[kaspiCZ]

Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it, because you put quite some time into it. Time you could have used to make money by other means.

How would you go about it?

[Asooka]

I know why people pirate, having pirated a lot of software and games in my time, so I won't really feel bad about it. Most people will buy the game if they can, but the world economics are such that for 90% of your potential user base, 60$ represent an insurmountable financial investment. Which is partly why Steam with its frequent discounts and region-specific pricing is so effective at combating piracy.

So yeah, if I wanted to make money with games, I wouldn't. But if I really really wanted to, I would try to get popular, then start a kickstarter and open a patreon. Make sure people can support my art with as little as they can.

As just one example - consider game rentals. Consoles have incredibly low piracy rates, but a healthy (or at least used to be) game rental scene. If someone can only give me 5$ for my game, why should I snub that money? There's probably a million such people across South America alone. I don't see why I would spend time and energy trying to get money out of people who don't value my product instead of finding ways to let everyone who likes my product to support me.

[Mindwipe]

> Most people will buy the game if they can, but the world economics are such that for 90% of your potential user base, 60$ represent an insurmountable financial investment.

Bulllllllshiiiiiiiiit.

> As just one example - consider game rentals. Consoles have incredibly low piracy rates, but a healthy (or at least used to be) game rental scene. If someone can only give me 5$ for my game, why should I snub that money?

There's no game rental scene. Like zero. And consoles have incredibly low piracy rates because they have very effective DRM and closed platforms, which a certain contingent of Hacker News likes to pretend is the cause of piracy.

[Dudenoso]

>Most people will buy the game if they can, but the world economics are such that for 90% of your potential user base, 60$ represent an insurmountable financial investment. >Bulllllllshiiiiiiiiit. The third world is numerically bigger than the first world. 60$ is a lot for places without a strong currency. Have you ever lived in a third world country with a wage that wasn't above the richest 5%?

Yeah, I'm a long time lurker and created an account just for that.

[pennaMan]

Back when I was a teen 60$ was about 25% of my household income.

Since then and present day I still don't know a single console owning person that has not hardware modded it to work with pirated games.

[davchana]

$60 in my local currency Indian Rupees is about ₹3800, my one person, single's monthly food groceries bill.

[tedunangst]

I'd put my Twitter handle in the game to build a following so even more people download my next free game. Make it up in volume.

[asfdsfggtfd]

∞ × 0 = 0

[thaumasiotes]

∞ × 0 is one of the most bog-standard indeterminate forms, not 0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminate_form

[xrisk]

No that's just ill-defined.

[Mindwipe]

I think that's the joke, but yes.

[clarry]

> Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it

I wouldn't have gone that far because I'm smart enough to tell that making money with a game is pretty damn hard (and it has nothing to do with piracy).

But if I had done stupid anyway, I would blame myself.

I could "want to make money" off of my turd too, and put hard effort into it, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to success.