I personally like the episode choice because it gives the writer more flexibility with their schedule and lets them work at their own pace
Mewsly
82
If you’re going for a TV approach are there going to be “seasons?” Perhaps you can start with a "pay as you play’ model but once a complete “season” is out someone could buy the season up front.
4 Likes
Frogs
83
Maybe make the first episode free as an introduction/demo and the next episodes would cost money.
Similar to what Life is Strange did
I was going to say, I’m sceptical of the episodic thing purely from a financial point of view. I am currently financially limited so I’d not want to pay $10-$15 upfront but would be happy paying $2-$5 a pop for something along the lines of CCH, Heros Rise, etc.
Frogs
85
I think paying upfront can put a lot of pressure on the author too. People who’d pay would want the episodes to come quickly and if there was an unexpected delay and it took a year or so for the next episode a lot of people will get angry and want refunds, cause you basically promised them a product and didn’t deliver it.
While if you pay for each episode you can’t complain much cause you just paid for that particular episode.
5 Likes
@Frogs, yes “Pay as you Go” is definitely the safer approach.
I just know that some people will complain, “Hey didn’t I already buy the whole thing? I have to pay again?”
But I guess some people will complain about things like that, and I am fully capable of explaining the approach in a note to readers before Episode 1 starts.
I would offer Episode 1 for free, but that approach can only be used on GPS. I would not offer Episodes 1-4 for free. That’s way too much work for no money at all, so on IOS, it would be Pay to Play.
6 Likes
That’s completely fair and understandable. Pay as you go also lets readers buy in only as much as they feel comfortable which helps. Maybe offer an in app purchase for a season pass as Mewsly mentioned. That lets readers that get super invested in the first episode to support immediate development while those who are more wary can wait for each episode naturally.
1 Like
Wally
88
I guess I hadn’t considered the negative aspects of paying ahead of time. I do think that what Mewsly suggested would be good for latter on, especially if there ends up being a lot of episodes.
Yeah, I’d support it and would very much like to pay up front to avoid the small transactions fee our stupid banks are allowed to charge to recoup the costs of the last crisis they caused. So if I could buy a season’s pass for say 9.99 or so that would be great.
I would like a loose overarching story arc for each season but there is certainly room for a few stand-alone episodes each “season” that do not necessarily further that overall plot of getting closer to home or uncovering the identities of the attackers of the great peace conference.
Yeah, real life does happen but I don’t think about $9.99 for a season’s pass is likely to make me terribly angry if it does. Again particularly with the small transaction fee I pay the same for any amount less than 100 Euros. Therefore paying $2 five times is more expensive for me then just putting down the money once.
1 Like
If it helps UnNatural on Google is free download is episodes 1 and 2 and then a one off payment for episodes 3-6.
I plan to do the same with Season Two.
Only issue with part free pay rest is of course the 1-star ratings from people who feel cheated thinking the whole game is free.
1 Like
@idonotlikeusernames, I believe you when you say you’d be okay paying $9.99 upfront, trust me I do, but I think most of the forum-goers are many times more supportive, understanding, and loyal when it comes to these matters. Considering the number of people who bitch about having to pay ANYTHING for our games, I am pretty certain that the vast number of readers who paid a large amount upfront would expect content to come fast and frequent (and perhaps without end!)
Basically I was trying to brainstorm a way to fund my writing efforts in advance to help me make an eventual shift to writing more as a job than a hobby. That would be years down the road, and it would likely involve writing some commercial content for companies (especially law firms), but it is a goal. Kickstarter doesn’t really work for us here because we don’t control the publication/pricing process. I suppose there’s Patreon, but I know little about that.
2 Likes
Yeah I still get hammered on that. Virtually all of my 1-star GPS reviews are either “This isn’t free!!” or “There’s more story? I won’t get that for free??” But yeah I would strongly consider on GPS making Episode 1 free and then putting the pay wall right there.
1 Like
I dislike Patreon because it is a subscription model and I try to limit my ongoing subscriptions and a dozen of those Patreon things would add up. Paying for episodes on Patreon may be an exception, but the fact remains that a small fee monthly subscription would still be more costly for me then just paying for a season up front, particularly since the extra money would disappear straight into the undeserving yet bottomless pits of our banks.
Well platforms take 30% off the top for IOS, GPS and Steam, so there are precious few ways for creators and consumers to hook up without “middlemen.”
True, but what I most dislike is the fee on small transactions, like I said I’d prefer paying it once over having to pay it five times.
Anyway, back to the main topic at hand, playing a cute and sexy alien in episodic sci-fi stories. Really hope you do a few light-hearted or comedic episodes per season too.
1 Like
I fully intend to embrace the tropes. Like 100% embrace them. There is plenty of room for comedic situations. I actually thought Next Generation did a good job with comedy.
1 Like
Any sci-fi fans want to chime on these questions?
So I’m struggling with units of measurement. Everything from describing the size of ships to time to measurement of long distances.
I’ve read a LOT about this in the past few days and there seem to be few easy answers. Making Earth units be the dominant measurement system seems…illogical. Our time measurement is based on rotation and revolving of our unique planet. Our “cosmic” measurements of distance like light years and parsecs (and kiloparsecs) don’t really seem “superior” to other ways of measuring distance. Okay, maybe it would make sense to use the metric system for measuring things like starships, since I’m pretty sure they do that on Star Trek, but again, the Federation seems Earthcentric. And even Star Trek was inconsistent, changing its Stardate formula from series to series.
So I can either just make up my own “universally accepted” systems, have Earth systems predominate, or acknowledge that all the races and civilizations use different systems, which might be the most authentic environment, but also the most confusing. I would rather not spend too much time on these issues. I’d like to set them and forget them!
So anyway, what are your suggestions for:…?
Fiogan
98
Confusing and…hilarious? ‘Wait, wait, was that Klaxxaz 7 trinuggets squared? Wait no—we’re measuring volume, right?? HEY CAN YOU STILL BREATHE IN THERE!’
12 Likes
Yes there is some potential for comedy stemming from the confusion!! Still I wouldn’t want to go overboard as I think it would wear on readers quickly.
Heck, maybe I just need to have an Episode where the crew hammers out the systems they will adopt. Okay, we’ll use Earth’s metric system for small stuff, but we’re using Florgs for measuring distance.
Jaxer: “Captain, we are still 454,093,099,134,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000001 Florgs from the nearest Union star system.”
MC: “Perhaps we should have used a system with larger units of measurement.”
13 Likes
Not to say I’m extremely erudite on sci-fi, but I can try.
Me rambling
I still think universally accepted systems would be still difficult to do. Relatively simpler to do than make up a bunch of different ones for each race, but still sort of. What would time be like for them? Let’s say the aliens measure their own time on some distant planet. Their day doesn’t end in twenty-four hours because the planet they originate from rotates at a different speed, and heck, they don’t even use the term ‘hours’ or even the number, ‘twenty-four’! All of the diplomats and delegates at the meeting for the universal system would scream if we suggest we use our numbers. They’d assume we think we’re superior, and that’s messy. So it’s not like we can use, ‘twenty kambooles’ for a day because the other race doesn’t use the numbers, ‘twenty’.
The simpler answer would be so that Earth systems predominate, although it might be considerably less realistic. You can, A) have an event in which describes as to why it predominates. Maybe similar as to why English is the universal language today, but Spanish was the universal language historically when Spain was at its peak. Maybe Earth is more powerful than all the races currently, which is why we use it more. Aliens don’t necessarily have to be the more technologically-advanced ones.
… And well, B) use creative license.
Still, if you want to make it plausible, I suppose there might be a different reason other than Earth being the superpower of planets or using your creative license. Which, you can make up on your own. We can acknowledge that some forms of unit systems still exist, however, Earth’s unit system is used more often because of xxx.
Although, maybe we can just avoid getting into detail.
An explanation as to why we might use Earth’s system, even though there might be others is this: Maybe some characters use a different unit system but are still well-informed about Earth’s. Our fellow aliens might be acquainted with Earth’s, and robots have already ingrained all kinds of unit systems in their mind. Humans would use our system by default. Therefore, the group would use Earth’s unit system to simplify communication with each other. We can be acquainted with the unit system, like how Americans recognize there’s the metric system, but still use the standard units of measurement. Or perhaps, even, we originate in a place where Earth has a strong influence on us, so we use their system (or maybe we originate on Earth?). But as most of the group knows Earth’s system, we use that instead.
As to the reason why most of them are at least acquainted with it — meh, where I’m from, there’s always a class for Spanish for some reason. Maybe it’s somehow important to understand it.
Again, I don’t know a lot… so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
3 Likes
