next »

[bento_smile]

If you have a low target for earnings, you have nothing to lose by making something small and more unique. Weird games don't usually earn so much, but they can sell just for being different to most.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I would say web development in general, along with Flash.

[Pineapple]

What about making a game fully moddable? How does that play into sales?

[Blindsight]

What about making a game fully moddable? How does that play into sales?

Are we talking LittleBigPlanet customizable? Or Counterstrike out of Halflife modding?

If you mean the former, custimization is all the rage of course. If the game is a social game, in that you can share your customizations, it becomes part of the gameplay, even if it's just dressing up your hero. It may or may not be worth the effort to get into the game though. I guess that would depend on how much time you feel you'll be implementing more peripheral aspects. I'd considering it 'polish' unless the game is based around the concept of customization.

If you are speaking about modding as the latter example, which I believe you are it should help -- provided you already have an audience. Not having any developer experience with this, only customer experience, if there isn't a strong community (for a specific game or developer), there isn't much of a point to modding. Who is going to be interested in doing the modding? I would think (again no developer experience with it) that re-releasing a project that did well, or releasing a sequel or expansion to a project that did well would be the best time to introduce modding capability. Once you have a game that people want to play, there will be some that will want to expand or change it. Don't assume that people are going to want to toy with your game before you even have players.

Good code (IMO) always keeps expandability in mind. I wouldn't put too much effort into mod-ability for your first commercial game though.

[Pineapple]

I was speaking of the latter.

For me, I've always toyed around with parsers and interpreters, so making my game moddable is trivial at most. In fact, I've already created a FSG (where modification is the entire point of the game) and I've made a few small interpreters supporting 'most everything your everyday language can.

So would it actually be better to not allow modification until/unless there's a sequel? I would think just having the option from the beginning would be the way to go.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

you could make $50 just in donations, that's an absurdly low target

i'd recommend a higher but still relatively low target: sell 100 games. that's not easy, but not that difficult either.

[Blindsight]

I was speaking of the latter.

For me, I've always toyed around with parsers and interpreters, so making my game moddable is trivial at most. [...]

So would it actually be better to not allow modification until/unless there's a sequel? I would think just having the option from the beginning would be the way to go.

If that's what you want to do, go for it. I don't see any way it could hurt a release. I wouldn't think it would be worth the extra effort, but there is nothing to say that the game won't take off and the modding could be a key factor in that. Do what you believe in and make something you're proud of. That's the heart and soul of an indy game.