I don't like the idea of TDC turning into a selling platform. I have several reasons for not liking the idea, and I also have several suggestions to make such an idea more feasible.
Selling the Games
I take issue with selling games because for most people, it is just a hobby. Being just a hobby, there are a great many games that are garbage that are on the site. There are a select few games that I find would be worth paying for, and a bit more that are worth having on the site. If you let people start selling games, then you start running into the issue of quality control (QC). When you start doing QC, two things happen: Better quality games pop up more frequently; Users with lower quality games start to get offended. Another issue with QC is that there has to be some standard for approval, such as a judging panel or several benchmarks. How do the judges, benchmarks, or whatever the criteria may be, get chosen? Can those judges/benchmarks/etc be relied upon to complete the task? A final issue I see with QC is that it must be implemented. If it isn't, then any schmoe with a crappy game will sell it. It would be good for supporting the site, but equally (if not worse) as bad for the site's reputation.
Personally, I think a quality control system would work as follows: An author makes a project page for their game. From the project page, as an admin, they are able to purchase a license from the TDC store (using points) that lets them sell that project; This license would have to cost more than the amount of points given for starting a project page, perhaps 250 points. Then, as the game is completed, the retail version is submitted to a panel of judges who play, review, and grade the game in question. If the game passes, then it is put up on the site for an appropriate amount. If the judges deem it as being a bad game, but able to meet their criteria, then the author may go back and revise their game for resubmission. If the judges say the game is absolute garbage, then the game is rejected for commercial use and a percentage of the points (60%, for example) used to acquire the license are refunded.
Here's what the proposed QC system ideally accomplishes: Users are invited to participate on the site more often, as they are required to start a project page for their game to buy a license to sell it. As they need DC points to buy the license, and more points than starting a project awards, they will need to partake in other ways to get the points to fund their license; Posting on the forum, submitting articles, etc. This can lead to unnecessary spamming, but points are removed when posts/threads are deleted anyways (right?). Now, because they have a license, they're granted a spot in a queue for the judging process. It's obvious what the judging process is for. If their game is denied, for being garbage and not worth resubmitting or whatever, then the user only gets a fraction of their points refunded from buying the license. What this reduced refund does is encourage people to produce the best games they can. If they purposely submit crap, then they have to spend more time on the site in order to be able to purchase another license.
DRM
I take issue with DRM for two simple reasons: It sucks; It doesn't work. DRM, in it's best incarnation, works by validating your copy of the game that you purchased, whenever you start the game up; You just have to be online to validate your copy. Steam does this, and for the most part it works. The issue with this "best method" is that when the Steam authentication servers go down, you can't play your game. When Steam finally goes offline, you can't play any of the games you bought. When you don't have internet access, you can't play of the games you bought. Another "best method" for DRM exists for the Xbox 360. You buy a game (or premium content), download it, and then you can play it, online or offline. At it's core, XBL's DRM just provides you with two licenses to play the content: One for the Xbox that the content was purchased on, and one for the gamertag that was used to make the purchase. A problem with this method is that you can share the content with one friend by buying the content on their Xbox using your gamertag, granting them the "box license" while you get the "gamertag license." In a way, I'd say this method is better than Valve's method. You can continue to play your content long after the authentication servers are gone, and you still access the content if you're playing on another Xbox.
But DRM goes beyond it's implementation on the user. Sure, games can be authenticated however you want, but there's still something missing from the equation: The server to do the authenticating. How many people are willing to buy a server, set it up, and code a DRM system for it? Granted, one game developer only has to buy a server once. But will the profits of the game offset the cost of maintaining the server? Most people, with game development being a hobby, would have to buy the server out of their own pocket. Then there are the costs of just running the server after it has been purchased to consider. The server will have to be turned on all the time, so the electricity bill will go up. The server will have constant access to the internet, so the internet bill will go up. Some ISPs will not allow a server to be run on a residential-grade connection, so there is the start-up cost of upgrading the connection to consider. Then, depending on how popular the game is and how big the authenication codes are, there are bandwidth costs associated with the system, too.
There is one final reason why DRM is just a bad idea for Klik games, and another reason I take issue with selling games...
The Daily Click
Yes, the site is one of the reasons I take issue with selling games on TDC. It isn't that I wouldn't want to support the site if I sold a game, it's that TDC doesn't do anything. TDC is a do-nothing third party. I would not be willing to support TDC if all the site does is give me a way to sell my game. And why should I? TDC doesn't host any of the games, as far as I can see, listed on the downloads page. Articles, project pages, and forums are great and all, but if I have to find a place to host my game then I'm not going to share my profits with a site that redirects to my game. This is also why DRM won't work, because TDC has no say in what can and can't be regulated on someone else's server.
TDC is a great site, but it all it does is point to another site for downloads. There are no bandwidth fees incurred for letting users download off of other servers. I take issue with that. I would not share profits with a site that uses the bandwidth of other sites. I'd rather share my profits with the site that is actually using the bandwidth to serve the game. Leeching (and profitting) off of other people's bandwidth is wrong. I don't take issue with the ads on TDC, because those are shown in the forums, and posting on the forums uses TDC's bandwidth.
There's a simple way to address this. TDC just needs to host the commercial games on it's own server. Ideally, all games listed on TDC would be hosted on the TDC server, but that's probably asking too much. With TDC serving up games from it's own server, a DRM server (also hosted by TDC) is perfectly legitimate.
TDC doesnt have to turn into a selling platform. It can contain one, using the built-in audience. People who wanna do this for free just do so, people who have to pay the rent or pay for their kids can use the platform as a way to make a bit of money and help the site at the same time.
Have people 'log in' with their TDC account to act as DRM. But only require a log in if you're using a new computer. If the computer (ie specs) changes then have it request another log in. I doubt people would be willing to share their TDC account info around so that will prevent it being shared. An admin could come up with an SDK or frame to drop into games to support this.
But it fails because a lot of guests download games too.
If this would ever happen in the first place TDC would still be 98% a free site you would prob not even know anything changed apart from the fact the following:
Take for example Stevens turning the tide game would now contain a "Buy me now and support the site" button under the download link, the buy me now button would bring you to the "bmt micro" payment site options were the author gets paid and tdc receives a small cut. When you would submit your game to our site you would have the abbility to check mark the "Bmt micro affilate" mark so the buy me now button would appear on the downloads page.
This would only be for people who were already going to sell their games in the first place or already doing so. Now we are just helping them get more coverage and get a small cut for it to to help keep the site alive, 2 big plusses for both sides. It is actually a great idea and should have been done much sooner if you ask me.
Edited by an Administrator
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I see what you mean Rikus. I don't think it would change much anyways since a few games here are not freeware already.
And it's just an idea in a s**tstorm of other ideas but what about selling TDC edition games, like get popular freeware games here and having a paid version with a few extra levels/features or whatever. It doesn't have to be much extra work for the devs either. I'd certainly buy an extended version of some of the freeware games here. Even though I might be in some tiny minority
Rikus is totally right. I might add that it would get more people to try to sell their games because of the help of TDC, which can be a good thing. The community is old enough to have a selling platform.
Aha... so if this system is implemented, it will only affect the games that are already being sold in the first place? That sounds a lot more manageable than going through the trouble of implementing an official Quality Control system.
So let's suppose someone makes a game with MMF2 and decides to sell it while telling people at TDC about it. Under normal circumstances, the most their game would receive is a mention on the front page if it's sweet enough. But with this system, the developer would have the option of getting their game extra exposure/coverage on the site in exchange for a cut of the profits, yes'm?
That being the case, i'm starting to warm up to it. It kinda reminds me of what's going on with Clickteam's front page. Two games - Moonlight Sonatas and Cy-Clone - have been sitting up on their front page for quite a long time now, and goodness knows how many people have seen the games up there. Matter of fact... what if people who submitted commerical games to TDC got their own little spot in the Daily Spotlight? If enough games are submitted in this manner, perhaps the spotlight could be tweaked to rotate through all of the commercial games randomly every time the front page is loaded.
Exactly. I think we all agree. People use TDC to get coverage anyways. Let's have them support us. If they want to of course. Maybe... require a free demo to insure quality control?
I'm going say that we need to stay as a free games platform - the thing we should concentrate on is reducing our bandwidth, which isn't being helped by using ASP (plus a lot of the site was coded 5+ years ago, and could do with re-coding, in my opinion).
I really do think that re-coding the site in PHP will help a lot - though it will take a lot of hard work and a lot of time. Clubby may disagree with me though (I'm not really sure how much ASP has an effect on bandwidth and such, I'm sure Clubby will have a better opinion). I just think that TDC has been a place where games have been free, and I think it would be a shame to change that.
Originally Posted by Rikus I think some people are confused.
If this would ever happen in the first place TDC would still be 98% a free site you would prob not even know anything changed apart from the fact the following:
I think you're confused. I know you didn't address me in particular (mostly because 'some people' is such a great weasel word), but regardless.
When I say "selling platform" I don't mean "turn TDC into a 100% premium, pay-to-download site," because that's fucking retarded. Why? Because whenever money is involved in a way that is absolutely mandatory, everything that is wrong with a site suddenly becomes much worse.
But even if you involve money in a speculated 2% of content to support the other 98% of content, then you're pretty much becoming a business. And if you're going to dabble in business, then you better do it right, or the business will fold.
Flava I think you are missing the point, the site will remain free. Really you will not see much of a difference other then the fact that the people who sell their games commercially now like turning the tide will be able to have a a "buy me now" button on the download page instead of a user trying to find its way to the devlopers site they can now just click that if they like a game atfer playing the demo and want to buy it.This would give the author more exposure to potential new people and while doing so tdc gets a cut from that sale.
Thats it, all other free games will still be here, only difference being if someone decides for themselves to sell their A+ game they can now get some more support from us and we get something in return to.
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