Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Discussion / How much money are you allowed to charge for your games..?

Author
Message
Acheive260 Studios
11
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Mar 2013
Location: In a Haunted Mansion!!
Posted: 24th Mar 2013 01:30
I was just wondering.. how much money are you allowed to charge for for your video game downloads..? and are you allowed to allow preordering your games while your working on it..?
Just some questions..
Fluffy Rabbit
User Banned
Posted: 24th Mar 2013 06:04 Edited at: 24th Mar 2013 06:09
Welcome to the forums.

TGC doesn't care what you charge for games made with DarkBASIC Classic.

However, if you are using DarkBASIC Pro, you are only allowed to sell games if you purchase the non-free version from TGC. If you are running the free version of DarkBASIC Pro, the executables will be different and TGC will not allow you to charge anything for them. A lot of newcomers get the original DarkBASIC and DarkBASIC Pro confused.

With that said, if you are allowed to charge anything at all for your games, there is no limit to the amount you can charge. The only limits in that regard will be set by the "payment gateway" (AKA e-commerce site or game store/app store) you use. They will take a percentage of the sales and there will probably be pricing limits. Usually, the maximum price will be around $50.

Pre-ordering is very similar to purchasing a game directly. You should look into a site called Kickstarter, which allows for a form of pre-ordering. IndieGoGo is another similar site. Those sites only allow for pre-ordering, not direct purchasing. In any case, though customers may not like the idea of pre-ordering, it is essentially no different from regular purchasing and it shouldn't be any more of a problem.
Acheive260 Studios
11
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Mar 2013
Location: In a Haunted Mansion!!
Posted: 24th Mar 2013 23:53
okay.. but what price would people pay for.. say a unique side scrolling (If i said that right..) game with around 20 levels..?
TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 25th Mar 2013 23:27
You may charge however much the market will bare.

I'm pretty sure you will come up with a sensible price. 2000$ might be a little too much, where 0.05$ might be a little too little.

TheComet

Inflictive
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Jun 2009
Location: Altis
Posted: 26th Mar 2013 01:16
I'd say like $2.00

TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 26th Mar 2013 16:20
The price should be adjusted to the game and the audience.

The tablet market for example is more about quantity. If your game is targeted at a tablet, you'd usually charge 2$ per game. If it's an exceptionally good game, you might even go up to 5$ per game. The idea here is to sell as many copies as possible.

If you are targeting PC gamers, you can usually charge a little more than that. I'd set the highest price to 20$. The idea here is to get an audience who appreciate platformer games.

Quote: "and are you allowed to allow preordering your games while your working on it..?"


If you have the motivation and dedication to get it done, yes. You may be thinking to yourself now "well of course I'm motivated, I can do this!". The truth is, making a game is like falling in love. There's that "crush" phase you go through first, which is what you have now, but a project can only ever be completed with true love. Most of the time, once the puppy-love phase wears off and you've come back from your honeymoon, you'll find yourself in a deep hole of motivational loss and give up.

My point is, make the game first and then sell it.

TheComet

Libervurto
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Jun 2006
Location: On Toast
Posted: 27th Mar 2013 22:45
People put a lot of weight on average playing time, I'd say it's reasonable to assume around $2 per hour of content. I don't agree with that logic but it seems to be what's accepted. Have you looked at how other side-scrollers are priced?

If this is your first game then stay the hell away from pre-sales. You don't know how long this is going to take or even if you'll be able to finish it, so you don't want to get into the situation where people are issuing charge-backs for a game that doesn't exist and you've already spent the money.

As thecomet implied, programming and making games are two different things. You might be a great coder but you still have to learn how to manage and complete projects.


Fluffy Rabbit
User Banned
Posted: 28th Mar 2013 06:13
I'd say this would be a great time to get feedback on the sale of my games. $1.60 for the fixed-screen games, $1.95 for the scrolling games. A scenic platformer game is on the way, so stay tuned!
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 28th Mar 2013 17:51
It's usually safer to over price, than under price! Even better, provide options.

Acheive260 Studios
11
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Mar 2013
Location: In a Haunted Mansion!!
Posted: 25th Apr 2013 09:17
> Fluffy Rabbit: I think you should start off making free games, or atleast just one free game, so that people can play one of your games ans if they enjoyed it they can buy a game you've made, and just an idea for your web-site, maybe next to the game, include a gameplay video so that people can see the game before paying money for it.
Acheive260 Studios
11
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Mar 2013
Location: In a Haunted Mansion!!
Posted: 25th Apr 2013 09:27
okay.... anyone got an example code that i could try because none of the codes for dark basic that i look up arent WORKING!!! even the codes in the book of dark basic that i bought arent even working, its quite ANNOYING!
BN2 Productions
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Jan 2004
Location:
Posted: 25th Apr 2013 20:13


What are you trying to do/what is happening (error messages/crashes/etc)?

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
Latch
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2006
Location:
Posted: 26th Apr 2013 23:52
Quote: "okay.... anyone got an example code that i could try "


Here's a demo written by scout in 2004. You can tell by the way the code is written, the indentation, and the use of trig tables that scout was a programmer from days of old.




Enjoy your day.
TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 29th Apr 2013 21:14
What is this wall of code I'm looking at.

TheComet


Level 91 Forumer - 9600 health, 666'666 keystroke power (*2 coffee)
Abilities: sophisticated troll, rage
sarah
10
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Jul 2013
Location:
Posted: 11th Jul 2013 20:46
About $10~$50

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-04-16 13:48:27
Your offset time is: 2024-04-16 13:48:27