Commercial game survey
 

I'd like to your opinion on commercial game pricing ,quality and genres.
How much would you be ready to pay for a game download? What kind of quality are you expecting?

For example todays java casual game type for 1-2$ wouldn't be bad, would it? Or 5-15$ for a more hardcore console like game?

What kind of games would you like to see on your next maemo device? Puzzle, racing, RPG, strategy? Some weird combination (racing RPG with puzzles) or something completely different?

Re: Commercial game survey
 

That's reasonable, if the games are decent. Although, free is always good too. I like free.

JRPG

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Free would be nice but the programmers, artists and other development personnel need payment for their troubles. Of course there are games that make money other ways like ad-supported and pay for service games. The JRPG could be done in an episode model by making the core game free but additional "episodes" would cost. This would be hard to make profitable with a small user base.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

I do understand. Don't take me too seriously.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Those prices sound reasonable to me. I'm not really much of a gamer, but that's mostly due to the cost of buying a good computer, and the fact that many video games are rather expensive as well. $5-15 is something that I could afford most of the time - not like a $60 video game, which is a large-ish purchase. I agree with sjgadsby that Free/free is always good, but if it brings more games to Linux/Maemo, then I wouldn't mind paying a bit of money. However, I would qualify that by saying that while it would be reasonable, I'd be sad to see the Maemo ecosystem migrate to more of a commercial situation; there's nothing wrong with paying, but that usually implies Closed-source, and that goes against many of the reasons I like Maemo, and Linux in general.
Oh - and PLEASE! NO JAVA!

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Java casual game would have to be free for me, because they are junk or rip offs of games that can be emulated.

iPhone quality casual games are probably $1-$2, and a REALLY nice mobile game would be $5-$20.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

With java casual games I just gave an example of the type/quality of the games, I didn't mean they would use java.

I'm all for open source and it doesn't make it impossible for games to be commercial. For example a game is first published binary only and after a while the code is released without the content (or right away). This way you get the code for free but not the game. Everybody is happy. User get to see and use the code and the developers get paid. This would bring a larger audience to the game because it could be ported to many platforms. Good examples of this are Id's games, Doom/Quake, except they took a while to get open sourced.

Some purely open source and free of cost games are pretty good but there aren't many of them because the developers need payment. If there were commercial open source games for Maemo/Linux that wouldn't work in windows/mac and they were good it would attract more users and developers to the platform.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

well well... i belive the best titles for a n8x0 devixce would be turn-based strategy (fire emblem or front mission-like) "classical" RPGs (final fantasy- like) or... well... if you let your girlfriend use it sometimes, put some datesims on it (or some interactive graphic novel/manga)

Re: Commercial game survey
 

I think $5 - $15 for a decent game (i.e. not racing or puzzle) is a good range that most people wouldn't think twice about purchasing if it's decent quality. Games will help sell the NIT. The second thing people want to see on my NIT is what games are on it (after they see the web browser).

Re: Commercial game survey
 

I don't get why you keep referring to "java casual games" and people that play them when in this community you can't really play any games using Java since it's not officially supported on this platform of ours and the chances of it becoming available for our devices any time soon is pretty thin at this time.

Now, if you can talk about Linux games, that'd be a different story. I'm all for adding a new library of Linux games to this device, along with some really functional apps that can take advantage of the device as much as possible like some of the great apps already made for it!

Show us that and we can talk about pricing.

Jesse~

Re: Commercial game survey
 

It's this model I like the most although I believe that the code could be released sooner...

Release the source so it can be ported to whatever platform, modified etc. and charge for the game data files. Everyone wins.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

I'd want it to be easily installable (easier than pirating), and some kind of original/fun concept. I also want it to be optimized for the device; IOW not some kind of emulator crap.

Lemmings was fun. Worms was fun. Audiosurf was fun. Worms on touchscreen however would be a horror to control whereas Audiosurf might be actually fun with accelerometer.

It then doesn't matter if it costs 5 USD or 20 EUR. Its just the price you pay to support a quality game you have a lot of fun with.

And also it will shine inbetween all the thirteen in a dirty dozen games of 1-2 USD. If your game is good, it will sell, no matter if its 1 or 5 USD. In fact, if its good and a bit more expensive, that might make some people more comfortable to buy the product.

What I don't like is buying small/little stuff for a few bucks and then using it 2 times. Screw that.

If you think of it, something like a game utility like Blizzard's Mobile Armory for iPhoneOS (Blizzard WoW utility) or Utopia Angel for Windows (Swirve Utopia calculator) are very useful, and free, but if they costed a little bit they'd sell too.

This, and the fact I support an open source project like projectM (Milkdrop for UNIX), is the reason I bought Helix for Wii. But buying it was not convenient enough since I needed some kind of fake currency (Wii points) first.

As for ID Software, they only license their latest engine when there are no licensees anymore. So that is why Quake 3 engine took longer than expected; there was still a game in development based on this engine, where the game developers had a commercial license for that game. Makes sense. Plus, the new engine is so much more better that the older one is not competiting with their new commercial product.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

i know i may look like a jerk, but maybe a game with snes-like graphics (like chrono trigger or final fantasy) and some online capabilities (bugfixes, updates, MAYBE a lobby for instance online play like phantasy star online) would worth up to 20USD and it's easier to do than a full 3d OMFG hard to code and draw game...

the classics are good examples! look back into the 16-bit legends!

besides, there's flash (sluggish but can be used) and many other ways to do a game...

however, you'll habe to count with the community to backup you against piracy...

so you 'will bring us some games? hooray!

Re: Commercial game survey
 

This might help the java situation:http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...highlight=java. Of course this assumes Nokia licenses it for the N900.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

If I was a programmer, I would, but I can't. I was talking to the OP.

Jesse~

Re: Commercial game survey
 

sorry... crappy english (i'm brazillian)... misinterpretation... really really very sorry

anyway, my comments stands: 16-bit or some 95-2001 2d intresting PC games are the styles to follow..

using that style you will not require too much from the NIT and will make a intresting game to carry around

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Yes, developers need payment in a commercial, for-profit model.

There are other models. Since this is an open source community, there are several excellent developers here who have made really nice applications (eg the Tear browser) for us for free...

I suspect it would be quite tough to make a profit selling games for Maemo devices. I'll be watching the development of this aspect of Fremantle with great curiosity...

Re: Commercial game survey
 

the best method is donations but... well... no one will donate every month

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Donations don't work, you have to be aggressive and that counts as ads. I have a free online RegExp evaluator which has earned a 1x10 EUR donation since its start in the beginning of 2007 and it has a good not too big user base.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

First forget the word java. I meant type type/quality of games that are sold for s40 and s60 at the moment with it. I wasn't planning on using java for anything.

And next there will be a games market for maemo when the "consumer friendly" devices are sold to people that don't buy them for the os but the user experience which includes the entertainment. I wanted to get information on what would the current community expect from games published in terms of quality and pricing. I personally think the open source publishing would be great with free clients and pay-for-content model, it's just that if a development team of 4 people works for a full year it's gonna cost a lot. This can't achieved without financing which in turn can't be had without some hint of a proper profit.

There must be a way to make money with quality games on maemo.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Here's an example for you. Think about a game for maemo with quality and polish at the same level as Firemint's real racing on iphone. Now change the genre to anything you like and add the usual bells and whistles you'd find in a wii game, including multiplayer over network or with bluetooth controllers in tv-out mode.

What would be the value of this to you? Or how much would you think a customer outside the open source/Linux world, that just happens to have a maemo device, might value this?

Re: Commercial game survey
 

A word of advice as a fellow developer. It's not the price of the game that will make or break your financial calculation. If there were thousands of games competing like in an AppStore, yes, but not on present day Maemo (Fremantle is likely to have that problem, too). So, IMHO, the primary criteria for how well your game will sell is how good it is, and not whether it's 1, 5, or 15$. The watersched is free or not-free (in the actual money sense this time), and the only way to push over is quality, not price. Your other problem is that the customer outside the linux world might not have extras enabled, drastically limiting your default exposure of the (relatively) already small userbase.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

That works at the moment but a year from now on when Nokia has several models in stores and "normal" people are buying them then the price is a selling point. Notice the "a", there are other things also like quality.

It might sound weird talking about maemo like a consumer os now but it won't be a small enthusiast market later.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

That timeframe is well more than one year. It will be months before the next Maemo device is out, and there has been AFAIK no word on how it will integrate with a store-like distribution model (Ovi?). So, from where I'm standing, I don't see a calculation is possible (you might be right and Maemo might explode for commercial games, but business-wise, that's quite a gamble at this point). IMHO Fremantle (considering all the changes Harmattan will bring) is hardly the final consumer OS that will make it happen (and Harmattan is much, *much* more than a year away). Also, you CAN change the distribution cost of a game post-release to adapt to market changes (unlike game quality which is as is).

Re: Commercial game survey
 

There are situations where donations have worked. Maybe not with games though.

Perhaps some kind of system iPhoneOS 3 allows works. You get basic game for free (like demo), and pay very little for a new level/functionality. This way you pay for what you get without buying something you won't use anymore.

Or subscriptions. Look at WoW. If there is some kind of competition like MMOG this means ka-ching.

Sublicensing does work btw. That is what ID software does with their engine. The software just had to be worth licensing. With projectM, that is the case as well.

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If there are thousands of games on the platform and your game is good you let a website with a good userbase review your application. Rest assured this media attention means more sales.

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Of course, just saying IME pricing has more to do with competition than raw customer appeal (e.g. the competition gives you a bracket of pricing range - a 100$ game for the iPhone is a hard sell, no matter how good it is or how many million hours developers poured into it). Within that range, however, it *is* more about quality (which can be used for marketing purposes as you pointed out) and $1 vs 5$ vs 10$ makes no significant change in appeal. But that's only my limited experience speaking, do with it as you wish :)

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Well, as there are currently no commercial games for Maemo (that I know of), the market is wide open. You have no competition, but it is quite difficult to tell how much "average consumers" would pay for Maemo games since Maemo isn't an "average consumer" OS at the moment.

Asking the current enthusiast community about commercial game pricing is probably just going to get you blank stares. Ask again when Nokia has had Ovi or whatever up and running for Maemo for a while.

It's difficult to write any games for Maemo 5 (except simple ones that run on current hardware) at the moment, because there's still no hardware to test performance on, and there's still some difficulties running 3D accelerated apps inside the composited window manager.

We also have very little idea what the hardware inputs / outputs will be (except that we will have a cam, vibra and accelerometer). The leaked picture of Rover from earlier this year didn't seem to have a D-Pad, which upset a great many community members.

Sadly, your best clue as to what the market will bear in terms of games pricing is to look to Symbian or Apple.

I would love to see some kind of FPS game based on the Quake 3 engine, using OpenGL ES...

Re: Commercial game survey
 

i sitll vote for RPGs... like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d6_a...layer_embedded

Re: Commercial game survey
 

And if making descent game from the scratch could take much less effort like using some good engine, say Unity? Would you pay for that engine if the price for basic license was low enough?

Re: Commercial game survey
 

I would probably pay something around 10-15€.

Re: Commercial game survey
 

Ifit's like firemint real racing, then $9.99 is a no brainer. But having paid the ten bux to firemint already, i wouldn't buy a clone on a different platform.