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Question about creators using this bundle for advertisement purposes.

A topic by Sexy_Pepper_Colony created 31 days ago Views: 79 Replies: 2
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(1 edit)

There's more than one included product that is a free playtest, beta, or early version for an already available paid product. That doesn't seem like a contribution to me, that seems like an advertisement. Seeing these included makes me very uncomfortable.

edit: I didn't include my question. Is this intentional? Is this encouraged?

HostSubmitted

I try not to think about things so cynically. As long as something isn't actively harmful, it adds value to the bundle. Not everyone can afford to donate the full, complete versions of their games, and I'm not going to discriminate.

As someone who buys a lot of charity bundles - I am fine with some of the entries being beta versions, or even limited versions or demos for a paid version. There's a ton of games on itch.io; I am never going to browse through them all. Someone putting their demo version in this bundle tells me that they support causes I care about (or at least, they don't object to causes I care about), and gives me a chance to look at them in a context other than "there are 35,000 games with this tag on itch.io."

That said, as an advertising ploy, it seems weak. I would have to really love the demo to consider buying the game because... I just got 500 other games to look at.  The demo is going to have to really stand out for me to remember it the next time I'm looking at standalone games to buy.

...I love seeing the variety of games people are making, even if some of them aren't to my taste. If it's not something that fits my interests, I don't mind that I only got the demo version.