Jolt Country

I sold a bunch of keys to a bundle site a while back. They paid me, the game was in a bundle.... the key flow to reseller sites started. Okay.

The bundle said they would pay me for unused keys. I said sure. I got paid, I sent them some keys, they put it in another bundles.

Everything they did up to this point was supportive. And great! They have shown me more financial love in a few months than literally any other process in the entire 20 years I have been making games. So this is not a complaint, just an observation.

One of the things they are doing is giving people some concept of scratch off tickets. You do something on their site, I don't know what, and get a mystery game. And one guy posted on a game forum that he got Cryptozookeeper. He then expressed a negative opinion about the scratchers. Which, hey, I get - text adventures ain't everyone's genre.

But it's a little odd to me that the thing I made is being used in this manner. They didn't mention it. Again, not really complaining, they can do whatever they want and they "paid the developer." But just something to note.

(I wouldn't put the next one on a bundle. I don't think the bundle site sold any keys to the resellers, why would they? The resellers can get 8 keys for a buck and then undercut the developers on their site.

Conclusion:

Fuck the Bundle site.

Jizaboz wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:38 am Conclusion:

Fuck the Bundle site.

I have a suspicion that's not going to feel very good, or be much fun. Stick to women (or men, if you go that way.)

If you've thought this far ahead, how do you plan on handling the release of Cyberganked? Will it be available both for free on your website and sold on Steam like Cryptozookeeper or will it just be a commercial release? Personally, I feel like you've worked long enough on it that you should get some kind of return on the time investment (no matter how pitiful) so I'd vote for a commercial release at least for the first year or two. Fewer people would play the game, but I bet you'd get more sales if it was only available commercially for a while. Admittedly, we are talking about a text game here so "more sales" could end up being 3 or 4.

Psychologically, I have to admit it can be a bit difficult to pay for IF when you've been playing it for so long for free. I can remember having fierce internal debates as to whether or not I should register Michael Zerbo's The Child Murderer back in the 90s. On one hand, there was a child murderer on the loose and he needed to be stopped. On the other hand, I had originally downloaded what I thought was a complete adventure but it turned out to be little more than a demo and a sales pitch so I wasn't a huge fan of Zerbo's marketing methods. Ultimately, I ended up not buying it for better or for worse. Since The Child Murderer is available now for free, there's still time for me to gain a partial redemption. While I remember the game had graphics, I did not remember it as being a point and click adventure somehow, and I also had no idea there was an Amiga version with a different ending.

Yeah, with all the effort I put into it, I have no trouble charging something for it, more than ten and less than 20. If someone's in a spot like Tdarcos where they are on a budget I'd just give him a Steam key. There's a ton of people who have helped me make it and I'll ensure they can play it. But after that, well, I don't know, I have been supporting the projects of people who I know or vaguely know financially for a long time and I've never had someone say, hey, I'm charging people for this but here's a copy since you're such a COOL DUDE. But knowing how the keys go (the bundle site is now also just plain selling the game at the same price it's at for Steam) I would avoid all the bundle stuff for Cyberganked. It wasn't a completely negative experience, but I feel they do prey a LITTLE on dudes doing this without knowing the all the effects.