The Android version of Death off the Cuff has sold almost 300 copies by now, most of those in August after getting a short mention in The Guardian. Reviews have been very positive, in spite of the fact that the game can be finished in about 30 mins. This indicates to me that people are perfectly willing to pay for parser based text adventures, as long as they are made aware of their existence.
One of the reviews on Goggle Play even goes “…should be more like this.” I can only assume that “like this” refers to parser games.
Probably a buck or two? I’m often in a space where I feel like I ought to be spending my entertainment dollar on music rather than games, and anyway I don’t want to spend a lot on a game outside of a bundle unless it’s something I really really want and want to support – Analogue: A Hate Story fell into that category for me, and I expect to get around to buying Kentucky Route Zero sometime even if it doesn’t show up at a discount, and maybe you’d count the Probability 0/Starseed Pilgrim package from Droqen, which I also got interested in because some people at a site I comment on were talking it up.
So Emily’s parser stuff would in general be something I really want to support but maybe not to the really really level, hence a buck or two. But I don’t know how much the “parser IF people are used to free games” thing is an obstacle here; the people I mentioned above all gained a lot of goodwill from me by making very cool free games. (I may also be just a bad person to market to, what with the not wanting to spend much money on games thing; also if someone put out a $1 game every month I would stop buying them unless I was both loving the heck out of them and finishing them.)
But: I don’t think this means parser games are forever doomed to the hardcore fans who won’t pay for them. And I expect that in a couple of years mobile device manufacturers will have made it easier to type on the devices, which will really lower the bar. I suspect that getting people to use the parser won’t be an insoluble problem either, if someone really puts their back into it. (I just tried the latest version of Death Off the Cuff and it seems to be doing a lot to guide the player into the kind of parsed actions it wants you to take.)
Yeah, well, there are millions of people who would. A quick reader can finish a playthrough of Choice of the Deathless in a couple of hours (though it has a lot of replay value); thousands of people have paid for that and given it excellent reviews.
Not to pick on you, David, but some people in the IF community have really non-mainstream views about what’s worth paying for, and what people in general will pay for. (Why would anyone pay for IF, even a pretty good one, when the best game of the year is free?)
I’m not saying you have to change your mind and start buying IF, but just be aware that the market is willing to pay you for a good two-hour game, even if you yourself wouldn’t buy it.
I think this is right, but misleading. Even without introducing a novel UI for IF, given about five years of hobbyist work, shipping multiple non-free I7 games a year, you could do as well as CoG has.
I think millions is probably an exaggeration, but in any event it wasn’t meant as a dig, or aimed at anyone in particular (even though you seem to be taking my comment as a personal attack). My point was that if someone was trying to sell IF that is easily finishable in a couple of hours, what’s the incentive to buy that instead of just play all the free stuff? If, however, someone was trying to sell an IF game that’s substantially larger than the standard IFComp size games, then yes I could definitely see myself being interested in buying that.
That’s a good question, but that’s what people do. What’s the incentive to go to the movies when YouTube has literally millions of hours of free videos? What’s the incentive to buy a book when you could read them for free in the library? What’s the incentive to buy songs when you could listen to the radio? How does Telltale Games stay in business when there’s thousands of free adventure games available? Why buy bottled water when you could drink tap water practically free? etc etc
I agree with this. In hindsight this would have been a more sensible plan than my Kickstarter for one gigantic game. (Of course, in hindsight I could say a lot of things about my life.)
Usually the sold stuff is better, or makes you think it is through promotion and simply being for sale.
Because YouTube videos (if you manage to find something other than narcissistic rants) are 15 minute short fan films, compared to projects with several million dollars behind it.
The infinite loan time, for when you want to reference stuff.
Libraries often doesn’t have the specific book you want.
Libraries get rid of books without warning you, if other people no longer consider them popular.
Because then you can listen to that song when you want to.
Radios only play about ten “currently popular” songs on repeat. That’s a tiny fraction of all songs you could possibly want to listen to.
Some people pride themselves on listening to music that will never be played on the radio, because they despise the philosophy behind radio broadcasting.
I buy carbonated water just for the sake of the bubbles. Occationally I buy Coca Cola, but I find myself not wanting it to taste sweet - I just want the carbon dioxide. I can even tell the amount of carbonation in water, so I also prefer a certain brand of carbonated water.
…but people will buy uncarbonated water because of these reasons:
Their appartment might be so messy that you can’t possibly fit a glass of water under the tap, because of the dish piles. (Yes, I’ve seen this.)
They might be really, really thirsty - maybe they drank coffee and creatine, and then went for a jog, only to get cramps. Then you might need water to even walk home.
They don’t actually want the water. They are buying the bottle. Usually the water bottles facilitates refill options. Refilling a soda bottle with water doesn’t seem as clean.
For me, it’s quality rather than quantity. In non-IF games I prefer games that I can finish in a few hours rather than ones that will take me forever, as long as the game is good. (And if I can replay them, so much the better.)
And if I wanted to play something that wasn’t easily finishable in a couple of hours – well, I might as well play all the free stuff there, too. In fact, I’m more likely to go for the free long-form stuff, because I haven’t finished it yet. Of the top nine in the 2011 best IF poll, I’ve played through all five that can be finished in under three hours and none of the four that can’t.
This isn’t to say that only The Best IF Games will be able to find a paying audience. Maybe someone gets the Terry Pratchett IF franchise and can sell lots of Pratchett games even if those aren’t the best-designed IF (he says, just before remembering that Pratchett’s daughter is one of the most prominent game writers) – I’m not talking cheap exploitation here, but something that has genuinely good Pratchetty writing but not the best puzzles or implementation perhaps. Or maybe something sells because it’s convenient to download and play on your mobile. Most likely I’d guess that it’ll be easier to sell games cheap, under $5, and it’s more plausible that they’ll be short. But length in itself doesn’t seem like a unique selling point.
Of course what I said about length is only my own preference; apparently a lot of games that I think are just the right length get widely criticized by gamers for being too short. Not sure those gamers would be the most fruitful audience for commercial IF though.
I find the short works easier to finish, usually because I can remember what I’m doing. In fact I’ve only finished two games by myself, Inhumane by Andrew Plotkin and Photopia. Both of which are fairly short games.
Profit wise, free games with IAPs are far outstripping straight-up paid games. Take a look at the top grossing Apple app charts, they are consistently dominated by free titles. I can imagine this done well in IF, perhaps in a game with a shortish, punchy free story where you can purchase special powers (or, y’know, something vaguely original) that let you access other areas of the map and reveal more of the story, or to unlock NPCs as playable characters, maybe, and reveal larger parts of their back story. I presume when your audience is limited by the text medium anyway, getting a game played by as many people as possible is key, so “freemium” would surely be the best approach?
Quite a few MMOs these days have gone down a F2P (free to play) route with the basic game being free, but all the extras needing to be paid for. i can imagine something similar might work well in an IF game.
“Hey, you can have this book for free, and if you pay me I’ll give you these pages I cut out from the middle of it, too!”
I don’t like the idea behind f2p. Sure, it’s fine for purchasing hats for Team Fortress 2, and things like that, but mostly I just find it gives a bad taste.
I always think of it as a “try before you buy” type scenario, akin to a car dealership letting you have a free spin in a new car before you fork out the cash to buy it.
I have very mixed feelings about IAP myself. Makes a hell of a lot of money, though. The Temple Run story is worth reading if you don’t know it. To summarise, it started as a paid game, only getting a handful of downloads in its first few months. When they made it free, it shot to the top of the charts and stayed there, becoming (at the time) the highest grossing iPad app ever from IAPs. The most interesting part for me is that Temple Run’s IAPs are genuinely pointless - all unlockable items are superficial and can also be bought with in-game coins, which you accumulate at a rate of knots while playing at any skill level. I think I bought everything, bar maybe a couple of wallpapers, within a couple of weeks of casual play without spending a penny. But people like having stuff now, regardless of its actual value. And if lots of those people are enjoying the free thing you’ve made, they’ll be more than happy to pay you for a bit more.
Which is exactly what COG have done with some (all?) of their games. Worked on me, The first chapter of Choice of the Deathless hooked me enough that I bought the full game, even though my disappointing experience with Choice of Broadsides had convinced me that I wasn’t going to buy any COG stuff
It’s worth noting the highest grossing IAP stuff isn’t giving you the first part for free so you’ll pay for the rest of the game, it’s giving you a whole game and letting you add stuff to it or enhance your stats.
Usually the water bottles facilitates refill options. Refilling a soda bottle with water doesn’t seem as clean.