Re: Can I make money by writing IF?


9 Dec 1995 18:29:01 GMT

In article <19951205.010700.68@arnod.arnod.demon.co.uk>,
Julian Arnold <raiffaq@arnod.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I wonder, would it be terribly rude of me to ask shareware authors to mail me
>a few specific details? Two or three people have done so already, and it's
>interesting to note that, although their respective games have different
>pricetags attached, the total profit for each one is nearly the same. I'd
>quite like to see if this phenomenon occurs on a large scale (if not, is
>there a "price which gives the best returns"? Popular opinion seems to put
>this at around the $10-$15 mark, but perhaps it's elsewhere), and then
>perhaps include the results in the FAQ as a guide for future shareware
>authors. This might also allow me to check out the theory that prices under
>$n are considered "not worth the bother of paying".
>
>Anyway, bearing in mind that I would be completely discreet, not mentioning
>any names or anything, could shareware authors send me a few details?
>
>What is the pricetag on your game?
>How many registrations have you had?
>What is the total profit from your game?
>For how long has your game been released?
>Could you give an idea of the frequency of registrations vs. age of your
>game? (i.e., what is the shelf-life of shareware IF?)

No need to be private. I like to air my grudges publicly. :)

In 1990 I wrote a shareware X-windows game, Xasteroids, which has been very
successful. I've received hundreds of email letters thanking me or requesting
help compiling it. I've had it republished on 2 CD-ROMs, with the shareware
notice. One of these, in Japan, was a run of around 80,000 copies.
A descendant of my game (reworked by someone else) is in the Slackware Linux
release, and my version is (I'm told) in the Debian Linux release. It was going
to be in the Sun Book of Games on CD-ROM, but was dropped for legal reasons.
(Imagine that. :) *

I asked $5 for the game. I've had 2 or 3 people pay the $5, plus one guy
who gave me around $40 to put it on a CD. Prentice-Hall was going to pay
$100 to reprint it before they dropped it.

Interest peaks when it finds its way to a new major site, like
export.lcs.mit.edu or the X games source newsgroup, but letters keep
trickling in now. The registrations, I think, came within about a year
of distributing it, but the requests to redistribute it bundled with other
software did not begin until around 1993.

I didn't provide any incentive to register -- no goodies, hints, or secrets.

Phil Goetz@cs.buffalo.edu

* (I don't think the Sun Book of Games is going to come out.
They dropped a lot of games for legal reasons, and then they asked
more of the authors to change the name of the games for legal reasons.
Some of these authors (2 out of 2, as far as I know) answered that it wasn't
worth $100 to rework their games to change the name -- something I find hard
to imagine, but, hey.)