The ports will take a non-trivial amount of time and effort, and even more if I include extras, so I'm unwilling to put in that time and effort for 'exposure'.
I'm definitely concerned about the 'lost opportunity' aspect; probably the main reason I've been so indecisive for so long. It's why I considered doing two collections (Fig Hunter Games and Alora Fane Games), with things like soundtracks bundled in, but it's so hard to decide because it's a lot of stuff, years of work, but it's also not finished stuff so... ehh.
It's not a nice feeling, looking back over years of your life, trying to determine how much it's actually worth, and concluding 'probably not much'.
Since I feel so conflicted about CBC, I wasn't expecting to charge much, but when written down, $3 just seems so... paltry, considering how big of a chunk of that is taken away by various fees (I'd get like $1) and how few copies it's likely to sell anyway. MARDEK is $9.99, which I thought might be way too much considering it's been out for free for so long, but it's sold many more copies than I expected, and continues to do so. I think the price for things like this is different than for buying most games because it's a show of support and appreciation for something with nostalgic value, maybe?
I'm thinking of posting about CBC on r/gamedev or something, not so much as an advert, but the story behind it and questions about how - or even if - I should port it. I'd be curious to hear what people beyond this website would be willing to pay for such a thing.
Oh, there's also the fact that Steam charges $100 for the privilege of adding a game to sell at all.
0
MontyCallay99~1Y
I personally wouldn't expect to make all too much out of these re-releases financially - especially not to the degree that the MARDEK re-releases were successful. I'm really unsure whether the Fig Hunter brand is anywhere near as strong as the MARDEK brand was. I would consider veering more in the direction of focusing on personal brand-building, if that doesn't sound too insincere. I may be too pessimistic here though.
AFC and CBC have the virtues of being complete experiences. CBC has some kind of nostalgia factor associated with it (though nowhere near MARDEK levels, sadly) and AFC doesn't really. Maybe it's unsurprising that there's still quite a few people here who remember it - anyone who did was invariably in the small number of beta testers and has stuck with you until this day. This makes onboarding people to AFC somewhat difficult unless you can really sell them on it, though. It might make sense to do these re-releases at the same time (or at least kind of) so that people getting back into CBC can also look at some of your other stuff. I don't know of any collections of unfinished games, unfortunately.
Being worried about just doing things "for exposure" is a good idea to some extent - business relationships shouldn't pay "in exposure" - and yet working for exposure is precisely what you're doing when you're thinking about things like marketing yourself. Sometimes exposure unfortunately is the point.
Let me say, however, that CBC absolutely stands on its own merits in terms of its content - we can wonder all day about whether it's 3$ or 5$ or 59.99$, but it's still a wonderful experience in its own right. Personally, when I play CBC, the game just radiates joy. From the irreverent humour to the radiant music, it is quite evident that you made this during a time in your life when things really seemed to be lining up for you.
Thinking about it again - I wrote the thing about 3$ two years ago in my last comment - given inflation, it might as well be 5$ for all it's worth! These things sadly aren't objective "appraisals of value", but just my estimations about how you might sell the most copies. I personally would be more inclined to pick it up mindlessly at 3$ rather than 5$, since I already have the game saved and can play it any time I want - if I want to donate to your Patreon I can just do that! To be fair, demand for CBC re-releases is probably somewhat price inelastic.
At this point, worrying about how exactly to go about things due to the 'lost opportunity aspect' feels secondary from a financial standpoint - if you make 1000£ more or less from re-selling your other old games seems less important to me than the question of whether you can attract attention to your current projects or can find a different source of stable income, if you're worried about that sort of thing. Anxiety about appraising your past gets you no further in the present, alas.
What are your worries about how you should port CBC? To be honest, it should be even more straightforward than MARDEK - the save transfer between games isn't a factor, you could probably just put the game in a container and sell that even without any kind of Windows Forms menu.
I'm definitely concerned about the 'lost opportunity' aspect; probably the main reason I've been so indecisive for so long. It's why I considered doing two collections (Fig Hunter Games and Alora Fane Games), with things like soundtracks bundled in, but it's so hard to decide because it's a lot of stuff, years of work, but it's also not finished stuff so... ehh.
It's not a nice feeling, looking back over years of your life, trying to determine how much it's actually worth, and concluding 'probably not much'.
Since I feel so conflicted about CBC, I wasn't expecting to charge much, but when written down, $3 just seems so... paltry, considering how big of a chunk of that is taken away by various fees (I'd get like $1) and how few copies it's likely to sell anyway. MARDEK is $9.99, which I thought might be way too much considering it's been out for free for so long, but it's sold many more copies than I expected, and continues to do so. I think the price for things like this is different than for buying most games because it's a show of support and appreciation for something with nostalgic value, maybe?
I'm thinking of posting about CBC on r/gamedev or something, not so much as an advert, but the story behind it and questions about how - or even if - I should port it. I'd be curious to hear what people beyond this website would be willing to pay for such a thing.
Oh, there's also the fact that Steam charges $100 for the privilege of adding a game to sell at all.
AFC and CBC have the virtues of being complete experiences. CBC has some kind of nostalgia factor associated with it (though nowhere near MARDEK levels, sadly) and AFC doesn't really. Maybe it's unsurprising that there's still quite a few people here who remember it - anyone who did was invariably in the small number of beta testers and has stuck with you until this day. This makes onboarding people to AFC somewhat difficult unless you can really sell them on it, though. It might make sense to do these re-releases at the same time (or at least kind of) so that people getting back into CBC can also look at some of your other stuff. I don't know of any collections of unfinished games, unfortunately.
Being worried about just doing things "for exposure" is a good idea to some extent - business relationships shouldn't pay "in exposure" - and yet working for exposure is precisely what you're doing when you're thinking about things like marketing yourself. Sometimes exposure unfortunately is the point.
Let me say, however, that CBC absolutely stands on its own merits in terms of its content - we can wonder all day about whether it's 3$ or 5$ or 59.99$, but it's still a wonderful experience in its own right. Personally, when I play CBC, the game just radiates joy. From the irreverent humour to the radiant music, it is quite evident that you made this during a time in your life when things really seemed to be lining up for you.
Thinking about it again - I wrote the thing about 3$ two years ago in my last comment - given inflation, it might as well be 5$ for all it's worth! These things sadly aren't objective "appraisals of value", but just my estimations about how you might sell the most copies. I personally would be more inclined to pick it up mindlessly at 3$ rather than 5$, since I already have the game saved and can play it any time I want - if I want to donate to your Patreon I can just do that! To be fair, demand for CBC re-releases is probably somewhat price inelastic.
At this point, worrying about how exactly to go about things due to the 'lost opportunity aspect' feels secondary from a financial standpoint - if you make 1000£ more or less from re-selling your other old games seems less important to me than the question of whether you can attract attention to your current projects or can find a different source of stable income, if you're worried about that sort of thing. Anxiety about appraising your past gets you no further in the present, alas.
What are your worries about how you should port CBC? To be honest, it should be even more straightforward than MARDEK - the save transfer between games isn't a factor, you could probably just put the game in a container and sell that even without any kind of Windows Forms menu.