Can games made with AGS be sold?

[ramon82]

I think this might be a direct question to Chris Jones.

Can anyone answer it? cos I personally I dont know

Thanks

[Gilbert]

It's clearly stated in the FAQ section of the manual.

Q. What's the deal with the license? What does it mean in plain English?

A. Adventure Game Studio is now pretty much freeware. That means you may use it freely for non-commerical games, and you don't have to send me anything in return. There is one requirement - if you want to SELL a game you make, for profit, then you must contact me beforehand as there are some licensing issues which you may need to be aware of. When you finish your game, feel free to post it on the AGS Announcements forum so that everyone can give it a go.

Also, there're already several commercial AGS games made.

[GarageGothic]

The licensing issues in question is that you cannot use mp3 codecs in your game (unless you want to buy a license from Frauenhofer who own the format). So you'll have to compile your game with the mp3-less version of the editor. This is not really a problem since ogg vorbis offers superior audio compression anyway.

[Gamer_V]

The real question is 'Do people want to buy your games.' 

[ramon82]

The real question is 'Do people want to buy your games.' 

i am still learning how to use AGS 

[space boy]

The real question is 'Do people want to buy your games.' 

Only if it's the best gane i the world.

[Hudders]

The real question is 'Do people want to buy your games.' 

Only if it's the best gane i the world.

You mean, like something with a penguin in it? Possibly with some kind of laser attachment...?

[vertigoaddict]

no, just a complex storyline which seems out of place at first but starts to come together and has a few twists at the end and suceed in not becoming too complicated. A full-length game with every genre, has amazingly beautiful graphics and interesting characters. Oh, and multiple playback value.

[ramon82]

I dont think that great gfx are a must. If a game has interesting puzzles which are not boring and nice storyline it has the right ingredients.

Right now I am scripting the storyline and drawing some sketches. Should be starting development soon.  :

[JpGames]

mp3? thats the only trouble? So if i dont use Mp3 on my game i can sell it without problems or restrictions?

Of course mp3 its not a big problem. Really, its not a problem at all.

JpGames

[Steel Drummer]

Well it's more than just that... I mean- if your game's crap, no one's going to want to buy it.

[JpGames]

Are you sure? Millions of people pays $ 3 for really sample games for their mobile phones. More millions pays $ 1-2 for things like just 1 porn video. And thousands just copeerate with some $ to some free MMORG's (like astrowars, for example).

The key? all this payments can be made in a very easy way, usually with a phone message or using PayPal. I believe that if you can find a easy way for the people to pay your game, you can sell it for some money if your game is only NOT BAD (3-5 $). Maybe you will not be rich, but at least you will feel the satisfaction to get something for your work (when usually the game maker is just looking for personal satisfaction, not for money)

Of course, you need create the game, then probably translate it into multiple languages and finally create a place to sell it in internet (create a webpage, stablish payments methods, etc). The cost? Thousands of $$ !! Of course, you need sell too many games to recover that money, and usually no one can or want take the risk to lost money. Specially, when usually the creator have the feeling that the quality of the game is not enough to pay for it.

Just a thoungt. We are creating a full-lenght game and we stimate that it will cost around $ 3,000 before we finish it, without calculate hundreds of hours of self-work. We want make it commercial, but we dont expect win money, just, if possible, recover some bucks to create the next one.

JpGames

[Steel Drummer]

Are you sure? Millions of people pays $ 3 for really sample games for their mobile phones. More millions pays $ 1-2 for things like just 1 porn video. And thousands just copeerate with some $ to some free MMORG's (like astrowars, for example).

That's true, I guess; but those mobile phone games aren't adventure games- they're platformer and action-style games. If you want to make a commercial adventure game, it has to at least be decent in order for you to expect money from it. For example: Herculean Effort's latest game, Super Jazz Man sold for 5 or 6 bucks (or a few more than that, I forget how much it cost). The game was very polished, with high quality gfx and music, and it sold for a very low price. 

Just a thoungt. We are creating a full-lenght game and we stimate that it will cost around $ 3,000 before we finish it, without calculate hundreds of hours of self-work. We want make it commercial, but we dont expect win money, just, if possible, recover some bucks to create the next one.

Well I've seen some of your work in the CL, and no offense, but I don't think that it would cost $3,000 to make that kind of art.
And without even playing your first game, I noticed the sprites ripped from another game- that's a big no-no if you're planning on selling a commercial game. 

[JpGames]

 

Well I've seen some of your work in the CL, and no offense, but I don't think that it would cost $3,000 to make that kind of art.
And without even playing your first game, I noticed the sprites ripped from another game- that's a big no-no if you're planning on selling a commercial game. 

Thats the reason why we are wasting money: creating the graphics. We found a young local artist and he is creating the BGs, chars and animations. Any 320x200 BG (really good quality)costs around $15, and the game needs 116 !! The game also have 13 chars, all full animated, and around 100 animations. We also need someone who translate it into english, and it will cost around $300-400 more (more than 2000 lines of dialogs only). We were lucky to find an artist so cheap! Only creating the BGs for the intro and some chars and animations we spendt more than $700 .

Of course, we could create the BGs ourselves (like in our first game) and take some chars from the juncmodule collection (as we did in our first game), but then it will be not a commercial-quality game (again, as our first game was) Paul Quest was created only to begin using AGS, and we maked it in only 9 days (thanks again to the people who helped us in the forums) But like i were trying to explain before, to create a good game, you need spend money, and you will VERY PROBABLY not win nothing for that even, if you sell your final product. But im sure that you could sell some copys. Thats the point.

Lucky, a fan game maker do not create games for money, just for the satisfaction to know that someone else could play and enjoy his game.

JpGames

[ildu]

Art costs loads more than that, too. An hourly rate for a graphic designer is often over $40/hour, especially if you're freelancing. And personally I would say creating a really good-quality bg takes at least a working day (8h) to accomplish. $15 in euros is roughly 12e, which is a pretty standard hourly pay for starting workers (at least in Finland).

[JpGames]

Art costs loads more than that, too. An hourly rate for a graphic designer is often over $40/hour, especially if you're freelancing. And personally I would say creating a really good-quality bg takes at least a working day (8h) to accomplish. $15 in euros is roughly 12e, which is a pretty standard hourly pay for starting workers (at least in Finland).

Venezuela economy: Here you could win 40 $ weekly in a job, maybe 80-100 $ if you are professional. The artist who is working for our game have his own job (not as an artist, of course) where he win around 50 $ weekly, so he win an extra money creating graphics for our game. Also, we found him via a common friend, so he agreed to cooperate for that money.

Here, if you win 40 $/hour in your job you are REALLY RICH, and REALLY LUCKY 

JpGames

[ildu]

I checked and I found out that the minimum wage in Venezuela is around 614,790.00 VEB = 286.669 USD per month. So you should be getting at least some $70 per week no matter what you do (if you work full time). That's still very low for a minimum wage. It's a third of the official US minimum wage, and that's already considered very low in a civilized country. But I guess living expenses aren't that high in Venezuela?

[SpacePirateCaine]

To comment on the previous comment regarding cellphone games - the reason that people are more willing to shell out cash for their cell games is this: It's difficult to get a game on your cellphone without doing so. There is an overabundance of computer games. The market is essentially saturated, so if you want a computer game, it's very likely that you'll be able to find one that's free that also is as good as a fair number of commercial games. People are becoming less and less inclined to pay for a product when the alternative is so much less costly.

Now, this isn't to say that cell phone games are impossible to get for free - it's possible to program a cell phone game and upload it to your phone through a data transfer wire (or at least that seems to be the case here in Japan, but the actual rate of free cell games to pay games is astronomically low. Once cell games become more accessible - which is to say, when people figure out how to get cell games without paying one way or another, the sales of cell games will drop.

Another thing that cell games have going for them is that they're portable. It's not to say that I can't take my laptop with me to work and open it up to play an AGS game during my lunch break, but the cell phone is a lot more convenient because it fits in my shirt pocket, not to mention that it's less conspicuous. So I'm more likely to pay for a game on a cell phone in order to have something I can play while I'm sitting on the train, or waiting for a friend. That's the charm of portable game systems. I bought a Nintendo DS instead of a console, for example, because the DS I can play anywhere, but the console is anchored to my house, for all intents and purposes.

Now, as far as selling games is concerned, there has been no shortage of conversation on the topic, but what I believe it boils down to is that a game will do well depending on its demographic. You're likely to make most of your sales of AGS games within the AGS community, I imagine because we're slightly more willing to pay a little extra for a game in order to 'support the community'. I'm still planning on buying copies of 'The Shivah' and 'The Blackwell Legacy', once I've got a little extra space on the ol' credit card, though it's entirely possible that they'll remain largely unplayed (not because I don't enjoy them, but because I don't have time to play games at home so much anymore).

[vict0r]

Just google "free mobile java games" or something and you'll be able to download games to your computer and from there to your cellphone via bluetooth or some cable.

[manored]

Since there are some very good adventure games for free around here, your one must be THE GAME for you to profit from it And I fear it means that it must kick *&% in ever aspect possible.