By John Walker on September 12th, 2012 at 8:00 pm.
I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that there are 350 billion new ways to buy indie games announced every minute. It’s a brilliant time of experimentation, from the strangest to the most controversial, as an essentially un-organised industry attempts to learn what shapes it can be in. The latest new idea is IndieGameStand, from the people at Indie Games Mag (I’m just guessing with spacing at this point), and it works something like this…
Thanks for following me down here.
So, what you’ve got is a shop that sells one independently developed DRM-free game at a time, at a price of your choosing. A game gets four days in the pay-what-you-want throne, until it is disposed by a new title. But once something’s appeared, it goes into another section of the site where you’ll find details for buying it directly from the developer. Oh, and 10% of every purchase goes to a charity of the developer’s choosing. Pay less than a dollar and you won’t get Steam or Desura keys.
So it has all the required ingredients. No DRM -check. Money to charity – check. Peculiar lengths of time for things to be on sale – check.
Should you have missed a game, there’s a brief chance to still get it, but buying a “bundle”. This consists of the current game, the previous one, and the unknown next one, and er. I’m not sure how you pay differently for a bundle of something that’s pay-what-you-want in the first place, but I’m sure that will come clear soon. Another nice detail is games you’ve bought will be remembered by the site’s “wallet”, and there to download again whenever you want. And since they’re DRM free, you can back them up however you like too.
I like it! It’ll be interesting to see how they go about choosing what game comes next. Their stated incentive is,
“to put a spotlight on those indie titles which provide fantastic experiences, but may have been passed over by the mainstream gaming public, portals, websites, or whatever. This site is about supporting all of the fantastic and worthwhile indie developers out there. Every developer out there deserves a moment to shine.”
I’m also interested to see how they will remind people to check back on such a neither-here-nor-there time period. That I think will be the trickiest part, I expect, with four days being a bit of an odd length of time. We don’t have long to wait to find out – the new store launches on the 26th September, and until then is testing itself by offering the platformer Chester for free when you create an account.
12/09/2012 at 20:12 lordcooper says:
Weird, but potentially awesome.
When life gives you indie games…
12/09/2012 at 20:19 Hoaxfish says:
… EA acts like a lemon?
12/09/2012 at 23:21 Steven Hutton says:
Oh for the want of a “like” button.
“Leonard likes this post.”
13/09/2012 at 03:28 kaillyna1654 says:
It was supposed to be a full price title : http://www.joystiq.com/game/i-am-alive
13/09/2012 at 09:07 frightlever says:
Spam, obviously.
13/09/2012 at 13:30 phelix says:
Dangerously close to a relevant reply.
17/09/2012 at 08:48 BestFriends4Ever says:
They’re getting better. Soon the machines will rise!!
12/09/2012 at 20:21 Sparkasaurusmex says:
So how’s Chester?
12/09/2012 at 20:50 Kuschelwampe says:
For me it was an instant buy, when I first saw it, paid 6 or 7 €. To me it’s a really great platformer with unique art style. Really love it. Plus, Mr. Friedrich’s a really nice guy.
12/09/2012 at 20:51 Sakkura says:
All this new computer candy is going to give me indiegestion.
12/09/2012 at 20:54 Kits says:
“A game gets four days in the pay-what-you-want throne, until it is disposed by a new title.”
Just being pedantic, but it would probably be deposed, if it’s sat in a throne. Granted, depending on the brutality of the kingdom it may also be disposed of too. Who knows.
12/09/2012 at 21:56 Torgen says:
Perhaps “throne” is a euphemism.
12/09/2012 at 21:53 MythArcana says:
Yet another corporate plan disguised as an “indie distribution center”.
You want true indie? Go check out Illwinter. That is true indie.
12/09/2012 at 22:11 MichaelPalin says:
Meh!, everybody knows that Jason Rohrer is the only true indie developer out there, those Illwinter people even charge for their games!
12/09/2012 at 22:32 FionaSarah says:
Hahaha.
12/09/2012 at 23:25 Dominic White says:
You mean the same Illwinter that are published by niche-but-largeish company Shrapnel Games? Yes, that makes sense, somewhere in bizarro world.
13/09/2012 at 02:11 ShineyBlueShoes says:
Perhaps Steam is truly the most indie of them all…
12/09/2012 at 22:04 MichaelPalin says:
Oh boy! Can some indie developers bitch about piracy or sell out to EA or something? This is getting ridiculously better every time I look at it. The best part is that this means every 4 days a new indie game will be DRM-free and buy-able directly from the developer, why don’t we just shut the big publishers already? What’s the point anymore?
And before you say anything about you liking triple A games just go to gog.com, they are releasing every good one there these days (more or less…).
12/09/2012 at 22:41 BurningPet says:
I think it’s a brilliant concept. now they just need to get a really high profile game to attract the masses.
12/09/2012 at 23:05 The Random One says:
Well, they did show The Banner Saga on their teaser image. Hope it’s an actual thing and not an Ouya style mockup.
13/09/2012 at 00:28 flang says:
NO SHIT!
… Sorry, I got kind of excited there. Seriously though, The Banner Saga as pay-what-you-want? Wow.
12/09/2012 at 23:18 Gasmask Hero says:
Not sure what service is being offered here…is it the same as Steam, is it the same as GOG, is it the same as Gamersgate’s Indiefort, is it the same as the Humble Bundle, is it the same as Indie Royale…or is it the same as Kickstarter?
Or Indiegogo?
Or maybe I could just give to a developer direct to support a project I really like at a price THEY set, so their project can succeed….
13/09/2012 at 00:56 Xocrates says:
The idea is largely to spread awareness for these games. Frankly you can shout all you want about supporting developers directly, but that’s a moot point of you’ve never heard of them.
Also, from the article: “A game gets four days in the pay-what-you-want throne, until it is disposed by a new title. But once something’s appeared, it goes into another section of the site where you’ll find details for buying it directly from the developer.“
13/09/2012 at 01:38 Delusibeta says:
Closest comparison would probably be the Indie Royale, certainly in terms of regularity of new deals.
13/09/2012 at 02:19 Veracity says:
3.5 days would make so much more sense. If you know something new will be up set days twice a week, checking it could easily become a habit. But every four days? I last remembered quite what I was doing four days previously in 1989.
13/09/2012 at 08:04 Unholymess says:
Sorry to be “that guy” John, but I think you mean deposed not disposed in this line: “A game gets four days in the pay-what-you-want throne, until it is disposed by a new title”
*Edit* Just see this has already been pointed out!
Also, this sounds like a really interesting concept, but I totally agree that the largest problem this will face is the very peculiar 4 day timeframe. It’s such an odd amount of time, I tend to either check websites daily (like RPS) or weekly (like the news :p (I may be joking there (and I have too many brackets going on!!))) but 4 days seems like I’ll forget and miss things! Still, will be watching for this one when it goes live.
13/09/2012 at 14:21 phelix says:
Oh man, those brackets!