I Buy Games for The Developers

[BarkBarker]

How can you know who the 'good' developers are if you haven't played their games? You literally bought a game just because of the most superficial quality, the art direction; so a game like FTL is fucked when it comes to you because they are more into gameplay than artwork that they can plaster around the internet?

You have to do both in order to be making informed decisions to the benefit of yourself and the market. Don't support awful developers and don't buy games just because you think a dev is good and then don't play the product.

imagine the greatest game of all time being made by Lucifer himself, I DON'T WANT A SINGLE PROCEED TO GO TO FUCKING LUCIFER!

Why not? He is only doing what !!God intended him to do, you know since God is omnipotent and all!!. Satan is about a evil as the CIA is anti-American. In fact some religions record the story of Lucifer as his fall being because he, unlike God, was anti-torture and instead wanted everyone to get into heaven.

Omnipotent and all that doesn't mean everything happens because he wants to, a guy with infinite cosmic powers makes mistakes, just look at the platypus. I AM familiar with the story as Lucifer being a victim and frankly I prefer that to the impression that he is a tremendously vicious person down to the core for having ambitions that god didn't approve of, but what you were in the past and your tragic fall doesn't excuse your actions, victims don't get off scot free because they had a rough time to put in the lightest of terms, and I don't want a single penny of mine going to a man who fucks with humanity because he has a beef with god.

 

[Erttheking]

Sorta. I ended up buying two copies of the Witcher because I couldn't even get the first one to work and even then I ended up rage quitting ten hours in, but I'm not too upset about it because it didn't cost me too much and the money went to Projket Red, and those guys are awesome.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

One thing to note is that unless a developer isn't working under a publisher, purchasing the game to directly support them is a bit of a double-edged blade, because developers that don't self-publish generally seem to get a very small percentage of royalties from game sales after release.

I don't generally buy games I don't expect to play at some point, but there are certainly certain developers I wish I could throw my money at; Chief among them being CD Projekt RED and Stardock. Larian is pretty high up there as well--I quite enjoyed Divinity 2 after all of the expansions and patches and I'm excited to see how Dragon Commander and Original Sin turn out--but I don't think they have quite the same level of support for their community that the other two studios try to provide.

Correction: if they're signed to a publisher, the devs don't get /any/ royalties, although some contracts allow a bonus if the software sells well enough... which the publishers keep trying to get out of, as happened with Obsidian after Fallout New Vegas, and Infinity Ward after Modern Warfare 2. Game developers are paid the way software developers in other industries are paid, which is to say they're just normal salaried employees, not partial owners of their product who are entitled to royalty checks. That's what the budget figures that keep getting quoted and people keep saying are too high are: it's the combined salary of everyone who worked on the game.

So long story short, if you want to actually send some money to the developers, you're better off mailing them a check.

 

[Yopaz]

Well, it depends on the game. If I like the developer then I am more inclined to buy a game before looking into it or before a price drop.

I do however buy my games new as long as it's possible which I guess is because I want to support the publisher and by extension the developer.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Omnipotent... ...doesn't mean everything happens because he wants to

Actually, that's exactly what it means.

 

[TrevHead]

I won't buy a game I have no intention of playing but I will buy a game near full RRP even if I have a large backlog of the same game type just to support the devs. The game will then just sit on my game shelf with the knowledge that I won't get around to play it for possibly 6-12 months.

Although these tend to be super niche premium price games that rapidly bomb to the bargain bin. Those games like CAVE shmups on the 360 really do rely on their tiny fanbase to buy at launch though, without that the games just would not get made which would leave me with no new games when my backlog is finished.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Never done that. I buy games because I want to play them. The devs are in it to make money, and that works two ways: I have to pay for their products, but they have to make products that justify me paying for them. I'm not going to throw money at something just for the devs.

 

[Gitty101]

No. I buy my games to play them. Good developers will get my money anyway with quality products I want to play.

 

[PeterMerkin69]

So this thread is about wallet voter fraud?

I don't care about the health of the industry beyond its usefulness to me so I don't go out of my way to support anyone I don't immediately benefit from, no. If my personal purchases can even be said to support anyone then I'm unintentionally contributing when I buy release-day games like Dark Souls, Fallout, some indies, etc., but even then I'm only doing it because I want to play them too badly to wait until they're available for less money.

The industry is an unwieldy behemoth that's beyond the control of any one person, let alone one single consumer; in other words, like real voting, whatever's going to happen is going to happen despite my wallet votes, so I don't feel an obligation to take personal responsibility for it. Okay, well, I might be responsible for 1/150,000,000th of an outcome, but I'm hardly going to lose any sleep over that.

 

[thebakedpotato]

These days I buy games in a similar fashion to buying jerky at the gas station. Impulsively.

 

[spartandude]

If I was going to give away money I'd give it to charity, not to gainfully employed middle class people.

.

this really sums up my opinion on the matter, i may boycott a game/dev/publisher if they do something i really hate but i dont buy something just so they can have my money

 

[Signa]

I don't think I've ever bought a game purely to blow the cash on something I didn't want or have a use for, just to support the people behind it. However, I will use that argument as justification to buy something I'm not really that interested in, or if it costs more than my interest holds. Supporting things you like is important, even if it's just the people behind something that you're not thrilled with. It's what separates those with talent from those without.

 

[TehCookie]

I'll buy it at a higher price, like I buy most Platinum, Atlus and NIS games full price instead of waiting for it to go down like most games. However I find those games to be worth it, and in niche audiences I think my purchase means more. Or if a group is asking a game to be localized and they bring it over, I'm going to be part of it and buy it to show there are still people interested in that. Like bringing Xenoblade Chronicles to the US, but like I said I also enjoy the game.

I'm not rich enough to support games I don't care about or can't play.

 

[themind]

I can't say that I do. I generally only buy new games if I know beyond a shadow of all doubt that I will enjoy the game and get my $60.00 worth. The last batch of games I got was online, 12 games for about $120.00. A few stinkers among the lot, but GTA IV, Arkham Asylum, Call of Juarez, and Dragon Age Origins were the best of the bunch.

I may buy a game new when it drops in price to $20 or under, but by that time the Dev' isn't getting a whole lot of money out of me. The really shitter practices like those who released Colonial Marines has made me very wary of new games, and while I like to support the Dev's that are consistently good, I don't explore new game options often for fear of getting ripped off and inadvertly giving money to a crap studio that has no business making games in the first place.

 

[ThriKreen]

Correction: if they're signed to a publisher, the devs don't get /any/ royalties, although some contracts allow a bonus if the software sells well enough...

It depends on the contract signed, every relationship is different. And studios owned by publishers still get bonuses based on how the company as a whole is doing, so it's still a way of supporting them.

And the advantage there is that with the financial burden hopefully lessened by having a publisher bank roll the studio, as well as potentially being better paid instead of scrounging for every penny of the budget as an independant, you'd hopefully have better morale for the devs which could lead to a better developed game.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

I do this quite often actually, usually with the intent to play the game later whenever I get the chance. I think it's important to support good, creative, and often-times smaller/independent developers whenever possible, especially now with how mainstream the industry's been getting.

And I absolutely refuse to buy games from larger developers/publishers who just pump out the same mundane slop with just about every release (yeah, I'm talking about you Blizzard/Activision, Ubisoft, and Sega). I'd rather spend money towards brilliant artists who actually need and deserve funding.

 

[jelock]

No. Like everyone else I buy games that I simply want to play, not to just have them sit on my shelf. In saying that though there are certain devs that I will buy games from on the grounds that I know they make games I enjoy e.g R* and Valve.

 

[deathzero021]

i'm sorta down with this but since i have very little income my little bits of support ultimately don't matter in the grand scale of things. I bought all id games just to support them because i'm a huge Doom fan, however i haven't liked any of their games since Quake 2. So... yeah. I can agree with the notion of buying out of support.

I buy some stuff on bandcamp just to support, even though you can listen to all the music for free. As a game developer in training, i know how important it is to receive support and how great it is when it happens.

 

[MrMrAwesom]

I literally just bought Rise of the Triad for this exact reason. Game company supporting mod support? Have my money, as support!
On the flip side of the coin I didn't buy Dead Space 3. DS2 was too action-y as it was, with so few horror elements, I should have demanded a refund for that one! Then 3 was straight up gears of war with not-at-all frightening zombies. I already have almost every other game ever, for non-horror zombies, thank you very much!

EDIT: I won't buy them just because. I buy them to support the devs & to play them about half & half.

 

[Racecarlock]

No, I don't buy games to specifically support the developers. I buy games to play them. Since I liked solar, I got solar 2 and it was a great purchase.

I mean, I wouldn't buy a car specifically to keep ford in business, now would I? It's nonsensical. If I buy a product, I probably want to use the product.

"But the developers work so hard! Shouldn't that be enough?"

I got news for ya. Every developer works hard. Even the ones who make the COD sequels, because you still have to write a new story and upgrade the physics and add new weapons. Even if we're just talking indie guys, I'm probably going to buy from Eric Chahi again because he supplied me with both out of this world/another world and From Dust, which still has some of the best nature physics I've ever seen.

So no, a developer working hard is not reason enough for me to just throw money at them. If I'm paying, I expect a good game. It can be an old game like Galaga or Asteroids, but I still expect a good game.

Besides, if I want to support a developer without buying a game, I could always just send them money in an envelope.