How to make $ providing a free service/resource?

Hello all you smart business people!

I'm creating a web-based game. Been working on it for about the last 6-9 months - on the side at home. PHP/MySql based.

I'm trying to decide between making it a free game, or charging a subscription. I'd honestly rather offer it free, but if it scales like I think/hope it will, I'll need some revenue to cover hardware/bandwidth (let alone development time...)

I *despise* the google ads, and would rather not sell any advertising at all.

So if I'm not charging to play, and not selling advertising, how does any revenue get created?

There are free games/websites out there, with no advertising, that have large communities - http://www.cybernations.net/ for example. How do they do it?

How do Open Source developers make $?


Help me think "outside of the box" (sheesh what a stupid saying... )



Mel

 

Open Source Developer either make money on support contracts, by adverting, or by donations. There really isn't any other way to get money if you are not providing any sort of service (ads, support, etc).

 

Pretty much summed everything up very nicely here. Good post (rep added).

 

He's right, you sell service, upgrades, or something related, and also encourage your open source community to improve the code and make donations.
It's a great business model for improving code, but getting donations can be tough.

 

Thanks for the replies...

I guess the Open Source question was a red herring - I'm not doing open source software (I dont want to supply this software for anyone else to use) - I'm instead developing a game for people to play.

I guess I'll charge a subscription to play...


thanks!

 

Or your site could not be financially motivated and you can just offer it for free.

 

What the URL? Maby it would be easier to tell what to do with it.

 

If it's a game, perhaps make it so that it's playable for anyone, but if someone donates he or she can play a more advanced/enhanced version of the game, or just has the ability to do things quicker or easier or something alike!

Sometimes if you just give them usernames in the game, you could perhaps also give them a status, like normal user, contributor or something. The contributor doesn't even have to have extra things, most people just want to look good and/or want to support the game!

And I know you said no advertising in the game, but how about this: If you have like buildings, cars, busses etc in the game ( of anything that you can come up with ) you can try and contact company's like ( a big one for example ) coca cola and advertise on the side of like a bus that drives in the game or a car or a billboard next to a building!

 

If your game has a story-line, you can make people pay a little bit for each episode you produce. That is if you have a good game and good story.

 

Excellent!

I think I'll offer a free option, and a subscriber option. If you subscribe, you get 'goodies' that dont affect your gameplay, but give you enhanced 'status'.

Thanks!

(wish I could give you a URL, but the site's nowhere near ready - I'm trying real hard to get it done by February)

Mel

 

good luck, do you want a small guide to online games?
Answeres some good questions

 

Sure, whatcha got?

 

My friend created an online RPG in PHP earlier this year and shortly after he completed it someone bought it off of him for 10k. The more users you have the more valuable your site will be; even if you don't advertise or make money directly, when you sell it someone else will be able to.

You can think of it as an investment. No dividends, but the value goes up. If that makes sense.

 

There is "donation offer" link at cybernations.net website.

You can sell virtual money/weapon/upgrades for your game.

 

You can sell advertising not on your site but in a mailing list once per week to your subscribers.

 

That makes a lot of sense... Make a kick arse game that attracts (and keeps) a lot of users - and maybe attract someone who wants to buy it off of me.


good stuff folks! Thanks!

Mel

 

I used to play an online game called utopia, most users were free, but paid users got a little edge over everyone else with free items etc... similiar to this is Gunbound, it is completely free, but there are paid items, which many people bought

 

That is a good suggestion, I've seen it in action over at Kingdom of Loathing (If you're not familiar, it's a really dumb game that has a huge fanbase.. Think stick figure mmorpg.. I got hooked for about a month before I came to my senses and acknolwleged how rediculous it was..). Basically, he offers a "trinket" called "Mr. Accessory" to anyone that donates $10. (it has some special power that is really useful in the game..). It is valuable for a couple reasons, one, the special power itself is quite useful in game, and 2, it can be sold to a vendor in game for something like 6 million meat (yes, they use meat as their in game currency), so basically players can purchase in game currency through cash donations and it somehow doesn't challange people's in game ethics about allowing players to purchase virtual currency.

I found it a pretty cool way to capitalize on the huge popularity of his game, not to mention he sells merchandise as well.

 

Depending on how long the game lasts and how many players are needed for a game, you could charge players to play and have a prize fund set up, for say first second and third place.

So if 10 payers each paid 10 bucks to play, first prize would be 50 bucks, second prize would be 20 bucks, and third prize would be 10 bucks. The 20 bucks left over would go to you.

Or you could keep only 10 bucks, and use the other 10 towards prize money for bigger weekly games that would encourage more players.

So if you have say 20 games per week, that would give you 200 bucks, and 200 bucks starting prize money for the big weekly game.

 

turn it into gambling! thats always fun, i like it