Why should indie developers charge money for their games?
They need food.

I want to be an indie developer, and I want to make all my games for free. But, you must understand, I'm an idiot. Doing that would bankrupt and starve me. So, will I feel bad when I have to release my heart and soul for a measly 20 bucks?

(One note: Now that NIN is really big, Reznor has gotten away with releasing one and a third (fourth?) CDs for free online.)

We're spoiled. Being able to have ANYTHING free...we're just fucking lucky. We don't want to pay for anything and we pirate everything.

This is a wonderful article. Indie gamers complaining about prices remind me a lot of local scenesters - complain there's no shows, no local bands, etc, then they complain they shouldn't have to fork out $5 to see a local band, then spend $30 on a t-shirt for a commercial band on mtv and not bat an eyelid.

most people forget that independant developers spend their free time on their devlopement and also work full time jobs. If someone told you they'd give you 20 bucks to spend hours a day for months in a dark room coding, how would you feel about it?

the internet has truly spoiled people for free media.

if anyone thinks it is wrong to pay for a game that is near a professional level of developing, coding, artistic, production value, then they need to be beaten.

if you can't beat cave story, i wont pay.
so far, none of them have.
plus, most indie titles (including noitu2) struggle to compare to mainstream titles of 15 years ago in terms of graphics, not to mention today.

cecil: I don't think that people are complaining about paying something but some might balk at $20 as opposed to $10.

Its a very tricky issue from many aspects, as a person, without money I starve and I go homeless (very fast).

as a games developer, I want people to play my games, I want no barrier between anyone and my game.

making the two meet up is tricky, I know what it feels like when I want to play something like braid, but cant because that would be too much out of my budget (I know its not alot, I know its a fair price, that doesent make me any less broke).

I've tried lots of ways out of the dilemma, and all I can come up with is either sell out and have advertising, or turn a blind eye to piracy and hope there are enough people willing to pay.

in short, its a real bitch communism hasnt worked out :(

problem is, the indie market is being flooded.
gaming making should still be a skill.
i'd pay for quality. and making a quality game is a hard thing. no use in trying to having something really innovative, but forget to make it fun, or copy everything from mario and have one extra thing, and now pretend your the new gaming wizard here to save gaming.

Unfortunately, Joakim Sandberg's "humbly asking for money" soon turned into childish ranting once the game was out for a couple of weeks. While I don't have a problem with frustrated devs (indie or not) adressing pirates directly, I was quite surprised reading comments like "I hope you don't enjoy my game because you haven't paid for it" from a person who's supposed to be an adult. He clearly pissed off some people who would have bought the game down the line or at least his next product.

As someone who recently made the jump from corporate slave to professional indie developer this topic is near and dear.

What always surprises me is the indignance that comes with charging for a game. If you made mp3 players and charged more than people want to pay then everyone would write "good mp3 player, unfortunately it costs too much so I won't buy it".

But if you release an indie game then (a minority) of players treat you like you are being immoral. Which I don't understand.

Mabye people just really really like flashing pop-up ads with their games?

"if you can't beat cave story, i wont pay.
so far, none of them have.
plus, most indie titles (including noitu2) struggle to compare to mainstream titles of 15 years ago in terms of graphics, not to mention today."

Did you read the article?
First of all, 2d graphics on most of today's indie games are FAR superior to those of games 15 years ago, and they make it up in style and substance.

Games like cortex command, which is 2D, and at first glance looks like it would be pretty dull, is really a vibrant, physical world. It does things that very few, if any, games have done before, whether indie or not. 3D isn't everything. Is a sculpture inherently better than a painting?

Cave Story wasn't even that great.

"I was quite surprised reading comments like "I hope you don't enjoy my game because you haven't paid for it" from a person who's supposed to be an adult."

You can stop being a dick. He asks money for it, and people are stealing it. Of course he is angry, being an adult has nothing to do with it. Pirating games made by an single person is like stealing from any other one person operation, unlike pirating music which is largely stealing from the giant media conglomerates, and is thus more acceptable.

People like you drive me crazy.

"when a developer bypasses physical completely (and as a result rakes in pretty much 100% of what they're asking), we may understandably feel annoyed, especially if they are charging a similar price"

That's not really accurate and spreads a myth. A simple online sales service charges between 10-20%. Portals even charge around 60%. Granted there will still be more left than what you get from store sales (per unit), but it's far from 100%.

@Nero
Well, regarding the stealing part - I really wish everybody had a dictionary to look up the word "theft"...
Downloading stuff you wouldn't have bought anyway ISN'T stealing, genius...no matter much you twist it. You're not taking away anything.
Instead of "asking humbly" Sandberg simply pissed people off with his childish bevahiour after he saw that somebody put up a torrent for his game.
Instead of asking mininova to remove the torrent or at least post a comment on the torrent site telling the people that he really needs the money, he chose to act like a dick. Respect the people who are showing interest in your game (even the freeriders) and the situation will get better. Or piss them off and you'll see even less sales.

Yeah,. I pre-ordered the Goo as I really enjoyed the tower buisness,. and repect the Experimental Gameplay Project. $20.00 to some hardworking indies is money well spent,. and the finnal product is danm fine!
As far as price goes., I just compare to other entertainment that people are buying all the time,. $10-20 for CD that is 40-70 minuets of listening,. or $10-20 to see a film in a theater or for a DVD of it,. a movie that entertaines for 1-2 hours,. getting a decent game for $10-20 dollers still seems like a good deal to me,. many give hours of entertainment,. and I do take into account that I am supporting people directly and not lawers and corporate pirates when dealing with indies,. ;)

"Respect the people who are showing interest in your game (even the freeriders) and the situation will get better. Or piss them off and you'll see even less sales."

Respect people who take the product of your efforts for free? Why would you want to respect people that disrespect you? Pirating a game is not respect, or showing interest.

Asking sites like Mininova to take down torrents is futile or else everybody would do it. I don't think being nice to people who are pirating your game will help. They already pirated the game. What sales are there to be generated?

If Sandberg expected his game not to appear on Bittorrent, he made a mistake. You have to anticipate this and prepare for it.

Good article.

It drives me crazy when people complain about money at ALL. Especially considering the ones doing it are often the ones who have it.

Thinking you deserve awesome games for FREE is arrogant and silly. No developer should feel honored that you're playing their game, that's just plain silly.

It's a developer's and a developer's choice only to give something away free. If somebody gave my profits away without my consent, I'd probably act "childish" too. You work hard on something, get no respect for it, and then get honked at for taking this badly? Give me a break.

Pay for what you want, or be grateful it's for free. There are too many moaners about nowadays.

@ slang

"Well, regarding the stealing part - I really wish everybody had a dictionary to look up the word "theft"...
Downloading stuff you wouldn't have bought anyway ISN'T stealing, genius...no matter much you twist it. You're not taking away anything."

Seems like someone is trying to justify for their own actions. You know what? I steal music and games many times but I personally never deny or try to justify for my own actions. Perhaps all of us never use the right word for "stealing." But you should know what we meant when we say that people are stealing games and music. Basically taking something for free that was not supposed to be free in the first place. I am bad in that that I "take," "steal," "rob," whatever word that should be the right word for this action. However, I still feel better that I am somewhat better than someone who does the same thing I do but try to twist words, play games, and another means to justify that they are not doing anything bad.

"Downloading stuff you wouldn't have bought anyway ISN'T stealing, genius...no matter much you twist it."

I don't intend to buy a car, maybe I should just walk into the lot and take one anyway.

Oh no, not the car argument. It's wrong, it's circular, it never ends... don't go there! Same for the piracy one really. Piracy is not stealing, it's not equatable with taking a car etc... it's not *right* but it's really, really not even ever so slightly the same.

Great article, although putting words in Stu's mouth a bit there - "implied arrogance" and "it's an arrogant price point" are two different things. One suggests that it could be read as arrogance, the other one is an absolute.

Eff, finicky semantics be damned though - the point made in the article is a fine one and put more eloquently than I would have put it.

"Pirating a game is not respect, or showing interest."

Well, if somebody thinks that your game is worth his time he clearly IS showing interest. Some people simply don't have the money while others don't want to spend it. Both may buy your next game though...if you don't piss them off that is.

"I don't think being nice to people who are pirating your game will help."

Demonoid DID take torrents down in the past in similar situations. Besides, the uploader is free to delete his/her torrent at any time. Contact him/her and explain the situation.

"I don't intend to buy a car, maybe I should just walk into the lot and take one anyway."

Hehe, yeah right. Simple explanation for simple people: If you take somebody's car then he doesn't have a car anymore. Copying/Downloading software you wouldn't buy in the first place is not taking away anything. But maybe that's already too complicated for you;-)

Seriously people, justifying piracy or not. Sandberg hasn't been neither a very friendly nor a very smart person when it came to the distribution of his game. And that's why several people saved their money for another indie game.

"Hehe, yeah right. Simple explanation for simple people: If you take somebody's car then he doesn't have a car anymore. Copying/Downloading software you wouldn't buy in the first place is not taking away anything. But maybe that's already too complicated for you;-)"

You are right! It's not the same, it might even be worse. You take away something from many people. Because if an artist or developer doesn't make enough money out of his product, he maybe won't have the chance to create something new in the future. May it be, because he needs his time to do other jobs that will bring him enough money to live, may it be, because the company he works for isn't content with the sales and doesn't give him money again or may it be because he simply looses motivation. This way piracy is responsible if there will be more and more mainstream titles in the future (which always make enough money) and less and less "indie" products (and I'm not just talking about computer games, but also about movies, music and literature). But that may be to complicated for you...;-)

If you don't have enough money to buy something (talking about art), there's one thing you can do: Wait untill someone gives it away for free. It will happen sooner or later. Movies will be shown on TV, music can be downloaded (or at least heard) on the official homepages of the artists and indie computer games very often turn to freeware after a while. You know, there's no human right of getting everything for free the same moment it is published. And please keep in mind that artists and developers have to pay bills too (you are not the only one).

And the fact that you take away intellectual property doesn't make it less stealing. Not at all!!!

"Hehe, yeah right. Simple explanation for simple people: If you take somebody's car then he doesn't have a car anymore. Copying/Downloading software you wouldn't buy in the first place is not taking away anything. But maybe that's already too complicated for you;-)"

Ahem... What is the point of making anything in the digital media for you people if you can justify taking it? If you copied down someones diary - that would be illegal. They'd still have their diary - but you broke the law anyways. You devalued their product - you took something which you obviously enjoyed enough to use. That is sickening. What is the point if anyone who thinks they're a bit out of pocket (probably a vast percentage of the human population) can pilfer and play your property.
I cannot justify buying any independent games right now - actually never!
But that does not make me think that I can take them!
Think about it like a swimming pool. It's a big swimming pool. Huge - in fact. So big that it is very unlikely that the owner will ever get enough customers at any one time to fill it. It would not take any more resources to have one extra person - or two extra people swim in it, at the end of the day. Why can't you then? Ah, but then you would say "But Mr. Michael, sir! There's a little thing known as property laws. We could get done for trespassing!" Then I would say "But why are the Intellectual Property laws, and Digital Property laws any different?" You see, it's not about what wouldn't technically affect the proprietor - it's about being caught.

"blah blah... doesn't make it less stealing. " - legally, yes it does.

You can call it stealing all you want, you can concoct a million different scenarios to compare it to but it still isn't stealing.

It's an important distinction to make, especially if you want to combat something because muddying the waters doesn't help anyone's cause. Why bother trying to get into a battle of the euphemisms over something when a simple "piracy is wrong" will suffice? Attempting to nudge something that is already an offence towards an entirely different offence is futility incarnate and ultimately pointless.

And yes, I pay for all my indie wares. I believe in supporting developers for their work. I am one myself. So it's not an excuse or a justification, it's a clarification and a desperate attempt to stop this spiralling into a 900 comment cluster of euphemistic jerk off when there's a more important point at hand in the article.

We know that us developers need to eat. We know that there's a group of people who seemingly begrudge us an amount of money no matter how small.

Is there anything we can do about that situation? Can we turn it around?

Sorry, Oddbob. (this is mice16, by the way) I did think about that just after I posted in a fit of rage.

I think Oddjob pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to all these nonsensical piracy = theft comments.
Imho people really need get over it no matter how tempting this simple analogy seems at the beginning.
My whole point was that while Sandberg had every right to charge 20$ for his game (which I bought by the way) he clearly failed when it was time to be a little bit more diplomatic. Many of those who downloaded his game didn't know that it was a one man show. It wouldn't have hurt him to just clarify the situation in the comments section of the torrent.
At the end of the day it's not about the people who are playing without paying but about the ones who (sooner or alter) shelled out the money and became supportive customers!
A game that gets pirated millions of times can still be commercially succesful if there are enough people who bought it. You can achieve that by being nice to the people interested in your games and by offering them a service or support of some sort.
Good example would be Puppygames, the authors of Droid Assault and Ultratron, who not only charge less for their indie games but also keep updating them even after they're bugfree.
The price of a game (indie or not) will always be a very subjective topic because not everybody is living in the US or Europe and not everybody has a credit card. For somebody from Brazil for example 20$ is a lot more than for the average US citizen. Especially if you have to find (expensive) ways to transfer the money without a credit card. A lot of commenters from English speaking countries tend to forget that.
My solution to the whole pricing dilemma: keep updating your games and make the interested gamers realize that by paying for your game they'll get more than the freeriders.

One more vote for Oddbob for president Vs the pointless eternal piracy debate (there will always be people who take something that is available to them just because it is available to them, it's compulsory).
That aside, aren't people just free to pay for whatever they want? I don't really understand what the matter is: needs aside, one buys what one really wants, and people complaining you don't spend enough money buying stuff (whether they be indie gaming supporters, Sony marketing or political figures) have a quite strange relation to money in my opinion - and the same can be said for those people who pay and keep complaining about what they paid for afterward.
I am personally nostalgic of the original Shareware ideology, when there was an emotional contract between the author and his potential customers.

"plus, most indie titles (including noitu2) struggle to compare to mainstream titles of 15 years ago in terms of graphics, not to mention today."

I think Noitu Love 2's graphics are better than most mainstream titles today, from an artistic standpoint. You are confusing art with technology.

Good art is about color choice, design, expression of form, consistency. It has nothing to do with alpha blending, super high resolutions and millions of polygons. People who think it does are just chasing fads, and probably spend all their time pirating the newest games just to feel like they're in fashion.

"At the end of the day it's not about the people who are playing without paying but about the ones who (sooner or alter) shelled out the money and became supportive customers!"

"'Copyright infringement' (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works."

It's against the law. I don't see that the developer owes them anything. (And I have to pay double us$, by the way.)

All this sentimental garbage is a mere distraction. I wish people would deal with reality as it is, not in some wishy-washy fantasy land of "Pledges of allegiances" or a hypothetical "indie" collective.

Suppose a good game is created by someone who is an utter cunt. Is it ok to pirate the game? I mean if the game is good, then surely it must be played. Yet giving $20 would surely indicate your allegiance to said utter cunt, which is a bad thing.

Braid costs what it costs. Right or wrong, that is just (unless Jon Blow changes his mind,) an unalterable fact.

@Michael

Out of sheer curiosity - what does your answer has to do with the sentence you quoted from my post?
I never said copyright violation is legal and also never said that the author OWES ANYTHING to the people who play his/her game without paying.

I know for a fact tha Gravitron2 (my first commercial indie title) has actually had more pirated downloads than it had bought.
Its a bit disheartening but theres nothing you can do about it.
So price really isnt an issue (G2 is only $5) and it still was pirated.
In a perfect world I would, I like many other indie dever's would carry on making games for free. But supporting a family on air doesnt work. Shame.

I have no problem paying money for a game I enjoy.

Just curious--what other games has 'Pixel' made since Cave Story?

@ slang

I don't think people mostly were talking about that guy in general. They were talking about piracy in general but that's just me.

I don't like to argue about the "pirace = stealing" and stuff like that because it relies too much on work play and such. I just know one thing and that is the author sells the game for some value and that some people intentionally get it for free without the need to compensate what the author had wanted. Now that action of those people are just simply wrong. Now, I am not saying or insulting those people because I'm on of them too due to all sorts of problems like money problems or whatever. However, I don't like to justify my action saying that he will still profit because there will be other problems. Now that part of the problem is solved. The next problem is how the author acts towards those people. His action from those people is stupid and childish.

Overall you see, there are two different problems that are related in that they are about his games but they are separate. Some people starts to use how he acted towards people who pirates his game as their justification for stealing his game as well as other justification that I see floating around in many places. That is the thing that I don't think it's good to do.

@Silver
First things first...
"Some people starts to use how he acted towards people who pirates his game as their justification for stealing his game..."

Nobody is stealing any games by downloading/copying them. Read the posts above.

As for the rest of your argument, you can sell a game 3000 times with no piracy at all (on xbla for example) and therefore consider it a commercial success. Or you can sell a game 5000 times (on the PC which has a bigger install base) in spite of huge piracy numbers and consider it an even bigger commercial success.
This is what I meant by writing "At the end of the day it's not about the people who are playing without paying but about the ones who (sooner or later) shelled out the money and became supportive customers!". That has nothing to do with justification of piracy but the simple reality of the current market.
Like it or not, piracy is part of the PC platform. The only way to battle it is offering service and updates...as I already posted in one of comments above.

I think indie games are usually of higher quality than commercial games. But I think if we start paying for them, we set precedent.

Perhaps these games are worth the small amounts. Perhaps they are worth much more. However, regardless of if we pay or not, indie makers will continue to makegames because they love it. They may not be able to make them as often because of needing to get a job but if they love the craft they will continue.

However, if we DO py for indie games, then more and more people will see "Wow, this indie game is selling pretty well, maybe I can do the same." Or people might see the NL2 approach "Make game 1 free, game 2 20 bucks" And while it is no doubt WORTH the 20 bucks, and any developer that uses said approach may have "Indie Game 2" be worth that much, It sets a precedent. Saying "This works." Perhaps its a good thing these game makers are getting money for their work. But I'm poor. I genuinely enjoy indie games, and with the stuff that has been coming out commercially recently, if I wasn't I wouldn't be spending my money on games anyways, but indie games are something for nothing. And if we continue to support this paying for indie games movement, soon it will fall the way of everything else.

The thing with paying for something is that I immediately compare it to the very best things I didn't pay for, and I'm bitterly disappointed when I realize I could have kept my ten bucks and just played through Cave Story again or gone through a bunch of rounds of Warning Forever.

When you pay for something, you expect it to be better than what you didn't pay for, and all too often, they're not. It's not fair, but that's just the way it is.

I think Mr Blow missed that the problem with Braid was not that it cost 1200 as such.

It was that it cost 50% MORE than a very large line up of very good games.

You suddenly launch a commercial retail game for £75 and see how far you get. It may well be worth that money in isolation, but when all its competitors are £50rrp it's a difficult sell and so it is with Braid. I could spend 1200 on it, but I've got Bionic Commando and several other 800s to play.