Hi, for some time now, in my free time i'm developing a 'advanced remake' of a old arcade classic. Nothing so special; but, in stead of making it Freeware (just puttin' it on the net for the picking) , or asking a small fee for it (Payware, my first greedy thought) my mind is going towards the 'Donationware' principle. I like the nature of it, if you feel like it you give the developer a fee, if you don't you simply use it. No matter what, without any restrictions of the software! So, my questions are: 1) Has anyone made available a game using this principle? And if so 2) Did you get any donations? 3) Wouldn't most downloaders just use the software, even if they liked it and would like to pay for it if they had been 'forced' so -- and skip the donation part? Would they ever return to the site to 'pay' their respect :D 4) What are your general opinions about this type of making available software? Many thanks.

For a long time I've been thinking about a similar idea, but mostly for libraries.

My idea is a mix between MIT or the old BSD Licensing and donation ware, basically you get the code for free, you can use it for free but you cannot redistribute (the source) by itself, improvements should be send back to the author... unless you register your copy, in which case you can do whatever you want with it, even redistribute (the source) to third parties (though forth parties would not be able to redistribute for lack of registration or license agreement).

Now, registration/license agreement would consist of a small donation, say, a minimum of $5-$10.

A watermark might, or might not be involved, and "licenses" will be non-transferable due to the small amount of money that is involved.

I have no idea about whether or not it would work though [smile].

You could easily have a startup screen urging payment but with unrestricted access to the features.

Those who don't want to pay don't have to, but continue to get the screen. Those who pay can get rid of the nag screen.

From what I have read elsewhere, several popular pieces of software operate this way and generate some revenue. Just thinking aloud, but they probably have a lower sales conversion rate but probably a larger number of users so it could be a net win.

Of course, if your software isn't popular you aren't going to see much money from it no matter what option you choose.

Everyone I know that has tried this approach has been very disappointed in the results. The number of people willing to pay for something they can get for free is even smaller than you think.

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Original post by Wade Steel Everyone I know that has tried this approach has been very disappointed in the results. The number of people willing to pay for something they can get for free is even smaller than you think.

Yes, if you are competing exclusively on cost then you will lose.

That is one reason why so many games fail: they do not have a brand, or an identity, or a unique game play, or any other value. Look at the profitable games and you will discover that they aren't remakes of classics; instead you will find that they are original brands, original concepts, and otherwise unique material.


The number of people who ARE willing to pay for something that meets their needs and wants is much greater than you seem to think.


I am friends with (in the physical world) three people who have started their own business doing EXACTLY what was described. I also did this.

In each of these four cases, we used each other for moral support and spent a few years actively developing our own stuff. Note the word years, which is plural and continuous. Also note the word active which means real actual work for several hours each day, several days each week. The fields were my own niche software for education, one friend's Windows macro app, another friend's skinning apps, and the last friend's niche database migration code.

One difficulty is that when working at night you can't compete with your day job. I chose educational software because it is very similar to games that I develop in my day job, but not close enough to break any of the legal agreements. I still got permission in writing before starting, though.

My niche software worked well, developed a small community and earning a small amount of money, and I later ended up selling it. It took about five years.

The macro app (shareware) has grown into a five-person business, and he joked with me when he found out three years ago his tools were detected as cheat tools by the major games (it seems people like to use keyboard macros for repetitive tasks like shooting.) That has been in continuous development since about '96.

The skinner generates around $70K / year as shareware. Chris is now branching out into other areas that he enjoys. It took two years before he saw a single cent.

The database migration tools (both free and commercial) grew from four years developing the tools as an independent contractor. At seven years he hired his first employee. Within two more he was at 15 people and Rick moved to the forests in northern California by Sacramento.



As far as game specific development, I know of nine people who have branched out of existing studios as groups of programmers and artists and started their own successful small studios who are now publishing major titles, but I haven't worked as closely with them.


Of course I do know a few less successful people, but most of them were transitory. If you stick with it for the years of hard work required, and you are conscious of developing value, then it is frequently very successful.

I used to sell a very niche little application as donationware. Within a few months, I probably had about 100-150 downloads, 50 of which resulted in frequent users of the application. I know that sounds like way too high a conversion rate, but like I said, it was a niche program so people who downloaded it needed it and explicitly went looking for it.

Anyway, out of those 50 frequent users, many of whom wrote to me with feature requests (which I fulfilled 9 out of 10 times), thank you emails, and all that stuff, ONE guy donated $5.00.

Disappointed, I made an "advanced" version of the program and switched from donationware to shareware. About 20 people bought it within the first two months, and I think I ended up with about 80-100 registrations within a year.

And by the way, I gave the guy who donated the $5 the shareware version for free.

All the people I have encountered who tried the donate route had the same experience as maraxle. Part of the reason may be that if you give it away free then people assume it isn't worth paying for. Conclusion seems to be that if you want to give it away free then give it away free. If you want to earn money then charge for it. The donation route (hoping that people will actually donate) just leads to disappointment.

Sorry for the late reaction.. thanks for the replies and as I can see donationware isn't much popular and I must admit i am a n00b as to marketing skills. (yet)

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Anyway, out of those 50 frequent users, many of whom wrote to me with feature requests (which I fulfilled 9 out of 10 times), thank you emails, and all that stuff, ONE guy donated $5.00.

I don't know the program, but thats pretty poor.I;'d like to avoid this.

Donationware would be a idealogical approach for me. But maybe soem people will like to get a 'barrier', to pay for what they download. (or use warez but that is evidently a total different subject).

Logically, I think its better to release a game shareware, how small the fee is, or at least make an appealing version that people can buy (even for a small fee) and sepearately mnake available a free, stripped version.

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Original post by Marmin Donationware would be a idealogical approach for me. But maybe soem people will like to get a 'barrier', to pay for what they download. (or use warez but that is evidently a total different subject). Logically, I think its better to release a game shareware, how small the fee is, or at least make an appealing version that people can buy (even for a small fee) and sepearately mnake available a free, stripped version.

These (and many other choices) are all part of doing business.

Other wonderful issues you get to deal with include what the difference is between the features, what the purchase cost is (essentially the cost for the added features), methods to encourage them to register, and so on.

Fortunately it is fairly easy to change your mind and offer later versions under different terms. Pay attention to what works well in your target market, and adjust and improve it until it works best. Then once you get it stable, the market will change and you get to start again.

It's a fun journey.

One thing I like about going by donations is you get money combined with you get the publicity of freeware. Keep in mind not all projects are applicable for this kind of scenario, though. The more people stick around your site the more likely they are to donate. If someone goes to your site, downloads your code and never comes back, its a lot less likely they will donate.

Another thing is giving a little more to donators. They may get access to upgrade guides, quicker access to later releases, more guides, etc.

I opened up my engine, vbGORE, by charging $XX (can't remember exactly how much) per license. There was a few people interested, but I decided to drop that and just make it completely free. After a month or two, someone suggested I should set up donation support since they were interested in donating. I was hesitant to put the effort into getting a PayPal account and everything since I wasn't expecting to ever get more than maybe $50 if lucky, but so far, I have made I believe over $1100 in donations.

http://www.vbgore.com/VbGORE_Visual_Basic_Online_RPG_Engine:Site_support#List_of_Donators

I probably could have made more if I charged people around $50 for using it, but then there wouldn't be anywhere near as large of a community. I have also got quite a few jobs (mostly people paying me to add stuff to their game made with my engine) from people who have seen my engine which has added up to a decent value. All in all, not bad for my first completed engine which I could have done a lot better job making and used a language that isn't discontinued (VB6).

Theres a lot of things you have to take into consideration when estimating how much you'd make off of donations:
- How many people know about it
- How many people use it
- Quality of the product
- Documentation (you'll need a lot)
- Activity and appeal of the community (keeps them coming back)
- What the product is

For the last one, it really influences the age group attracted and the knowledge of programming / graphics / etc (depending on what it is). If you have a "game maker" style program, you are going to be attracting a lot of young, inexperienced kids. On the other hand, if you have a high-end engine that is going to require a lot of work to get down (not just point-and-click game making) you will attract often older, more experienced individuals.

Which one of these age groups pay better I can not say. I have received donations from people all across the board, from 12 to 25+, inexperienced to moderately decent programmers / artists, English speakers to non-English speakers, etc. Don't underestimate a kid's ability to get their parent's credit card to donate, though. But keep in mind that a kid is much less likely to donate if they aren't getting anything in return (see above).

All in all, from my experience, "Donationware" is not intended as an alternative for paid software. Its going to be tough to make more money. But it will get your and your product's name out there, and it will let more people use it. And hopefully you'll get at least a decent share of money for the effort you put into it. But don't expect to get anything, and definitely don't expect to average out anything close to even $5/hr. ;)