RE: Pyrogon Postmortem

> From: Colin Fahey
> It seems like the PC is the only real
> free market, especially thanks to the free(*) distribution
> channel of the Internet, but piracy is terrible (unless
> your target demographic is typically marked by honor
> and disposable income).  (*...By "free" I mean that one
> does not beg a gatekeeper to make the product available
> to consumers, and there is no percentage of profits
> demanded for the privilege of access to consumers.
> Sure, there's credit card overhead, and bandwidth cost,
> but somehow such expenses seem insignificant relative
> to dealing with any gatekeeper/publisher.)

So, use the free PC market because it has:

1) A free distribution channel
2) No gatekeeper, no restrictions
3) An open platform
4) Tons of open source, freeware, and freely redistributable proprietary s/w

What are its problems?

Piracy????

So abandon the ridiculous idea that you can prevent players copying your game, that the Internet, the world's greatest diffuser of digital content ever known, is somehow going to refuse to diffuse your game.

Too much choice?

Marketing is your problem. Create a web site. Foster word-of-mouth/viral marketing.

Piracy?

You're still stumped by that one. I can tell.

So build you audience. Perhaps you need to give some stuff away first, even if just demos. Anyway, eventually you should be able to tell your audience that you can't go on like this, that you have to pay your bills, that the next game they will have to pay for or they don't get it. There is no honour involved here. Either they pay and get, or don't pay and don't get. You can say "I will not release this game unless you all club together and pay me 10k". The deal is so clear a kid could understand it.

And it's immune from piracy.

And you can make your game out of open source components.

And you still get 10k for it - or whatever the market will bear.

It's a solution that I'm working on:
www.digitalartauction.com

And I've written about it here:
http://www.digitalartauction.com/history/bcbm.htm

Believe me, I feel the pain of the Indie development community. Stories like Brian's and yours spur me on, reminding me that this solution is sorely needed.



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