Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags

PICO-8

A fantasy console for making, playing and sharing cute 32k cartridges. · By lexaloffle

Why isn't Pico 8 free

A topic by bharris2009 created Nov 14, 2020 Views: 15,568 Replies: 68
Viewing posts 1 to 20 of 39 · Next page · Last page
(+2)(-48)

e

(+10)(-1)

It's an engine you need to learn at least a thing or two to mess with. I can't begin to imagine how full of lost people this place would be with the program being open. 
Unlike some other development tools out there, this is heavily focused on coding and how to use the most of it in a limited enviroment. I want to learn more, but I'm just using it to run the games on a raspberry for now. Also, most of the games are free anyway, with a select few being actually sold somewhere. Konsairi being one of them.

(+6)

Having it free reminds me of all the junk projects scratch has due to it being free and In the browser

Right, like PixiJS and Phaser!

(-3)

As a scratch developer myself the newer scratch projects are sort of getting good if you don't believe me than go to gamejolt and download popee and buddies 2 and that is a scratch game but 3d.

(+2)

note how they weren't posted on scratch but from an external website

(-1)

Well, most scratch fnaf games so they don't have to make a setting to disable jumpscares they use turbowarp.org to export it to an exe.

https://packager.turbowarp.org/ packager

I KNOW I MEANT THAT!

(+43)

People have to make a living! Zep spends a lot of time working on PICO-8, Voxatron and the BBS; we pay a license fee to use these programs.

(+6)

A good necro for once ;)

(-22)

but, why they dont just do wath unity do????, but in a diferent way to work with Pico 8

(+8)

I don’t know what unity does.

Lexaloffle is a two-person company (if I recall correctly) that makes 3 fantasy consoles and a community forum to let people make, share and play games. Pico-8 games can be exported to native programs or HTML exports to play without having to buy anything. I don’t get that people feel entitled to demand even more than that.

Deleted 1 year ago
(+9)

PICO-8 games are hobbyist games, virtually no-one makes an income. In other words, it's not a professional and versatile tool like Unity. Unity's business model wouldn't make any sense for PICO-8

Deleted 1 year ago
(-17)

jum jum parajam, jumjum parajam, pa para pa pa pa, para pa-pa pa pa para pa para pam pam, jum jum parajam, jum jum parajam 

(+1)

That's extremely difficult to enforce for such a small company, and PICO-8 Games (and fantasy console games in general) are rarely profitable, so it wouldn't be enough to make a living.

If you're looking for an open source/free tool I reccomend TIC-80 (which has a pro version for 10$, though you can go to the github repo and compile the pro version for free, and they even encourage it) or PixelVision8 (although PV8 isn't very simillar to PICO8 or TIC-80 from what i've heard.)

The Unity Business model just doesn't work for this type of tool.

(+2)

Unity has 5200+ employees and a net worth of 4.8 billion USD

Lexaloffle games has 2 employees and an unknown net worth.

There's an obvious reason why one is free to use, and the other is not. Unity can afford to make their engine free to use for personal use, they have massive contracts with commercial game development studios & make all their income from them. Lexaloffle Games needs money to put food on the table while the 2 of them work on the engine.

Merwok you are quite knowledgeable about Pico-8 yet I have never seen you post a cart in Lexaloffle. Is there some way I can play the games and carts you've written on a different site ?

(+4)(-5)

Then again, open source projects get funded by big tech. I've heard Godot just get another 110k$ from just one company. However, Pico-8 games are cool, I esp. like those 3D, voxel and wolfenstein ones. I wish I had one, but I'm not a "purchasing person" in general. 

(+17)(-1)

Man's gotta be able to afford bread! The developer ultimately made this in *their* time so its *their* choice what to do with it

(-12)

no one it's saying that they can't do whatever they want with the engine than they create, we are just asking why??

(+2)(-1)

think about it

(-14)

think about what???

(+2)

There is the limited educational version that you can use freely on the web for learning purposes. I bought the main editor since its a fair price and not going to break the bank. Either way, its no big deal.

(+3)(-12)

Then again, People need to have money to do just about EVERYTHING! Making this free will be a major loss for the person, however the $15 price tag is a bit much. Maybe charge at least $5, or maybe even $10.

Deleted 2 years ago
(+7)

You had over $100 to buy I RG351, and you're complaining about $15?

Deleted 2 years ago
(+1)

Then why do you care if you can't have it?

Deleted 2 years ago

@lipnox, what did you expect, pico8 is experiments, student work, game jams, and sometimes games made by newbies, and hobbies. (no offence to the pico8 community)

they are NOT like minecraft and games made by a team. it is usually one person, sometimes more than one.

it's your opinion, but...  don't be so harsh

(+3)

im from Latino America, and 15 dolars are somthing like 11.044 in Chile, and depending tge day it's more expensive or minus

(+5)(-1)

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 for free via pirate bay, AGFY and others is stealing and that's against the law.

Deleted 2 years ago
(+4)

No, that’s not the case. Pico-8 reached beta stage only a year ago, and got significant fixes and features more recently: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=38665 https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=41544

It’s a game console with built-in tools and export and bbs integration. Well worth the price for people who want to make games or custom consoles, with nice conditions for educators and classrooms. Nobody is forced to buy it or play pico8 games.

(-1)

then offer the ability to play the game without having the dev tools. I had to buy stuff I don't use so I could play these games on my portable system.

(+4)

You can use one of the existing emulators out there, or play HTML exports.

(-1)

I tried but it wouldn't work. 

(+1)

You can play any game for free on Lexaloffle.
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/

(-1)

it was to use the emulator on my retro styled handheld system but I paid for it anyways

(+3)

Because Zep worked hard, and needs money. :)

(+1)(-8)

NO!!!!!!! I WANT TO FREE DOWNLOA

(+1)

too bad, use tic-80

(+2)

Well. How would  the creators get money to continue making it?

(1 edit) (+2)

The world runs on money. IMHO the $15 I spent on Pico-8 is the best and finest investment I ever made to date. For one thing this includes updates for LIFE. And there have been many updates - he could've charged $15 for every update but didn't.

Still, an idea for a demo version might be the following:
Running the demo enters Splore only, main editor and immediate mode are not included. Full access to all games through Splore. Once game comes up all keys are disabled except START. But this still lets you see every demo and what is possible to code with it.
No .p8 files are saved anywhere on the HD, running is internal only. Must have internet connection to run Pico-8 demo engine.
Menu in engine always points to Lexaloffle for purchase when guest has seen enough and ready to buy it.

(+2)

What a strange question.

Why is anything not free!?!?

Why would it be? 

Would you ask 'why isn't coca cola free?'

Why do you think it should be free? And how do you expect them to make money to keep the business going?

(+1)

I'm nearly flat broke right now but I didn't have a problem paying the $15. The developer clearly put a lot of work into it. Everyone's time and energy is worth something. If I made something cool I would hope that people would want to support me as well.

Also, have some confidence in yourselves that you'll be able to make that money back with the games you make with it.

idk

(+3)

if you want a free alternative to pico-8, check out TIC-80. its basically the same thing, but widescreen and 60fps.

(+1)

Well, there are free alternatives if you don't want or can't pay for it. People here have already suggested TIC-80. Personally I've switched from Pico-8  (which I bought) to LÖVE, which is also based on Lua and  has native apple silicon support.

well we don't need all the dev tools so can you make a free version without devtools and keep the paid devtools

(+1)

Bruh. A dude's gotta eat.

(+1)

Because it's software that takes time and effort to create, if you don't want to pay, you should probably look elsewhere (Like for example, Pixel Vision 8)

Viewing posts 1 to 20 of 39 · Next page · Last page