GOING COMMERCIAL?

I think he means micro-transaction. Like freemium games, maybe? I could be wrong though. But if he means micro-transaction, then it's like you release the game for free, but charge something for premium players.

For example, in Maple Story, going from one town to another takes time. You can buy an item that teleport you instantly to the desired place. People who want to save money will not buy it and walk there by themselves. But there will be a group of people who want to save time and think that they'd rather spend money than time. With this model, you want this small group of people to compensate for releasing the game for free.

Most competitive or hard core gamers hate this, since most freemium game make them think that they're playing a crippled games, or the gameplay favour paid players too much, or feels that the game force them to pay money to have fun.

I've been following seminars of GREE, which is pretty much a Japanese Zynga, so if you want more information on this I can tell you. It's pretty evil, and the fact that they admit it with a smiling face and spread the knowledge kinda make me feel sick in my stomach though.

As for Radiohead, they're a music band that release their music for free on the internet. They also offer an option for people to pay whatever they want for their music. I think they sell physical CDs as well. They're a great example of releasing stuff for free doesn't mean you cannot make money from it anymore, as there are many people that pay for their music, even though the music is free.

The primitive man who started scribbling on the walls of a cave should be thankful aliens invented caves.

Meanwhile the modern man should be thankful that an army of faceless scientists invented biological warfare and deride Michelangelo for his Sixtine Chapel frescoes that didn't produce warm water and penicillin and so were entirely pointless and without merit.

Welcome to the technocratic utopia, hope you're not a street performer or an opera singer, else we're going to have to ask you to leave.

Game Design is a lot like a science anyway. I'd say it's about 50/50 between science and art.

bahleted

^ Dammit, kentona.
Should've made my point yesterday >:( I decided against it because I had an inkling of how it would go, based on account of the London Riots thread.

author=hima
Most competitive or hard core gamers hate this, since most freemium game make them think that they're playing a crippled games, or the gameplay favour paid players too much, or feels that the game force them to pay money to have fun.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. Hate it, actually. It's not that I'm too cheap to buy whatever I need, but that you can usually buy such a tremendous advantage over the freebie players that the integrity of the entire game goes into question.
Adventure Quest comes to mind.

author=DE
That said RPG Maker led me to learning how to do pixel stuff and currently I do work on graphics for commercial projects which earns me money. But the best thing about it, except the pay of course? These projects get FINISHED. I can be almost guaranteed to see my pixels move on the screen in a coherent manner and people enjoy looking at them while playing the game. That's... grand. Amateur projects? 99% of them crash and burn in a not very spectacular manner and all the work that was put in them can as well go to the dumpster. Not cool.

I totally agree - and I've had the same experience.

I find it's damn hard to set deadlines for yourself when there are no actual reason for deadlines - like getting paid or keeping your job - but if you actually wanna finish, it's usually more efficient to set a schedule or create some sort of organization.

Back in the day I used RPG Maker as more of a therapeutic exercise and never really strove to finish the games. I would spend weeks on the mapping of a city, and, looking back, I knew I wanted to finish my game, but I needed discipline. That's the reason I'm taking game-making to the next level.

It's still possible to do it as a job and a hobby. Even when I'm working on projects with strict deadlines, I always still have one little experimental prototype to goof around with in my spare time - and ironically, the stuff I learn from these prototypes very often help me with my legitimate projects.

author=flowerthief
Thanks for the explanation, hima.
At least no one can complain about the model of "release free but hope for financial compensation from nice people"...except maybe the developer.

But how does that model work with respect to paying any minions one might have? (artists, scripters, composers, etc)

You're welcome!
As for paying your team, the staffs should be paid for their labour beforehand. The project leader, the one who paid for everything, then take any donation from the project after that.

Or if there are not many people in your team, then split the donation works too.

he sure gets what this topic is about hahaha

author=Allen Hunter
1. The last thing that runs through my mind when making games on a shitty program like RPG Maker 2000 is the assumption that I'd want to make some money off of them. No one with an IQ over 80 would want to pay a single penny for an RM game, no matter how less-sucky it is compared to its contemporaries.

http://freebirdgames.com/to_the_moon/

Granted, they had a team of like a dozen people from varying disciplines, but it's still RPG Maker.

author=Allen Hunter
No one with an IQ over 80 would want to pay a single penny for an RM game, no matter how less-sucky it is compared to its contemporaries

I would pay for a completed Rise of the Third Power. I would pay a lot of money for it, as a matter of fact. It's much better than many, many commercial rpgs.