ID:181085
 Aug 24 2011, 4:37 am
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The post below mine inspired me to post this topic... Anyways, assuming your game is original, what do you guys think would be the best way to make money off of it in BYOND. I thought of a few ways. There are always donations, but thats really not going to generate any cash. You could do what a lot of iphone apps do, which is to create a lite version and have it be free, while the full version comes at a cheap price of around $1.99 with much more features. Another possibility, while it is far out there, is to create your unique idea and game on BYOND, and then purhapse sell and show this idea to a big game company so they could develop it into a full scale platform game. Anyone have any other ideas? And also, one last question. For those of you who have made money with BYOND games, how much are we talking here? Greater than $1000? I ask this because if developers on BYOND could actually make some money, that would give inspiration to a lot of developers. I know I for one would consider making an original game if it had potential to give me some cash.
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The marketing method you're talking about is generally called Micro-transaction marketing, and BYOND does a terrible job of supporting it. As it stands, BYOND takes $1 + 10% of any payments handled through their system, not including whatever you handle yourself via paypal or some other method. This is fine for games with significant subscription costs, but for a game with micro-transactions, it doesn't work. If you wanted to sell something for $1, you wouldn't make anything off it, and even if you went up to $2, they would be taking 55% of your profit in processing fees. They also don't support any way of handling purchased currency(aside from you handling it manually). They provide a subscription system, but you can't provide one time purchases(such as in game currency or items) through them.
On the topic of server stress, NEStalgia seems to handle it just fine. As far as I'm aware, each of their servers can handle 100+ players. But really, anything higher than that and you're going to need a proper server system to support everything anyway, which is outside the scope of BYOND. | |
Not particularly, aside from don't use micro-transactions on BYOND. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a good way of handling it, unless Nadrew wants to pop in and correct me. There was some discussion of a PHP rig to handle paypal through the browser, but it didn't seem particularly secure or user friendly.
This is part of why I stopped developing Imperatorum for BYOND, there was no support for how I wanted to market the game, and it didn't look like the BYOND staff cared enough to do anything about it(as shown in the feature request when they pretty much said it's not going to happen). As of right now the plan is to make the game in Java once I've got enough experience in the language. | |
Raruno wrote:
One question I have is if you can create a successful MMO game (though not everyone makes these) will BYONDs servers be able to handle a large amount of players without slowing the game down to a point where it is unplayable. It depends upon how efficient your programming is and how good your server host is. | |
I've had this internal debate over whether I should invest a lot of time and effort into making this game I have an Idea for, or invest my time in learning more of Java. I thought for the amount of time it would take me to make this game would it out weigh the benefits of learning all I can about Java and the fact that I could possibly make some money off of it even if it was just a little was on my pro list for continuing with BYOND. There is no reason why I cant do both but there is the whole time investing issue over which programming language I put above the other so it was a do it now or do it later (hoping I don't lose interest in the process). Still not sure yet
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If you're going to learn another language anyway, you should probably focus on that and work on smaller projects for BYOND to get general programming experience. If you want to make a serious project and are going to learn another language, you might as well do it on the more versatile of the 2.
As for keeping your motivation, work on designing the game while you learn, get all of your stuff down on paper. It will help you keep things straight come time to make the game, and it will keep you working on it as you learn the language. | |
Robertbanks2 wrote:
The marketing method you're talking about is generally called Micro-transaction marketing, and BYOND does a terrible job of supporting it. As it stands, BYOND takes $1 + 10% of any payments handled through their system Why not make your own system? I hadn't looked into it before, but at a glance it doesn't look like BYOND does that much for you (you can use the client.CheckPassport proc to check if a client is a subscriber, that seems to be it). | |
Making it secure is the main challenge with doing it yourself, but it's entirely possible. I've worked with the PayPal API, and it's got a lot of handy functions that make the process much easier.
Doing it from the game's website without having any in-game transaction systems is the easiest way to keep it secure, just have a nice game shop on your site and it would be fairly easy to have those transactions affect in-game stuff without having the person leave the game and come back or any of that. I'm without internet 99% of my day, but I'll see if I can work up some kind of example in my free time. | |
What if you approached the micro transaction system in a way many other companies do and have you pay 10 dollars for 10k points, or 20 dollars for 20k points. Price certain items (or whatever you want) as being worth 12k points so it encourages a plaer to end up paying 30 - 40$. Though you'd still have to handle the currency system yourself (I have no idea how to do this) or if you used the subscription way, you could charge X amount of money per month and with this substricption you are allowed to use certain items, or use a more valuble currency that you find in game.
Are there any downsides to this? | |
Also I thought about the server problem and I had an idea that I stated in a seperate post but my question was never completely answered
http://www.byond.com/developer/forum/?id=789296#789296 | |
I guess it depends on how you want it to work. If you wanted to charge money for in-game content (ex: cash for in-game currency) you'd want something more secure (but I'm not sure if what BYOND provides would help you with something like this). If you're just charging money to allow access to the game you don't need something tremendously secure.
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So the idea that you can have it so a player can purchase a subscription that must be renewed monthly is a sound (and relatively easy) method for making money through a BYOND game?
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Raruno wrote:
What if you approached the micro transaction system in a way many other companies do and have you pay 10 dollars for 10k points, or 20 dollars for 20k points. Price certain items (or whatever you want) as being worth 12k points so it encourages a plaer to end up paying 30 - 40$. Though you'd still have to handle the currency system yourself (I have no idea how to do this) or if you used the subscription way, you could charge X amount of money per month and with this substricption you are allowed to use certain items, or use a more valuble currency that you find in game. The point of having a micro-transaction system is that the transactions are small. More people are likely to pay $2 to get something that has a smaller benefit than $12 for a piece of pay only equipment. Another issue with this is that you have to make whatever you're selling WORTH the $10 they will have to pay, and to that end the equipment had better be completely gamebreaking and just absolutely demolish everything else. Then the game becomes "Free to play, Pay to win." Ideally items you sell would be small things to save you time. Double exp for a day, auto-revive potions, etc. Things that don't upset the balance of the game, but still provide something worth while to the person buying it. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/ 3689-Microtransactions That is a video you should take a look at if you're seriously considering this system, and a series that you should check out regardless. Why not make your own system? I hadn't looked into it before, but at a glance it doesn't look like BYOND does that much for you (you can use the client.CheckPassport proc to check if a client is a subscriber, that seems to be it). It doesn't do that much for you, and Lummox posted on one of the 2 feature requests saying it's pretty much never going to do anything but that. I would have made one, but I have no idea how to do so, and no experience with handling paypal. I doubt I would be able to create a secure system for it, if I could make one at all. | |
Robertbanks2 wrote:
It doesn't do that much for you, and Lummox posted on one of the 2 feature requests saying it's pretty much never going to do anything but that. I've never done it but it can't be that hard. It doesn't even need to be that secure. If you made the game free but encouraged donations, people would give money. In some ways this is better - if you charge $2 for the game people will pay only $2. If you asked for donations, some people might give $10. Look at the humbleindie bundles, they're free and DRM free so you *could* get them for nothing and distribute them for nothing, but they've taken in millions of dollars. | |
Based off of both that video and what you said, do you see any downsides to this idea:
I had in mind a system where while in game you can collect two forms of currency that can be used for helpful items that don't disrupt the balance of gameplay. One form of currency is more valuable than the other, but you can only use the more valuable type of currency if you are a subscriber. The subscription would be cheap, say 5 - 8 dollars for a time period like every month. Pros -bypasses the small transaction problem -doesn't disrupt balance -still allows players who don't subscribe to get the same stuff but it will just take longer -a small amount like 5 - 8 dollars for a few weeks seems like a great deal -in game currency won't be rewarded. Instead players will be able to use what they've already obtained - if successful BYOND can make a small sum as well Cons - idk? A slight alternative would be to not allow non subscribers to buy any of those helpful items. I'd have to thin about that decision | |
Forum_account wrote:
Robertbanks2 wrote: Well, something tells me you've missed the point of the micro-transactions as opposed to a subscription game. The game IS free using this model, what they pay for is in-game content, such as limited use items that can't be found or purchased in-game. There is no charge to PLAY the game, but you can pay a little to save yourself some time farming that piece of equipment you need to complete your character by purchasing a drop rate increasing item for $1. Shave off some time if you need to power level by buying an experience boosting item. Etc., etc. This model means that, given the player has the necessary amount of spare change, they can buy as many of these limited use time saving or convenient items as they need, but they don't unbalance the game. So say someone buys a triple exp bonus for $3, and a couple of auto-revives for $1 each. Now they've saved themselves 2 hours of grinding because they get more than enough exp just doing the quests required to move on, and they don't need to worry about working their way all the way back to their corpse, should they die, they'll just be resurrected once the monsters wander away. These items don't give them any in-game advantage aside from the game requiring less time, and you don't HAVE to buy them to play the game. Raruno wrote: I had in mind a system where while in game you can collect two forms of currency that can be used for helpful items that don't disrupt the balance of gameplay. One form of currency is more valuable than the other, but you can only use the more valuable type of currency if you are a subscriber. This is kind of confusing. Why not just give subscribers a drop rate modifier that gives them more money per kill. Also, you're saying people get to pay, then grind out this currency to use it? Sure, it saves them time in the end, but this seems like a pretty insignificant bonus to pay $5-8/month for. The subscription would be cheap, say 5 - 8 dollars for a time period like every month. That's pretty expensive to be paying for a BYOND game, WoW is only $15/month. A slight alternative would be to not allow non subscribers to buy any of those helpful items. I'd have to thin about that decision This is ultimately your choice, but I don't think it's a very good idea. Preventing people from buying certain things or doing certain things because they haven't payed for the game tends to make people feel like they're playing a demo of the game where a bunch of stuff is inaccessible. I have a problem with the subscription option for most F2P multiplayer games because they inevitably unbalance the game at some point. In order to make that $5-8/month worth it, you would have to include some things that gives the paying players an advantage or no one would want it. This is why I so much prefer the micro-transaction model, the players pay for what they think is worth paying for and nothing more. You can also then use these purchases to learn what your players want, what is overpriced, what is underpriced, and what you need more of. | |
One question I have is if you can create a successful MMO game (though not everyone makes these) will BYONDs servers be able to handle a large amount of players without slowing the game down to a point where it is unplayable. I have figured a pretty good solution to this but I'm not completely sure it;s possible. If not I have a backup plan