Do you think this would be an effective way to release/sell a game?

The idea is to make the full version of the game available for free. This game has the ability to load in level paks, which can then provide more levels.

The full version might contain say only ten levels. But once you have finished those ten levels, you are given the option of buying a level pak containing 70 levels.

There would then be the opportunity to release more level paks as time goes by, thus providing more earning potential.

I just wondered whether this might tempt more people to download the game seeing as your are releasing it as a full product rather than demo, and then once they are into it you can offer them more levels at a price.

I'm thinking of doing this for Super Hamster Ball.

you will have a different bussiness then. you are not going to sale a game but more some sort of an experience with a community etc

i think it will be a lot harder to be successfull there because you have to make the such a beast that the players are not only hooked up to the game to play it through once, but they have to become addicted enough to go even further: pay for the add-ons.

the benefit i see here is that in the long you could sell user-created levels as well.

The difference in this idea seems to be primarily one of semantics-- you could release a 10 level demo with an option to buy the full version that has 70 levels, then concentrate on writing expansion packs for the game as Steve P. has mentioned in his articles.

I suppose it then comes down to a question of whether the change in semantics is something that would positively affect your sales. My gut feeling is that it would have the opposite effect, since many people may view a free game as being of lower quality. This is pure speculation, though.

I'd suggest you do this:

Demo Version: Contains say 10 levels (made by you)
Full Version: Contains say 20 levels (i.e. you make 10 more levels) + allows you to play all the other levels people have made.

Then as you get more good quality levels made by other players, add those to the 'features' list. i.e. if you have got 20 levels that you made, plus 100 levels that other people have made, you can say the "Full version gives you over 120 levels, comprising of new 'official' levels, plus levels made by other members".

I think your sales idea will work, as it is essentially Demo version & Full version, or "Normal version", and "Premium version". But I think you need to offer the customer some new levels in the full version that are made by you the developer. A lot of Hamumu's games work that way like Dr Lunatic ( www.hamumu.com ).

Our games, TheSnookerClub (www.thesnookerclub.com) & ThePoolClub (www.thepoolclub.com) which are online games work in a way that we're effectively saying "The Game is entirely free, just as free as Yahoo Pool! is, but if you want extra features like enter tournaments, and play 9-ball, change ball size, colors etc. then you have to purchase a 1Month/6Month/1Year membership code which makes you become a Premium member".

The problem we found initially with ThePoolClub was that when we were telling people from Yahoo! Pool to come over and play our game, as soon as they saw a '$' or 'Purchase' or 'Buy', they would turn away, even though they could play 8-ball with a rating for free indefinately i.e. the same as Yahoo Pool. The $30/year price was just for a 'premium edition', which Yahoo also does, as they have $10/month ($120/year) to become an 'All Stars' member which enables you to play 9-ball & enter tournaments.

So what we did was remove all references from the front page & download page regarding these costs. So potential customers come along thinking this is another free online pool game, which our game technically is (if you call Yahoo Pool 'free').

Then those who get addicted and play often, and see the premium members enjoying all the full features tend to sign up. Seems to work well for us.

I think if you can make a game that enables 'demo' players to converse with 'paid' players, ideally an online game (like our pool & snooker games), then you can yield a lot of extra sales. Basically our 'paid' members intentionaly or otherwise, encourage 'demo' members to sign up. e.g. a paid member is playing a demo member in pool, and says "it's only $xx to sign up, not really that much money", then the other guy says "hmm, yeah you're right it isn't that much" etc.

I agree with Jeff. This is simply a difference in semantics, depending on whether you want to market your demo version primarily as freeware or shareware. Some developers do both, having a freeware and a shareware version of each game.

Thanks for the interesting replies.

I must admit the reason for my idea is not purely a sales-related one. As you may be aware my game is loosely based on Sega's Super Monkey Ball, and now that Sega has taken action Simpson's Road Rage (Crazy Taxi clone), I'm wondering whether they may take action against my own game. If I offer the full game for free, and only sell the level paks, that might be a way around it.

I think you would be a lot better off if you just made the game different enough that people don't associate yours with the "boxed" game. Playing around with how you package and sell it does not alter the facts in intellectual property rights. Giving away a possibly infringing product is still something they could go after if they decide they don't like the similarities. Who would you sell expansions to if you're barred from distributing the base app?

John (Not a lawyer. Consult one if you want an opinion worth more than my 2 cents.)

Well, I might suggest changing the name for starters. It is way too derivative and obvious.

As far as what you are talking about, I would say that it could only work if people are compelled to want to pay for levels. For instance, giving away the MMORPG game for free but charging for a subscription works, because that is what people want to play.

Allowing users to create levels for your free game makes it difficult to create an incentive for paying for them. Other players will give away their levels for free, so you would need something else besides a compilation to create something to sell.

Providing a full version with extra features that free players can't take advantage of will probably do it. For instance, check out www.runescape.com to see that they provide free and members-only servers. Certain activities and skills can only be learned and used on the members-only servers. To be honest, I find plenty to do on the free servers, so I don't feel like paying for it. But if they made it so that I could only get to level 10 as a miner and would have to be a member to do more, that would be an incentive, because you can't do much more than mine simple metals at that level.

But then, I am not a huge fan of MMORPGs, so I don't know what people will pay for. Still, if you make a game that you provide for free, and simply sell the levels, you have to determine if your game is fun enough without those levels, but also not too fun where people won't miss yours.

Originally posted by simonh
As you may be aware my game is loosely based on Sega's Super Monkey Ball, and now that Sega has taken action Simpson's Road Rage (Crazy Taxi clone), I'm wondering whether they may take action against my own game.

They have a patent on the kind of gameplay in crazy taxi, if they don't have a monkey ball patent you'll probably be okay (presuming it's not like monkeys in balls :) ). Worth a look anyway, didn't IBM run a patent database thingy?

Easiest (and free) place to do a search of existing patents, or to conduct a very preliminary patent search in regard to development of new projects in the U.S., is the United States Patent and Trademark Office website:

USPTO - Search (http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html)

As John has already noted:
Playing around with how you package and sell it does not alter the facts in intellectual property rights.
It really all depends on the attitude, goals and product of the company in question. Some companies encourage what they see as free publicity, while others hold close any and all intellectual property. Not to mention that if they see a project, free or not, as a blatant rip-off (not saying that's what it is, mind you) of patented game mechanics or trademarked/copyrighted material, they are not likely to be happy about it... and they have more money than we do :)