Are Free Games huting or helping Developers?

[MikeRox]

collint0101 said:

MikeRox said:

I'm not so sure it does? Yes some indie games are free day 1, but it actually gets their name out there, and if people like their game. They'll no doubt look to buy the next one.

 

They also get a guaranteed exposure and still get some royalties as a result.

It doesn't work like that. We've gotten to the point now that a ton of Sony and Microsoft fans sit around and wait for indie games to end up being free even if they have enjoyed the dev's past work. That's just how those communities work now and it's a damn shame because there really is no reason for Indies on the Wii u to have better sales than their ps4 counterparts. 

I'm not sure that applies to most of the indie developers main target audience. Yes there are gamers who just get whatever is free now. But this is a similar argument to not seeing a movie because you're going to wait for it to air on (free) TV.

It's just starting to add tiers to gaming like movies already have.

You've got your early adopters, who pay full price (cinema goers/day 1 on Blu-Ray/DVD) people who wait for reductions (clearance bins or in gaming's case, PSN sale) and people who will wait for it to be free. (broadcast on terrestrial TV networks)

If it's altering habits in a way that across ALL gamers, less is being spent. It is harmful. But a few anecdotal "OMG dude I don't spend anything on games anymore" does not represent the full market and as we are seeing, indie games getting bigger followings, suddenly stop being indie by attracting distributors/publishers which can enable them to have a larger budget and more resources for their next game.