The proper way to make a free game?

K

Kirbyrocket

Guest
So the concept of a game being made that’s free to play often can be frowned upon by the player since there may be some sort of catch to it like a pay-to-win kind of mechanic or freemium mechanism.

How exactly would you approach releasing a game for free? It may prove to be economically unsustainable when not doing it, but I’m sure there are other alternatives to doing so.
 

Joe Ellis

Member
Maybe have some thing where it says: "Free, yes free!, that means no in-app purchases, none of that, so just play away! ps. I really mean it, it's completely free"
Or maybe just make some kind of badge for this, like a stamp, "100% Free", I think that would make people get it, or at least wonder if it is, then when they look at the home page, they'll realize, probably if you say that there's no hidden costs or whatever. tbh I'd feel proud of saying this if I released a free game, I mean, all the free games that have purchases inside are just deceptive, and they hope that parent's kids play them and then ask for the new kitchen or whatever, I've seen it all with my nieces (god bless there souls)
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
The connotations probably are different per market - on mobile platforms free games typically are monetized in obnoxious ways, but on places like Itchio there's tons of small hobby projects, fangames using copyrighted material, and jam games, all of which people expect to be free (and for jam and fan games, legally cannot be sold).
 

JackTurbo

Member
(and for jam and fan games, legally cannot be sold).
While fan games are obvious, why couldn't a jam game be legally sold ?

@OP if your game had a strong enough and hardcore niche I could see a patreon model working. Other than that there aren't many ways to make f2p sustainable with out straying into obnoxious monetisation strategies imho.
 

curato

Member
If you want to make money off your game it is best to think about that up front. Do you want to charge for it, do ads, in app purchases, etc. To me, most people especially on mobile do this wrong. They make a game that could actually be fun then after basically playing the tutorial with everything handed to you then you hit a pay wall and uninstall. It is a delicate balance to get you money in without interrupting the game so much that it isn't fun.

For example, I did a game on the google store that was planned to paid for by ads. The game has rounds to it; so, when the round began I started loading an ad and when the round was over I would show the ad I loaded so it wouldn't hang trying to load it. It seemed a little too often so I put an alarm in to space out the ads a little so you might not even get an ad every round. Would I have made more money if I pop ads every round or would people have uninstalled it who knows.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
While fan games are obvious, why couldn't a jam game be legally sold ?
I was mostly thinking about how the game needs to be accessible for voting etc. or it will (probably) get disqualified, I probably could have worded that better...
 
M

Misty

Guest
Best is to put it with as many microtranscations as possible. The more microtransactions, the more ethical it is, because it allows hard working people to make games.
 
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