Re: [GD-Design] Indie games?

[Jan E. <ch...@in...>]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, Mike Wuetherick wrote:

>there was an excellent writeup from the indie games conference (i think) 
>that had a much better explanation of why - but by charging MORE, you 
>actually will increase your sales because people associate quality with 
>cost - charge too little and no one will purchase it.

A pretty interesting but off-topic analogy might be software that
bussinesses depend on. I've seen many IT managers say that they can't use
free Linux software, because "it's free, we have to have a price tag, the
higher the better".  The same may to a certain extent hold for games.

<snip>

>look at how popular the online versions of these types of games are - 
>the yahoo games, the msn gaming zone, all that - they are packed with 
>people playing these types of games...
>
>i'd have to definitely say there is a market for this type of game...

Many wants games that are easy to pickup, play for a few minutes/hours and
which then can be dropped. I still play a few occasional games of online
chess, as one game can be played in 3-5 minutes without any hassle. It's
also easy to just throw a disk into the PS2 and game away during the
commerical breaks of shows you watch on TV.

One should take the "ease of playing" into account too. Not everyone wants
complex monstrosities that take ages to start, setup and play. Almost any
current "big game" falls into that monstrosity category.

-- 
                        "Bingeley bingeley beep!"
               -- The Personal Disorganizer, Terry Pratchett in Feet of Clay