Pay-per-play games, and make $1,000

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://overloaded.pocketmatrix.com/">http://overloaded.pocketmatrix.com/</a><br /><br />I don't really know how to categorize this post... It can be both "SOFTWARE", and "DEVELOPER". I got a mail from Jacco Bikker, member of the Overloaded Games team. Overloaded Games are ramping up a pay-per-play initiative and they are looking for game developers in search of dough:<br /><br />"The games division of Overloaded is creating games that will be played on a pay-per-play basis. This means that users pay for each time they hit the 'start' button; cost of a game is typically 38 eurocents. ... Overloaded games are different, and not just because of the payment method. Overloaded games are connected: You will be able to play against other humans, chat with them, upload your own user levels and compete for real prices. ... This is where you come in. Overloaded is about to release it's game library, the 'Overloaded Game Foundation'. This library is based on EasyCE, the library used for The Nutcracker, Crystal Balls and MeltDown, as well as many other games. ... We invite you to take this library and build games with it. Before we get to the details, let's get to the interesting bit: We pay you $1000 (USD) for each game that you make with our library as soon as it is approved by us. Or, we pay you $500, and you share in the revenues. The latter deal is better for you. But don't trust us, you're welcome to take that $1000 cheque."<br /><br />I wonder if pay-per-play will take off anytime soon. It will be quite interesting to see if Overloaded Games takes off! Good luck!

[Speed Racer]

Personally the idea of having to pay use a program that is installed on your PDA doesn't sit well with me. As a kid I pumped a small fortune of quarters into arcade games. I stopped wasting money in that fashion when gaming consoles evolved beyond Atari and Intellivision. My preferance is to pay for something up front so that there are no hidden costs latter and the fact that the cost of ownership is fixed. I wish them the best of luck but I can't see myself playing their games.

[Joff]

Yes, good luck to them. But I will not pay what would seem to be a double fee. You must first pay for your internet use. And on top, you'd pay for playing. No thanks. There are already plenty of games I can play online without a fee.

[Kre]

Yeah, I third that. Who wants to mess with micropayments every time they flip on their device and want to play. Too complicated. Not to mention, no game or any piece of software is worth that kind of trouble and expense. Pay once and play/use forever is the only way to go.

[Paragon]

Never, absolutely not, no way, uh na, why would I, don't even think it, it's a stupid idea. I hate this whole .Get thing. I will gladly pay someone once for a product, but to be continually gouged for the right ain't never gona sit well with me. Never!

Dave

[Jason Dunn]

It only makes sense to me if the price for playing it moderately over a year was basically the same as buying it in the first place. That way, it's not actually costing me more. I don't have a problem with "pay as you play" as long as it's not more expensive than buying the thing outright (or perhaps only marginally so). With wireless data, however, it's worse - since you're likely already paying by the KB, why would you want to pay twice? They have an uphill battle here.

[jlp]

Pay per play was DiVX workhorse. Before it was grabbed by the underground scene to refer to the video compression algorhythm you certainly heard of, DiVX referred to a DVD derived video disk system that was designed by a consumer electronic chain store and a law agency (can't remember which tho): they did sell modified versions of DVD players one had to plug into their phone line to dial the central database each time you inserted a DiVX movie disc. Those discs where quite cheap, but you could only watch them once for "free"; for each subsequent viewing the system would charge you, again and again.

The system lasted a few months and now all those disks are worthless and unusable pieces of plastic, because since they pulled the plug on that project, DiVX discs don't play anymore.

This is when and why DiVX was ironically used to refer to the compression algorhythm and file format used today, especially to compress a DVD movie disk so as to be able to fit the whole movie on a regular CD.

Anyway it never worked, and as I can read here people don't want this either for games, tho phone operators might want to use it for their cellphone based games to drive people to use more and more of their services.

Buyers beware!!!

[Joff]

Yeah, jlp could be right. Phone operators would most certainly exploit this pay-per-play market. In my view, it is feasible that mobile users would be willing to pay a few pennies for games, even basic stuffs like SMS-based gaming.

I hate this. On one side you have poeple like me who grew-up with computers and played many great games for a flat fee. On the other side you have mobile junkies who are happy to pay even for the most basic crappy games. My fear is that mobile operator will never offer us a fair deal for unlimited internet use. They would rather prefer charging us for dedicated services which the intenet would offer you free of charge, like game servers. :cry: