Money Making Ideas

Look, where I come from, calling someone a "retard" isn't offensive in any way shape or form. Excuse me for thinking people wouldn't take that the wrong way. I'm sorry if I did offend anyone in any way, but I'm fairly sure I didn't. I also think people were taking what I was saying out of context.

What I was trying to say was, a game like Skyrim and Crysis look better due to the higher graphic quality and definition.A game that is made of pixels is bound to look worst than a game that took very large industries years to make. It looks more realistic. Therefore, in my opinion, making it look better.

That's my take on the subject, and, like I said, I hope I didn't offend anyone stating my opinion. I guess it just came out wrong. I didn't mean it in the context that you were putting it.

 

Oh i belive KAG already have plenty of content to warrant a spot in the bundle... ;)

 

When I think content I think of what the whole game has to offer... building, teamwork, combat, gamemodes, modding and yes... hats. so I think it got plenty already. And with the upcoming zombie mode even moreso! :D

 

Oh... so thats what you meant.... oh well.....

 

No to ads. They are not needed. Last I heard that 3,000 people bought this game. Thats 30,000 dollars in a few months. Thats plenty of money to hold them over for a while. Ad revenue, unless traffic was substantial, is pissing in the ocean. Compare the impact on the service and website to how much money you make from ads in an operation of this size and the cost is just not worth it.

It does not look professional to have ads on your website, unless your website is specifically tailored as a free website for the purpose of generating page views E.G. Cracked.com Reddit.com Digg.com. or news websites. When you are selling a product or service you should keep your website ad free if possible.

As for monetization of KAG I think its pretty good as is. Free to play, with option of 10$. If they wanted to extend this monetization I would say create official head artwork packs. Say 10 heads for 4$.

Charity Auction is a little misleading. Though an alright idea. Not fantastic but yeah.

I don't agree with changing the price of KAG. I already think its retardedly overpriced as it is. 25$? It should be around the 15$ mark. Valve has extensive data that back up the idea that, especially in the PC market, if you lower the price you actually increase revenue. With the biggest gains being around the 15-5 range. The sort of mentality of "Fuck it, its Five dollars"

Kag tournaments wont work. Just no i'm afraid. Plush toys and t-shirts might.

 

I disagree with that. Some websites can easily look professional with ads at the same time. I also think people who make a fuss about ads are kind of being selfish. They're just ads, just avert your eyes! It's as simple as looking away from them if you don't like them! Besides some ads, like ads for game websites are actually worth clicking on to have a look.

 

Sure, totally. Website can look fine if they have ads.

Here are some examples.
http://www.newgrounds.com/
http://www.cracked.com/
http://www.reddit.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.kongregate.com/

The thing these all have in common are a large volume of users. Easily in the millions of pageviews per week. They are also not directly trying to sell you something. Lets look at other game developers website. Including Large devs and indie devs.

http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/index.php?cn=ukeng No ads. Large funding. Large user base. Direct Purchase
http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/ No ads. Large funding. Massive user base. Direct Purchase
http://spacepiratesandzombies.com/ Indie. No ads. Little to no funding. Medium user base. Direct Purchase
http://www.frozensynapse.com/ Indie. No ads. Little to no funding. Medium user base. Direct Purchase.
http://www.minecraft.net/ Indie. No ads. Little to no funding. Massive User base. Direct Purchase.
http://fateoftheworld.net/ Indie. No ads. Little to no funding. Uknown user base. Direct Purchase.
http://dungeondefenders.com/ Indie. No ads. Little to no funding. Large user base. Direct Purchase.

What do these have in common?

Well the first thing is gamers are their primary audience. And if being a gamer around other gamers has taught me anything over the years its that gamers by and large hate ads. I'm not saying ads are unprofessional but you have to keep in mind the context of the product and the user. In the gaming market, games that generate revenue by advertisement are tarred with the same brush as mediocre to terrible free to play games that nobody really likes except a hardcore fanbase. Gamers over the years have come to expect not to see ads on reputable and professional game sites. It comes from the mentality of "If I've already payed for this service, why am I forced to watch ads?" That is my argument.

 

Fair enough. I guess i'm one of the few that can look past the fact a website has ads and say to myself "We're visiting a website for free, that privilege comes with a price." The buying of the game does not affect the cost of people going on the website and simply leaving without buying anything. At the end of the day, a website with lots of viewers with ads is the same as a website with few viewers with ads. My opinion of the ads themselves doesn't change just because it's on a different website. "I hate this ad here, but on newgrounds it's fine" doesn't make any sense.

 

Indeed. I agree with you. The mentality of gamers at large is something to be considered however before that step is taken.

Things like people getting turned away before buying because they see ads and think this game is not worth their time are not quantifiable but should be considered before a step is taken.

The whole "I hate this ad here, but on newgrounds its fine" comes how people mentally categorize websites at a glance. Newgrounds is dedicated to providing a free service and generates most of their revenue from ads. King Arthurs Gold does indeed provide a free service but the actualy framework of the website and the userbase is vasly different. I just think these things should be considered before ads are slapped up on the website. Having ads on the website can lead to customer service complaints against a specific ad that is intrusive. It also reduces the sites security for the average browser. Theres more to throwing ads on a website than just the monetary considerations.

The cause is noble, but the methods may be counter productive.

 

I think it really depends on the ads, if your advertising on behalf of for example a reputable independent software progarmmers, say if you were advertising AVG or something like that, that's not gonna turn people away the a massive pop up advert for penisland.com will.

With regards to the indie bundle they include alot of unfinished games in one way or another, there's been a few games that are still in development and a couple of unfinished games that development has been stopped on. Either way after the next release there's gonna be plenty of premium content to make it seem worthwhile.

 

I think Google ads make a good 'user friendly' ad - they are unobtrusive, non-flash and easily ignored - whilst at the same time being accurate (as they use your recent searches to advertise relevant products - after searching for a specific watch on google I was subjected to watch ads for a couple of months on the sites I often visit) for the user in question - so you don't get 100% sex ads on a computer game site - each visitor gets relevant ads for them. Of course, I've never used these ads - and so don't know if they pay well/terrible compared to the competition.

 

Don't know if anyone has said this yet, but, here is my Idea
Semi-custom shirts.
favorite team+favorite hat+favorite class+$20= so much money
even if its just the original three classes and two team colors, I would buy three pumpkin heads, one per OG class, preferably in sexy purple, they don't even have to pose, just the neutral sprite blown up would be so great

 

That sounds quite nice. I would definitely buy builder santa in the pose where he stands his hammer on the ground, or maybe a knight with that one knight hat which has a name of some sort but I do not know what it is.
The one with the bars.

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/
anyone thought of using this?

 

I'm going to be honest, a lot of these ideas don't really work well with the current setup of KAG. I'll offer a bit of my own spin on a few of the ideas:

1.) Character customization would be nice, but as it stands this game needs far more meat on its bones before Geti and MM should really worry about it. Stronger mechanics and more varied play are key here, and they've shown great commitment to this. Would I mind paying $20 for bafmodads to look LIKE A BAWSS? No. Should it be prioritized over the fact that I've paid them $10 for what is essentially a game in huge development? No.

2.) Advertisements, in the way of video games, misplace trust with the consumer- and potentially draws them away to check out other stuff. Advertisements are supposed to do that by their nature. So what's to stop an ad provider from putting up a game in an ad slot, that they get paid for in the short term, but hurts their long term profitability? Not much. I am leery of this idea.

3.) Real life KAG merchandise would be novel, but may not prove to be the funding kickstart that we'd love to see KAG get. The real problem comes with the fact that sites like Cafepress are a business as well, and they are masters in their domain- that is to say you're not going to to get too much out of them. It would merely add another thing to worry about and give them very little they could control.

5.) Whoring is the only sensible route in the short term, but I don't want MM or Geti to end up with herpes. That and let's face it, neither of them would last long without a strong pimp to stable them and provide a pimpslap when needed. I'd volunteer, but alas. My current job doesn't take kindly to being a pimp. D:

 

Welcome to the thread, Terry.

My 2 cents worth is to say that running tournaments, awarding premium to the winners, is probably the best way to drive sales. Merch is cool, too, tho I haven't made up my mind on designs quite yet. Thirdly, and this one is a little riskier, but investing in other games, perhaps with similar gameplay mechanics or developer ideologies, and thus tapping into a like-minded community, is also a "good idea".

I would stop playing if money paid became a gameplay mechanic. #classism



...more brainstorming...
aside from a gameplay tournament, mapmaker competitions can also be held under similar pretenses.
paid *servers*, where proceeds are divided into developers costs and server costs. Join privileges may also be awarded via tournaments and competitions.
grants. If there aren't any 'gamemaker' grants within your jurisdiction, there must certainly be a 'small business' grant you can apply for.

One more thing!

Geti,

Artistic commissions can drive product sales or donations. This is largely how Bay12 Games (Dwarf Fortress) stays afloat, and they practically spearheaded 'alpha funding', as we know it.

 

US only? You mean you have to be registered in the US to use it? Or that anyone that uses it at all has to be from the US? Seems I'm cool to use it cos I was just about to throw some money at the already 300% funded new point and click development from the completely fucking legendery Ron Gilbert/Tim Schafer and t even mentions that you have to donate an extra 10 dollars for international shipping of their limited edition poster, so seems it's ok for international users at the least.