Expanding the community!

@Random I agree with you .If i buy a copy that copy is Mine, i got right to lend it to another friend or erase it and re downloaded. It´s the basic of ownership since roman laws total control about what is mine.
I let my friends play games and apps i buy same i lend physical books. My best friend has bought ZE after play in my mobile lol. And DRM politic is nasty and against consumer rights.

But you has to understand publish apps have a cost to Cog the free apps have a cost to people who publish it due apple google amazon wants money a percentage. Many of them use app purchase and publicity to cover cost and make profit, remember Free apps arent free at all someone pays for it.

Cog couldnt use effectively publicity now, and they have a free games catalogue , they need money to grow. And being sincere the numbers of free readers than buy the rest is a 10% being realist people dont valorate apps and say 2,99 dollars are terrible spensive while eat a ice cream for 4 dollars .

In my opinion, the free readers really hurt the authors and the company. They’re generally pretentous, and have dealt devastating blows to many of CoG’s gamebook’s ratings because either there was a free demo or the sequel wasn’t free. Not to mention they generally refuse gamebooks that cost money like the plague, so they really don’t count as a larger fanbase, more of bad critics.

There are other ways of getting publicity than giving away stuff for free, and I’d hope CoG would invest in those.

@Samuel_H_Young You’re missing my point, I’m not saying to give away gamebooks for free. I’m saying that lending someone else a gamebook is fine. I completely understand that gamebook authors require money, but if we’re going to be incredibly stingy about it to the point where we’re not going to even allow good friends sharing something, then they’re not going to like us & buy from us. I’m definitely not saying to make the gamebooks free, as in they cost no money in the app store, that shouldn’t happen considering we can’t use ads as well.

@Random
You can do whatever you want with your app. You don’t need me to allow you to do anything.

@Samuel_H_Young I’m not sure your statement about free readers is entirely fair. I mean I’m seventeen so I can’t get a credit card and my dad won’t let me get a bank account so I can’t use a debit. So I’m going to admit I only read free games and game demos. Then I discovered that Kroger sold Google play gift cards and I bought like thirty dollars in cogs and hosted games anyway my point is sometimes its less about not wanting to spend the money and more about trying to figure out how to. Looking forward to your game btw

@817819
I read the free games, too! There’s nothing wrong with that. I just meant that the vast majority of free readers leave bad reviews on the pay-to-read gamebooks with demo’s or free gamebooks with pay-to-read sequels not because of the quality, but because they didn’t get everything for free. I even saw someone complaining about ads on a free Hosted Game. If you don’t do any of that, you’re an actual fan, as most of us on the CoG forums are.

Thank you :slight_smile: me, too.

Or you could do something like have the first 100 downloads free, the next 100 at a discounted price, and have it at full price after a certain number of downloads

@Xt1000305 lol complainings would be worse. i knew a app offered a discount 30% a day all weeks 0 rating are everywhere like
“why i have to wait until monday. this is a scam” etc

It’s a shame that people will spend more on a cookie or slice of pizza than on a book or a game that reflects a huge investment on someone’s part to provide the (quality, hopefully) entertainment, but this is the world we live in–for the moment. The challenge is how to work with that so that people who create don’t starve or give up; or a challenge to change the model and expectations of the buyers. The “creative” system is already slanted so that creators can be talented geniuses with rubies dripping from their typing fingers, but it doesn’t matter if they don’t have the resources (time, money, hope of reward) to create the rubies in the first place. Maybe the whole model of what people are willing to pay will stay shifted, maybe it’ll swing back. Lots to think about.

People will spend more on a pizza than a book because a pizza tastes better than a book

@PORT3R
Taste has nothing to do with a book, though.

pizza tastes better than make up and people pay 20 dolars for a black lipstick when i could buy a same black same shop only changing labels for 2 dollars. My idea we humanity are mad

Individuals think they gain more utility from a slice of pizza than a game book. That is a fact that can’t really be disputed based on consumer choice.

There are free game books already available. I am not sure what the point of this discussion is, but I will drop my two cents on it anyways. Free game books are wonderful, but paid game books means CoG stays in business. That is not even looking at it from the perspective of the authors, who would not continue writing game books if there was not some return on their investment of writing the book.

As far as letting a friend read a game book. I see no problem with that, especially if that friend has an interest in a particular topic that has a game book. Among the cheapest of ways to gain a customer is from an already loyal customer base.

Would that new customer find this website and purchase the game book otherwise? Not likely. An author or company can’t really consider that a lost sale. Regardless, that individual may purchase the game book so he or she could play it on their own time and their own computer/tablet/whatever else is used to read the game books.

Yeah, know that I think about it, letting a friend borrow your copy of a CoG does no harm. I think the best move CoG has made is putting demo’s inside of the actual app. Even though it some people give nasty reviews because of that, it’s also done wonders for their sales, which makes sense.

@Carolyne you madam\sir? mpcould not possibly have ever been a cook. Sure writing a cog is hard, but I’ll bet mYY right arm that starting a quality resteraunt is harder. Do you know how much trial and error is involved in making a good original recipe? Have you ever stopped by a local family owned donut store and thought to yourself that someone got up at four am to labor over crafting this delectable treat for you and their other customers? Have you ever thought that these people actually quit their jobs to labor twice as hard in an attempt to provide a better life for them and their families? Now no disrespect to you but I would ask that you to be more considerate to the men and women in the culinary service industry

Starting a restaurant is more like what Jason, Dan and Adam have done than like what we writers are doing. :slight_smile:

@MaraJade humans are certainly… illogical at times. I think it’s more down to natural vanity and wanting to appear ‘nice’ to society than actual madness, but I still don’t fully understand it all.

Hi, @817819: I’ve worked managing a small local ice cream shop, in software development, and in publishing, but I’d stand by my statement regarding scale and consumer expectations even if I hadn’t ever spent long nights up to my elbows in weird ice cream (do NOT try the Midori milkshake). Saying x is hard doesn’t mean saying y is easy.

Each industry has different tolerances and support needs. And what I’m aiming toward is: how do you support this apple, given how people value that orange? How do you do that within current expectations that entertainment should be provided gratis or for less than you’d pay for a cookie? Or how to you shape that opinion so that the buyer will offer more for something worthwhile–a gourmet cookie, a good game with low-volume sales, a printed book, a delicious pizza…

And I’d never say good cookies should be a penny each.

@Havenstone my point exactly and I have great respect for all the people who started this site and buisiness as well as the writers
@Carolyne and I will stand by mine given the nightmarish years my family spent trying to start a small restraunt and we still failed