This seems like a natural follow on from this topic: http://www.collective-endeavour.com/node/401

My feeling is that if I can get the final or near-final version of a game for free then I will do that rather than buy it.

I know that some games have a free HTML version under, say, the Creative Commons and then charge for print. That might work.

But still, having the actual game available for free on the internet seems to kill sales. Anyone?

Vincent Baker developed DiTV online but was careful to remove the testing versions (and keep the development forums hidden) before release. It was a reasonably public development and that built interest. Vincent then made sure he kept the word out there on the net about the book before release.

I'm planning on giving away a free version of Monkey: The Storytelling game of the Journey to the West, which I'm currently working on at Furnace to about the 40-70 attendees. The idea being that it creates a little buzz about the game and gets more people to play test the game and comment on the rules, before I publish the final version in Summer 2008.

Similiarly I'm also tinkering with the Mongoose SRD to create a simplified version, which I'm calling SimpleQuest. The plan here is to publish the SQ SRD, which is the complete game without examples, flavour text, setting info and detailed explainatin, as Open Gaming Content via my website (when set up), again to gather feedback and create a buzz.

I see this advantagous in many ways.

1. I'm not a big established company or author with a reputation. I need to generate interest in what I'm doing.

2. Its not like I'm giving the final game that I've spent many hours on. For example Monkey is going to have the full character gen and rules, but not the masses of setting info I'm going to write up (mainly because its not written yet!!!)

So overall I see giving 'beta versions of a game' away as a preview that gets people interested, starts developing a player base and hopefully gathers some feedback. However I would always keep something back for the final release, if for nothing else to keep people who have been following the game early on interested.

Regards

;O)Newt
D101games -An Imaginary Company
Come to Furnace Sheffield 20-21 Oct 2007, gowan Andrew Kenrick is !

I think Paul Czege said that having Bacchanal online undercuts his print sales: and forces him to underprice the print version.

Graham

IMHO, if I(we) can get it for free why would we pay for it... Notice the rise of pirated CD/DVD and torrents. What you want to do is develop buzz without giving it away. But, posting it as you describe will almost certainly undercut sales by at least 30%.

Is there a way to post a slim episode (without all the bells and whistles) which would allows you the feedback needed for development without giving away all the mechanics/functionalities?

At the moment it is just going out to playtest groups I trust and is not hosted anywhere other than gamechef, which most people dont pay attention to outside of the competition.

thanks for the feedback guys, I think it will be best if I keep StitcH under wraps for now.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

But not too under wraps! Even if you don't post the complete manuscript, make sure you talk about those playtests and talk about the various design steps you're taking.

Yes sir! Will do though, advice taken on board and I have learnt a lot from the MJ process. Which I will also talk about.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

Hope I won't get into trouble for resurrecting an old thread ...

I've had the same dilemma with Solipsist. We have this nice PDF which is the same as the Gencon Ashcan, which in turn is the whole game, background and all (as it was before playtest feedback started anyway). So if I give away that PDF I've given away everything, including all of what Gregor calls the 'value added' stuff, like background, examples, sidebars, graphics and so on.

What I'm currently doing is making available a cut down PDF instead that has only the introduction and the rules. This doesn't have all the examples, quotes, graphics, notes and so on. So far that seems to be mostly working (though I shot myself in the foot by adding more rules in the Shadows chapter).

That still has some problems though. A lot of feedback is about proofreading, or the quality of examples, or how the book as a whole is put together, and you miss all of that with the limited PDF.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

TSOY is available in CC version online, perhaps Clint could be consulted on the effect on sales.

Dying Earth was released in a light version that was so good that you hardly needed the full book to
play the game. There is some evidence that this harmed sales - mostly from people saying what I've
just said.