General > Discussion
JUST STATING THE OBVIOUS
cyllan:
hello
Well you guys should be surprised, ( i am ) i have been playing this game non stop for 2 weeks, i played all earlier versions, but not like this, which got me thinking.............
without trying to mess with the "ethos" of free software, i was thinking long and hard......
i just paid $30 for a preorder of xenonauts.
similar game, probably not better graphics, only 120 megs of data.........
these days ANYONE IN THE WESTERN WORLD can pay $30(xenonauts preorder fee), half of Europe is on benefits, and if not.....
daddy can i have 25 quid for a new pair of shoes?!!!! ;D.
i just wonder really, 30-40 dollars is a days work (after tax),
all the work the devs of this game are doing is for free, and a big thanks for the fun game they keep doing .
however the capitalistic pig in me keeps wondering..... you guys have the skills.... you guys have the talent...... you guys have the maths and physics......
why not capitalize on this ? make a commercial game and get money from it!!!!!!!
I WOULD BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i said this on many mods forums.... most people make megabytes/gigabytes of data, and get fuck all for it.
we are in an economic crisis my ass!!!!!!!!!!, people get drunk, smoke, is on benefits and take drugs...... sure......... families are struggling, but $30-40 is 1 days work..
not a new tv/car......
and this isnt like buying a dvd or a music album, so the producers and "artists" can "break it down" and enjoy the babes and the bling, this would go towards giving you a better living
standard......
I dont know the complexities of the project, it would need a new engine/graphics/animation...... not a small thing.......
but you would get your money back.......at the very least.
i am not a programer/dev.... but i really think you could make money out of this and make an astounding game that people would buy.....
i am not going to repeat this, i dont want to injure any feelings, i just think you should make a buck or two out of this, and that means my money and other peoples money.
people are wasting money, billions of it, on petrol/drinking/cigs/ and shoes ( i do!) ...... money is all around, you should have your share, you have earnt it......
justice should be served...
enough said.
Jose Garcia.
ps. im gonna go back and play a bit more...... i am actually subscribed to eve online........ and i only log in to train my skills.... lol
Nutter:
I actually saw this rather interesting video* on Youtube that touched on the subject, actually. Short version is, if there's thinking involved, folks don't really work well once money gets involved. Also talked about how folks like doing tinkering in their spare time without expecting pay. And yes, I did butcher it trying to explain the thing. In hindsight, it kind of reminds me of this well known indie game that's been talked about lately.
But of course, I already wouldn't support this just because I wouldn't be able to buy it anyway but that's irrelevant.
*By RSA Animate if it sounds familiar.
Oh on the topic of trying to capitalise on everything, if this wasn't my first post I'd make an off hand comment on you, a well and ceasing of biological function.
But at this point I'm not sure if that'd be too well received here.
Edit: Forgot to mention, but from what I've gathered, charging for mods can lead to at least a bit of a little something called a "shitstorm."
And a financial crisis doesn't change the human nature. Just kicks it in the groin for few seconds.
TallTroll:
It would be legally tricky (at best) to release UFO : AI as a commercial game, because the licences many of the game elements are used under specifically forbid any commercial usage. Also, there is no real need. The dev team do a fine job driving things forward in their spare time, but if people had paid actual money for the game, they would expect much better results than any volunteer team could possibly deliver in terms of frequency of updates, bug fixes etc. This game is free, so if it takes 6 months for an update to appear, that's fine. If you'd paid £40 for it, that would be a lot less fine.
There's also nothing to stop commercial games compaines developing their own squad level, turn based tactical shooter game right now, but very, very few choose to do so. Sadly, it's just not really a very big market. Most people seem to prefer more visceral FPS games (I just started playing Crysis 2 online, and it's a very disquieting experience. Imagine playing Black Ops, but everyone can turn invisible at will. You are on the edge of a nervous breakdown, all the time, because you never know if you're staring straight through a guy pointing an HMG right at your head).
There's nothing to stop you donating to the game either, if you think it's worth paying for. The donate buttons are up on the home page, to go towards improved hosting, so the devs can actually get into the game files to access them once in a while...
geever:
--- Quote from: TallTroll on June 22, 2011, 02:04:10 pm ---It would be legally tricky (at best) to release UFO : AI as a commercial game, because the licences many of the game elements are used under specifically forbid any commercial usage.
--- End quote ---
You're wrong on this. The game is GPL which can be sold. Maybe there are one or two textures or other files that are "noncommercial" but we're replacing them anyway.
--- Quote from: TallTroll on June 22, 2011, 02:04:10 pm ---Also, there is no real need. The dev team do a fine job driving things forward in their spare time, but if people had paid actual money for the game, they would expect much better results than any volunteer team could possibly deliver in terms of frequency of updates, bug fixes etc. This game is free, so if it takes 6 months for an update to appear, that's fine. If you'd paid £40 for it, that would be a lot less fine.
--- End quote ---
I don't know what people expect but I don't see (m)any updates for most of the commercial games.
--- Quote from: TallTroll on June 22, 2011, 02:04:10 pm ---There's nothing to stop you donating to the game either, if you think it's worth paying for. The donate buttons are up on the home page, to go towards improved hosting, so the devs can actually get into the game files to access them once in a while...
--- End quote ---
Yes, you can help with donating.
-geever
xkuehn:
Geever is absolutely correct. Moreover, markets for the same game with a nonzero price can exist in parallel with a free download.
Let me give you some numbers and you'll understand. All costs are in South African rand. (Currently, R6-R7=$1. The exchange rate is less stable than between the really major currencies.)
NB: Note I'm saying KB, not Kb.
When I first came across UFO:AI, I didn't have an internet connection at a reasonable price. That wasn't even long ago, it was back when 2.1 was current. Big name computer games were going for two or three hundred in stores. (Depending on whether it was old or new stock.)
If I had downloaded the game at home, I would have paid a lot more than I would for any game at a store. It was something like R0.60/min with a download rate of 7.5KB/s. I.e., R>500. It would also take a LOT of time. The horrors of dial-up. :o (South Africans may chip in here and tell you that you can cap your calls at R7 each after hours. This is true, but you'll get disconnected every so often and have to dial again. You'll also have a much lower download speed -- only analog lines were eligible.)
I downloaded it at the university. IIRC, it cost R0.30/MB and the tarballs were around 400MB. So that's around R120. Provided you're at a university. Provided also you can find a way to justify downloading source code as "academic purposes". (Or don't get caught, if source code has nothing to do with your studies.) Once again, the university connection can be used more cheaply -- but your connection grinds to a halt at these times. I've been in the computer rooms at 00:00 (when it's free) and you couldn't so much as open a web page with all the scripts downloading simultaneously.
I can't give you a price for internet cafés at the time. Current prices are not much different from what I gave for the university. It's something like R0.25/MB + ?/hour at a place near here. The download speed beats anything else on this list, though.
Currently, I'm on ADSL for free. I get to use it simply because it's cheaper than dial-up for my father's time-consuming work, even though he doesn't need need to pump lots data. R85/month for a 1GB cap, R140/month for a 5GB cap, R60/GB to temporarily increase the cap. Both at an effective download rate of about 40KB/s. Line rental is excluded -- but presumably you'd use it for phone calls too. There are larger caps with a lower per gigabyte cost. (Uncapped connections are exorbitant; R~600 IIRC. And I hope you like being throttled.) All contracts are 2-year contracts.
The latest I've hear on wireless prices works out quite similar to ADSL, assuming you buy a large (for us) monthly data bundle. Also on 2-year contract.
"Cable" does not exist.
So I'm lucky enough that I can download UFO:AI. Most people around here are not. Hell, most people are dirt poor.
Many people do own a computer, even if they have no internet access. True, I can give the game to my friends. How big is my social sphere?
Now, most big-name computer games sell for a little over R300. Incredible Corruption (nickname, so as not to spam) sells "classics" for anything from R50-R130. (StarCraft still gets shelf space at R130!?) Another store sells various indie titles for around R80 -- the two I've tried weren't nearly as well-made as UFO:AI.
If someone sold UFO:AI or Battle for Wesnoth by mail for, say, R40-R50, it'd be the only way many people could get these games. And totally worth the money. Offer to split the money with NineX for hosting, and I'm sure the community would support it rather than raising hell as Nutter predicted. You could have the disks professionally pressed and still turn a profit, just don't sell it to the First World!
P.S. Business is not easy. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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