4 ms·

Eh, as a kid in the 80s and 90s, we were by far the biggest consumers of console games which cost up to $50-$60, in 1980s dollars, and Nintendo had no problem m

by imgabe 7y ago

Eh, as a kid in the 80s and 90s, we were by far the biggest consumers of console games which cost up to $50-$60, in 1980s dollars, and Nintendo had no problem making money. Maybe it would be a good thing if children couldn't wantonly download adware without their parents inspecting it?

hombre_fatal 7y ago
You're forgetting that you could rent games from Blockbuster before you bought them back then and some consoles had demo disks. You can't rent mobile games to try them before you buy them. Freemium is the modern/mobile game demo. If you have kids, try Apple Arcade.
- imgabe 7y ago
  You could buy entire games on the app store for the same price it cost to rent them in the 80s and 90s
- wtetzner 7y ago
  Not sure why they can't just bring back shareware without needing ads. Allow users to download the game for free, but if they want to play more than the first level/area/whatever, they have to buy the game.
  - rchaud 7y ago
    Because there are too many games out there competing for your attention. Word of mouth today doesn't work in the way it did back when Doom I legitimized the shareware model. Today, if someone told you about a cool indie studio game and you looked it up online, you'd likely see ads for competing games appear in search results before the actual page. It should go without saying that Doom was also an incredibly unique game for its time, and the blood-and-guts controversy likely helped spread word about it just as much as the distribution model did.
    - wtetzner 7y ago
      But it's still free to download the demo... How does including ads in your app make it more likely to be found in the search results?
rchaud 7y ago
Nintendo also made money because developers paid them license fees to build on Nintendo's platform. I didn't play anything beyond the Gamecube, but I remember there being many more non-Nintendo titles than in-house productions. In this example, Nintendo is Google, taking a cut on each of those 3rd party games.

by imgabe 7y ago

hombre_fatal 7y ago

You're forgetting that you could rent games from Blockbuster before you bought them back then and some consoles had demo disks. You can't rent mobile games to try them before you buy them. Freemium is the modern/mobile game demo. If you have kids, try Apple Arcade.

imgabe 7y ago
You could buy entire games on the app store for the same price it cost to rent them in the 80s and 90s
wtetzner 7y ago
Not sure why they can't just bring back shareware without needing ads. Allow users to download the game for free, but if they want to play more than the first level/area/whatever, they have to buy the game.
- rchaud 7y ago
  Because there are too many games out there competing for your attention. Word of mouth today doesn't work in the way it did back when Doom I legitimized the shareware model. Today, if someone told you about a cool indie studio game and you looked it up online, you'd likely see ads for competing games appear in search results before the actual page. It should go without saying that Doom was also an incredibly unique game for its time, and the blood-and-guts controversy likely helped spread word about it just as much as the distribution model did.
  - wtetzner 7y ago
    But it's still free to download the demo... How does including ads in your app make it more likely to be found in the search results?

rchaud 7y ago

Nintendo also made money because developers paid them license fees to build on Nintendo's platform. I didn't play anything beyond the Gamecube, but I remember there being many more non-Nintendo titles than in-house productions. In this example, Nintendo is Google, taking a cut on each of those 3rd party games.