A fantasy console for making, playing and sharing cute 32k cartridges. · By
The devs for pico-8 need to make money to continue to make and improve it, if every one didn't pay for pico-8 then they cant keep on working on it, its only $15 AU or its like $8 US its cheaper than buying Minecraft java just buy it its cheap and once you do that its yours forever. Also trying to get a paid game/app for free via pirate bay, AGFY and others is stealing and that's against the law.
have in some itch bundles. but i got my key by a person on reddit who gave it to me for free "https://www.reddit.com/r/pico8/comments/okpoud/someone_help_me/"
My unpopular opinion:
Even though there are some free and open-source alternatives like TIC-80, I still want PICO-8 to be free and open-source. The developers most certainly aren't by any means entitled to make money from PICO-8; The project will only make money if it has a profitable business model behind it. Building closed-source programs and selling them to customers is, obviously, a classic and tried and true way of making money from software development.
But even if PICO-8 was an open-source project, there would still be ways to monetize it, including:
Obviously, none of these things are guaranteed to be profitable but could be a starting point if PICO-8 suddenly turned into open-source software.
Nevertheless, I'd probably still buy PICO-8 if had the cash to spare - the Dollar exchange rate is really high here in Brazil. Still wish it was open-source though.
>The developers most certainly aren't by any means entitled to make money from PICO-8;
And you aren't entitled to get stuff for free. Its their work and they should be paid for it. I agree in that I wish it was open source, but its unbelievably difficult to make money on an open source project. Very few projects succeed, and only if they become mainstream. Even then its not guaranteed...look at the financials of GNOME and KDE.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/3983662/major-open-source-projects-how-much-mone...
Agreed. While it does cost money, they are entitled to the money they get for the work they put into it. I wish it was Open Source because I stand for libre software, but I get why it isn't. Its really hard to make money with open source...KDE and GNOME, the two most prolific open source development companies(even moreso than the Linux Foundation) barely get any money from their endeavors at all. To call them prolific is an understatement...sometimes I check the licenses of proprietary software for Windows and most of the time I find KDE or GNOME-based software somewhere in it.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/3983662/major-open-source-projects-how-much-mone...
I got PICO-8 in a bundle from 2020 and only recently realized I had it, but I was planning on buying it before I saw it in my library anyway. I might throw them money to help them out despite getting it in the bundle because man...Im loving this thing.
