Do Indie Developers purchase fellow Indie Developer games?

[Promaginy]

Being new to the industry, I am not sure if this is common practice amongst indie developers. Do you buy (not just download) each other's games? Do indies support each other in that fashion? Why or why not?

[DGuy]

You might find this topic from the Dexterity Forum archives interesting:

Which Indie Games Have You Purchased? (http://www.indiegamer.com/archives/t-3091.html)

DGuy

[svero]

I've bought quite a few, but a lot of us will trade or just give away free copies to fellow dev's that we've known a while.

[Mark Fassett]

I've bought several, and traded for many (my games, work, etc...). There are two reasons I don't buy more: there are few that interest me enough to want to buy them, and most of the time, I don't have the money to buy more.

[Andy]

... just to check how the order procedure works at retro64... ;)

REM: svero was always requiring me to order 2-3 thousand of his games to fix his statistics for Russia up to appropriate level. I've oredered only 1 thousand. :( :D

[Jim Buck]

My most recent game purchase was Insaniquarium Deluxe.. :)

[princec]

I've bought quite a few. I tend to give away my games to other devs for their honest feedback.

Cas :)

[papillon]

Often, an indie game that interests me is more likely to inspire me to try and make something along those lines myself than it is to inspire me to buy it. :)

I do buy games sometimes, but it has to be both fun AND something I don't think I could do better (read that as 'more to my particular tastes') myself. So you're not going to get me with any connect-three-colored-things or breakout clones. :)

I buy retail games even more rarely, because most of them aren't to my tastes at all. Almost the only genre that's going to get a look-in from me is the RPG field... I love old-style adventures but the modern adventure games tend to be too 3d and too Myst, so even they don't get me.

[simonh]

I buy quite a few arcade-style ones - like Hamster Ball and Best Friends. Speaking for my own game though, I'm pretty sure no-one here bought it :D

[Reactor]

Not yet no... but the more I play indie games, the more I feeling like doing so. In all honestly though, because I'm working on my own game I just don't have the time to play right through another game.

[StormcloudCreations]

I buy them all the time! Just recently bought Trivia Machine from HipSoft, and enjoying it quite a bit (though I could come up with some more bonus ideas/modes to spice it up a bit more).

I think it's important for associates in this type of business to support one another, but maybe that's a weird idea these days. :)

[FlySim]

The reason i dont buy alot of games (indie or other) is time, if I get addicted my work ethic goes to hell. Just a quick game before I start coding - oops there goes a couple of hours.

-J.R
www.flysim.com

[Gmicek]

I buy quite a number of indie games when I have the money. Our political game round-up review finally drove me to purchase president forever, which, along with Starshatter, are my two most recent purchases.

[Davaris]

I don't buy AAA games at all. I stopped playing them years ago because they looked good but were deadly boring. The only AAA game I have ever enjoyed was an RPG called Fallout. As for Indie games I'm only interested in RPGs. I quite like Spiderweb Software's titles and am playing the Geneforge demo now. When I complete all of the demo areas in it I will probably buy it.

[dan]

A few. Play a lot of demo's.

Same for commercial games.

I could easily buy more and play them in depth, but given that I'm working on my own stuff, I'd never get away from a computer. Divorce would ensue.

[tolik]

A few. Play a lot of demo's.

Same for commercial games.

I could easily buy more and play them in depth, but given that I'm working on my own stuff, I'd never get away from a computer. Divorce would ensue.

Same as Dan - I've played every casual/indie game and bought couple in retail (Platypus, PomPom stuff, Alien Shooter and others which are getting laid somewhere deep on the shelfes), with some of the games I have to work so I have dozens of licenses from a publisher/developer.
But I still prefer console and handheld games - GBA (I have about dozen of titles and swapping them time to time with other guys), N-Gage (I'm playing only smaller S60/J2ME games, I don't like any single "N-Gage" game (well, may be when Asphalt will be released, I'll get it)), classic NES (http://www.dotnet.lv/ABitofCarts.jpg and I'm a lucky owner of HoneyBee NES arcade stick :) ), Atari 800, Jaguar, SNES, PSOne and nowadays Xbox, PS2 and GC (rarely). I don't have any specific platform or genre preferences, "I love games" in general. I also enjoy arcade gaming, but we have only few arcades in our town...

[GrahamGoring]

I've bought a fair few, yeah, like Best Friends, Platypus (twice!), Alien Shooter, Gish, Mutant Storm and Space Tripper but generally it has to be something pretty special. My indie-gaming buying habits are pretty much the same as my commercial ones, fairly twitchy games for the most part.

[EpicBoy]

I recently purchased "Ricochet Lost Worlds Recharged" and am having a great time with it ... but I don't buy too many indie games, truthfully. Usually the demos give enough away that I don't need to see the whole thing.


I don't buy AAA games at all. I stopped playing them years ago because they looked good but were deadly boring.
Top of my head : BurnOut3, Thief3, the recent Bond Game, Fable, SSX 1/2/3, UT 2003/2004, etc ... Too bad you missed those (and the many other excellent AAA games released in recent years) - they rocked!

[Coyote]

I do, but not many. I don't have time. During the latter part of the development of Void War I occasionally, remoresefully looked at the stack of CD cases of AAA games sitting on my desk that I'd recently purchased and really wanted to play, but didn't have time. The idea of purchasing ANY new games - indie or not - didn't make much sense.

But until I go full steam ahead on the next game (which is likely to be very soon... November has started), I'm back to playing a few games. Ricochet: Lost Worlds was my most recent purchase. Most of the time I'm playing the demos, though... I am a browser player, looking at what's out there and seeing where the benchmarks are.

[dan]

I do find that the one-two punch of working on a computer a lot and not having much free time has changed my gaming.

If I didn't write games, my gaming mix would still be heavy on complex strategy games and role-playing games. For instance, my alternate self would probably have 50 hours already invested in Rome: Total War.

My real self plays demos with really deep games. My brother purchased Warcraft III for me last Christmas, a terrific RTS, but I simply haven't played it because I don't have the time to devote. Instead, I'm often analyzing computer games with a developer's eye as opposed to playing them.

For really kicking back and playing, my kids like their gamecube quite a lot, so I try to keep my skills in tune for fun multiplayer titles. I'm a dangerous man with Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Incidentally, we have a GBA player on the Cube and I do recommend that indie developers pay some attention to GBA games. With the more limited tech, the GBA games that shine do it on gameplay that is worth paying attention to. Our game, in fact, has a combat system that is based on certain principles in a GBA game -- though ours takes it in a different direction.

And to an extent, our game is targeted at gamers who might not have the free time they once did, or gamers that like a "side" game to go with a magnum opus.

[tolik]

Following Dan's advice, I would extend it by "Play mobile games".
Developers on cell phones really try to put as much features as possible while leaving this playable on a small beast. I'm talking about smaller J2ME games, and not Symbian.