I buy the game, play it and give it back. Yarp, i don't have game now but i have money. So, if i again get in the mood to play it, i will just buy it again and refund again. As long as i will do this, i will pretty much have free game, unless the no questions asked and possible to refund guarantee things aren't 100% true.
Secundo
All i have is your guarantee. What if you're scam? (Yeah, i know that's not true but eh, this way many young people won't get chance to play the game since their parents might not really trust people in internets)
Tertio
People who bought game not on PayPal can't get refund. I know you technically can't do that but that's not going to help them get their money back.
Also, i don't get how maintaining a demo would slow the development down. All you need to do is to follow other games like Kerbal Space Program and make game free up to certain version and future updates avaiable only to those who bought the game. This way, people get their demo, customers don't feel that they are paying for nothing and everything you need to care for is hosting old version as a demo.
Thank you for your attention, i hope this game progresses well and doesn't show up on torrents anytime soon.
All very good points. I shall answer them in sequence:
Un:
You can absolutely keep on buying and returning the game, if all this effort is worth $5 to you. I doubt many people can be bothered to do this, so it's not really an issue.
Deux:
As an indie developer, my reputation is really important to me. I rely on the good will of players and the press. Scamming people for $5 at a time is absolutely not worth it.
Trois:
As you say, the limitation to PayPal is annoying but unavoidable. All I can really do then is keep the refund program clearly labelled and separate from the "buying normally" option.
I like the idea of using older versions of the game as demos. I'm putting in a lot of changes between v3 and v4, so I feel that v3 would be a bad advertisement for v4, but I'll definitely consider it in the future.
Well, that's exactly why you would use older version as ad for new one. Just somehow inform players about amazing features from new one and they will be even more willing to buy it, just because they know that they have "worse" version.
Cabin Boy
Primo
I buy the game, play it and give it back. Yarp, i don't have game now but i have money. So, if i again get in the mood to play it, i will just buy it again and refund again. As long as i will do this, i will pretty much have free game, unless the no questions asked and possible to refund guarantee things aren't 100% true.
Secundo
All i have is your guarantee. What if you're scam? (Yeah, i know that's not true but eh, this way many young people won't get chance to play the game since their parents might not really trust people in internets)
Tertio
People who bought game not on PayPal can't get refund. I know you technically can't do that but that's not going to help them get their money back.
Also, i don't get how maintaining a demo would slow the development down. All you need to do is to follow other games like Kerbal Space Program and make game free up to certain version and future updates avaiable only to those who bought the game. This way, people get their demo, customers don't feel that they are paying for nothing and everything you need to care for is hosting old version as a demo.
Thank you for your attention, i hope this game progresses well and doesn't show up on torrents anytime soon.
Aerial Emperor
All very good points. I shall answer them in sequence:
Un:
You can absolutely keep on buying and returning the game, if all this effort is worth $5 to you. I doubt many people can be bothered to do this, so it's not really an issue.
Deux:
As an indie developer, my reputation is really important to me. I rely on the good will of players and the press. Scamming people for $5 at a time is absolutely not worth it.
Trois:
As you say, the limitation to PayPal is annoying but unavoidable. All I can really do then is keep the refund program clearly labelled and separate from the "buying normally" option.
I like the idea of using older versions of the game as demos. I'm putting in a lot of changes between v3 and v4, so I feel that v3 would be a bad advertisement for v4, but I'll definitely consider it in the future.
Cabin Boy
Well, that's exactly why you would use older version as ad for new one. Just somehow inform players about amazing features from new one and they will be even more willing to buy it, just because they know that they have "worse" version.