Comments for Choice of Games Blog

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by Mallamun

Mallamun — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:33:59 +0000

I don’t have time to read 100% of the comments, because I’m flying off to school, but here’s my 2 cents:

1) DO NOT get an artist. Don’t start to betray your product in a desperate move to sell it.

“You don’t have to draw the player character, just the static ones who are always the same.”

The thing is, the “static” ones do NOT always stay the same; they are “recast” in the readers’ imaginations with every telling. Adding visuals would detract so much from the essential spirit of the games, and after all the time and money, I don’t think it would really revolutionize their sellability THAT much.

2) I love the idea of having “paid user special content”, like extra vingettes and story options–maybe even a more insider peek at development.

3) Keep doing advertising; no brainer. Regardless of what else you do. Also the donation button.

4) I think the age of people paying for stuff on the internet is gone (and only briefly existed in a bubble of naivety). Especially going through an entire checkout process for something like $2. I know, it seems impossible that people are that miserly and lazy, but when it comes to internet money, that’s just how it is. Unfortunately, I think other solutions are necessary.

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by CPFace

CPFace — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:52:11 +0000

I don’t think a novel-length multiple choice story is even desirable. I LIKE that the games on offer now can be played start to finish in a single sitting — it’s not as intimidating to go back and play through as a different kind of character or to try and reach a particular outcome. If a game like this took hours to play, it’d get kind of boring.

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by Xananax

Xananax — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:19:24 +0000

@TKXapathy:
I ain’t a professional of text-based games nor have I ever written one, so what I am going to say is based on guesses, but I think it makes sense:

In order to write a very long game, they would have to make some money first. Writing a “novel sized game” is a huge amount of work. If you count that a normal (flat-narrative) book takes for a professional writer anywhere between a few months and a few years, add to that multiple choices (which basically means twice as much narrative, text, and characters, and that’s if the game is not complex), and the coding, and you get an idea of how much time the idea would require.
A project this size has to be planned and people working on it have to be financed while working on it.
So in order to do that, which is, I think, the ultimate goal of choice of games, or of any text-based game for that matter, they FIRST have to find a way to make money with what they currently have.
Which is the problem at hand.

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by TKXapathy

TKXapathy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:15:03 +0000

I’m sure someone here has already suggested this, but why not make a novel sized game and sell it as one would sell a book? (In my opinion, it would be more appealing than the current games)

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by Kay

Kay — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:20:17 +0000

I took the liberty of creating a facebook group for this site : I took the liberty of creating a facebook group for this site : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Choice-of-Games/145129485524321 Join and invite your friends! Also, could the boss people please send me a pic that they would like to have represent choice of games. Thank you.
(Please delete the last 2 comments i made)

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by bawpie

bawpie — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:41:16 +0000

Interesting analogy Gary, but I don’t really buy it. If I’ve just spent 20 minutes really enjoying something created by someone else that they’ve obviously spent time and effort on, and I’m asked to pay a paltry $2 to continue the experience then I don’t have a problem with it. No one is forcing you to pay (which is why I’d steer away from mandatory donations) and it’s not like you don’t have an idea about what you’re paying for (with a free chapter). Look at Xbox live – I’ve lost count of the games I haven’t bought after trying the demo, but by the same token I’ve purchased a number of titles after trying the demos.

Anyway, here’s an interesting post relating to Text Zedventure (the cyoa zombie game on xbox live indie games) sales data – http://www.crazyreyn.com/2010/07/text-zedventure-sales-data-may-and-june/ – like I mentioned before, I’m not sure if it’s possible to convert choicescript but it’s got to be worth a look.

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by Xananax

Xananax — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:10:42 +0000

@bawpie:
I am more than willing to reward people that make good things. I download tons of music for free, but the music I end up listening to and keep, I pay it even though I already have it. I’ve paid numerous times for video games, I even bought real DS games after finishing them on my illegal card (and ended up giving them to people, I do not care bout hard copies, it is just because I felt these people deserved my money). I’ve donated many times to open-source software, and so on…
Thing is, I never pay BEFORE trying. If I land on a website that even hints that they are going to make me pay before I can use it, I just quit. It is not that I do not respect the position or not willing to pay, it is just that the web is so full of entertainment, and my leisure time is so scarce that I am not willing to spend the 1 additional minute to go through the process of paying, and I am not even talking about the problems that occur (card not processing, try another one plz) or questions that arise (is this website safe?). I just click “stumble” and go elsewhere.
Believe me, I am very sensitive to the money problem on internet. I develop websites and web applications, and I am developing my first game and I of course intend and hope to make money out of it. But I deeply believe we have to find new business models, and that the old models are dead or dying. I find no point in reproducing the business model of hardware stuff, or tweak it a bit. I think one has to be more creative nowadays.
Thing is, for MMORPGs, or even flash games, there are true and tried solutions, that are not applicable to text-based games.
@Elizabeth:
I stopped using adblockers a few months ago, when I realized that everything I love about the web (free stuff!) relies on ads that are thrown to your face. They are annoying, but they are, for now and for default of a better model, the glue that holds the free internet together. My humble advice to everyone out there is to disable your adblockers. Pop-ups are nasty, but embedded ads are a blessing.
@choiceofgames:
I think the sole fact that this post gets so many comments and so many different opinions is a very good sign. People DO care about you earning money and continuing to make great games, which is really cool.
I hope you will share with your crowd any decision you make regarding this matter before implementing it, I am really curious.
An idea for getting art for free: make a contest where the winners get featured on your front page for X days/weeks/months. If I have some time I could draw a scene from Vampire, it’s typically my type of mood.

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by Dhakaiya

Dhakaiya — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:32:43 +0000

It’s just that consumers like are getting used to obtaining stuff for free- YouTube and sites with downloadable music have taken most consumers to a mind-set where they consider free-play for small games like these to be more of a right than a privilege, of course if the games were of a full novel size, people would be ready to pay- but for the size they currently are, most would not.

Something that would irritate me but I’d still suggest as a fan of this site is that you could allow those irritating advertisements of Travian and stuff, and every 5-6 times we click next, an entire ad page would arrive and we click the ‘skip’ button to return where we were- the reason behind this is not only the generation of advertisement money but also allowing ad-free gameplay for subscribed members- first thing I would suggest is that you must add more games, the site is still much too small to become a pay-site.

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by Gary

Gary — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:17:46 +0000

Well bawpie, imagine you are in the middle of a night of passion, when your partner suddenly stops and says “that’ll be $2 to continue.” Same thing goes for multiple “playthroughs.” Now premium content is a little better “if you want me to do THAT you’ll have to do something for me. A donation is you giving a gift out of the goodness of your heart.
Charging for the choicescript files is a bad idea (no analogy needed) because people creating games is already a source of income, or at least it will be once something is set up again, although the donation feature doesn’t really take into account which game is being donated to.
This is probably a stupid questsion, but since its the individual and not the company that gets banned, have you considered just setting up a new account with one of the other admin, at least as a temporary income source until you come up with something better?

Comment on 8 Ways to Make Money when You’re Banned from AdSense by bawpie

bawpie — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:59:34 +0000

I’m quite surprised at the amount of people who say they have really enjoyed your games but would point blank refuse to pay for the next installment of the series. If you’ve enjoyed something, why wouldn’t you pay to continue it?

I think the idea of charging for multiple play throughs could work if it could be implemented – it’s a more sophisticated try as you buy approach than charging for chapter 2 I guess.

I wonder if you’ve also looked at the Microsoft Indie Games channel for Xbox live – there was a text adventure on there a while back relating to Zombies which was actually very similar to a CYOA adventure game (I enjoyed it and paid for the full version – episode 1 was free and you got 2 or 3 more episodes after paying a small sum). I’m not sure how easy it would be to translate the code, and I think you do have to pay to get access to the necessary software/tools but if you were to charge a small amount of points to play it could be another avenue for generating income (although I think there’s more appeal playing your games on a smart phone than on my Xbox).

I have to say I’m writing from the viewpoint as someone who has played your games via an Android device. I’m not sure I would pay to play via your website, but I would pay to do so on my phone as it’s a lot more convenient (and makes for a good timekiller on the commute to work).

Also, as someone who is currently playing with your choicescript with a view to creating my own game – have you considered charging for access to the choicescript files? If you could include a more comprehensive manual, a few more examples of source code from your games and continue to offer support via the google group I wouldn’t be adverse to stumping up a $5-$10 fee. It’s worked for other interactive fiction creators (such as Adrift) to some extent.