Guest
As I said before, I have no problem with meme games or non serious games that are free. The danger is when serious devs, put a lot of effort into free games and make very high quality free games, then noone can get a job because nothing can outdo that free game on the market. Like, if it was 1994, and all the Mario and Sonic games were free, all the other devs would have no jobs, and/or would have to sell their games for really cheap prices and lose a lot of sales. Then everyone would go out of business and noone would have jobs, including whoever made the free games. Most would go bankrupt and the only games in the future would be from hobbyists who have a lot of free time. There would also be no consoles ever made either, only pc games, and no more serious devs because serious devs dont want to live a life of being a beggar.
 

Ihato

Member
Can you explain more about the process of how everybody would lose their job in this dystopian scenario where Mario and Sonic were free?
 
M

Misty

Guest
Can you explain more about the process of how everybody would lose their job in this dystopian scenario where Mario and Sonic were free?
Lets take Minecraft. If someone made a free Minecraft before he did, he'd never have became a billionairre, and all those many indies who made Minecraft clones would be out of a job.

If Mario and Sonic were free, the mainstream public would not pay for other platformers. Only rich people and hardcore gamers would spend money on alternative platformers. There would be no money in consoles because devs wouldn't make enough sales to make a profit. Most devs would be out of business.

Its the same as Facebook communism. Facebook is a tool of communism, people spend 24/7 of their day working on Facebook unpaid. Facebook steals all of your data and makes a ton of money, and what do you get for wasting your time on it? Ego gratification. It is the same as some indie-dev with low self-esteem, who spends 4 years on a game to release it for free, just to get showered with praise. Ego gratification nothing more. Just wanting to prove he is a somebody. Does not get any real benefit other than ego. Just like Facebook communism. The end result of communism is deep poverty like soviet Russia.

If there was a car shop, that fixed cars for free, and ran on donations...Who would ever pay to use a regular car shop again? All mechanics would have no jobs and be destitute.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
This is just not true... For years, anyone with a browser has had access to millions (literally) of free games, some of which are extremely high quality, through sites like Kongregate and Newgrounds, and yet we still have premium games and people are still buying them. It's all about demographics and what people want/expect from the games they are playing. Freemium games are fine for Android, but don't work so well on PC. Paid games work better on Apple but not Andoird. AAA games make more on consoles than PC (in general)... etc... etc... etc... There will always be people willing to pay for a game, and there will always be people who aren't. Even if there was no such thing as freemium games or ad-supported games or HTML5/flash games, there would STILL be free games as people would pirate them anyway. And let's not forget the AMAZING developers like Locomalito who continually produce extremely high quality FREE indie games (and it's certainly not for "ego gratification"... I mean, really? I think someone is projecting here... ;)).
 
M

Misty

Guest
This is just not true... For years, anyone with a browser has had access to millions (literally) of free games, some of which are extremely high quality, through sites like Kongregate and Newgrounds, and yet we still have premium games and people are still buying them. It's all about demographics and what people want/expect from the games they are playing. Freemium games are fine for Android, but don't work so well on PC. Paid games work better on Apple but not Andoird. AAA games make more on consoles than PC (in general)... etc... etc... etc... There will always be people willing to pay for a game, and there will always be people who aren't. Even if there was no such thing as freemium games or ad-supported games or HTML5/flash games, there would STILL be free games as people would pirate them anyway. And let's not forget the AMAZING developers like Locomalito who continually produce extremely high quality FREE indie games (and it's certainly not for "ego gratification"... I mean, really? I think someone is projecting here... ;)).
No projection, since I can't really speak from experience. But I don't think newgrounds games really qualify for this lol. Not all of locomalitos games are free btw.
 
Last edited:

TheouAegis

Member
Not all of them are free, sure, but some are. And Maldito Castilla was free at one point -- until it got ported by another developer. Noct wasn't saying all of Locomalito's games are free, he's saying some of the games still being developed by them are free.
 
Top