I am a little confused about that part. I saw it. Questions:
1) The BYOND .exe program is to create a BYOND .exe game so anyone can play without installing Dream Seeker right?
2) What is the purchasing key and why do I need it? Also why is it so expensive?
2) So if I do both download that .exe program and buy the key I can then play the game without the use of Dream Seeker?
3) If my game becomes a hit, will doing that allow me to upload the game a phone app and upload the game to Steam?
Generally we don't want people to use the standalone because it distances users from our community, and we want to bring in as much traffic as possible. However, we understand that some developers want to present their product as an independent entity, and as such, we've provided the option. I wouldn't bother with the standalone until late in the product showcase, once it has sucessfully shown appeal within BYOND.
I don't consider $100 a huge price-point since the standalone offers no benefit to BYOND itself. So it is akin to paying for the development tools. | |
I guess that's fair. If the game becomes a hit, it can make thousands and tens of thousands of profit. If I make good money from it, I will buy the key.
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My apologies on reviving a dead post but what are the limitations on the stand-alone, or what requirements must the game meet in-order for the standalone to even be an option?
Will this also affect how the game is originally hosted?? Like is it a single-player styled thing or will it be almost like a client to connect to the server or will it automatically connect to the server to begin? | |
At the moment any game can purchase the standalone for $100. However, we will be providing an alternative free solution pretty soon-- basically you can just put money into it pay for ads (at a rate of something like $5/1000 plays); this could also be automatically done through the subscription cut if you choose to go that option.
You can configure it to either connect automatically or to show a list of options (such as hosted games). | |
What do you mean? You mean that it will play ads that are paid to BYOND so that the distribution will be free instead?
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That, or you pay something like $5 per 1,000 plays to have no ads displayed, or you simply put a portion of subscription earnings in if you choose that method.
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Right. Basically the idea is that since we earn nothing from standalones, we'd prefer to have users playing games through the pager. But I'm fine with substituting with a system that plays ads, to which you can opt out via a fee.
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Also, the idea would be to take the existing 20% BYOND publisher fee and put those into ad credits should you choose to use our sub system. So if you sell subs for $5, we'd get $1 and that would keep your game ad-free for 200 views. Currently a lot of games using the sub system sell several subs a day so they would definitely be ad-free under this system. And we can always work with games individually to keep them permanently ad-free, should this proposal be undesirable. We just need to keep ourselves somewhat in the loop because we are barely hanging on as-is. I see a lot of potential in these standalone games though, esp. once some of them start hitting Steam and other portals.
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Do we have the option of having he standalone player with ads for free? The ads will run but it will be free.
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Yes, that's the plan.
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I'll take that!
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Just a quick question because I honestly haven't been around nearly enough to follow all these changes.
Does the subscription system still require that you use a BYOND key? Or is there some alternative nowadays? | |
^ I'm really curious to that as well.
Is it possible to have some registration system on a website(on our end) that the user will login with their account there rather than the BYOND account or such?? | |
2. The key you purchase is required to allow you to package a game as a standalone and allows BYOND some control over what is packaged.
3. The purpose of the standalone installer is to package your game along with a specialized build of BYOND to allow it to function without explicitly having to install BYOND.
4. Yes to Steam, very much no to the phone application thing (due to a whole myriad of problems I could spend several paragraphs talking about).