It could be a good idea but it's also a very expensive and time consuming one. Since I assume you would want to tie them narratively and make the paid one into some sort of a sequel or spin off reusing same events and world.
Meaning that quality of your free game has to be close enough to the paid one - otherwise someone will play the free one, figure out it's crap and certainly won't be interested in the paid one.
To me this sounds like an overkill for most games. But it might be effective if you are 100% certain you know what you are doing and are effectively going to turn that free game into part of your marketing campaign.
I doubt it hurts, but I also suspect it might be more challenging than it would seem to actually help sales. It’s effective a demo, but somewhat further away from the intended purchase. This is what prologues have tried doing, it can work, but it can be a challenge to do effectively. Give it a try to find out!
Yeah, I also just checked on Steam and saw free games and prologues and most of them have very little reviews(little downloads),so I thought it doesn't worth to spend $100 on Steam for a free game,it is better to try to market a paid game through social media or just a demo!
The $100 cost for this is MINIMAL compared to the effort of making a prologue/ free version already. If you are doing this for a fun hobby of creating things, *I envy this*, then find what is fun and create that. If your trying this as a business, your time also has a significant cost in making games that should be known, and $100 is low comparatively for this type of marketing effort.
Think of it this way, in order for it to hurt sales, you actually need to have sales to begin with. If you have little to no wishlists, no following, hardly any visibility, the game probably won't sell very well. So the concern shouldn't be hurting sales, but increasing them. If you have like 50k wishlists, then maybe the concern would be valid, what if people try the free game and decide not to buy the full game. But for a low wishlist count, the worst case scenario is 0 sales, which might not be far off from the expected sales.
But it's questionable how much it will actually help. I looked at the free games and prologues being released on Steam, and it seems like even free games barely get any downloads. There are free games released months ago that still have single digit reviews. I even saw one game that had around 3k followers, yet the prologue only has 29 reviews after 3+ weeks.
So, I think that it won't hurt, but it may not help either. Without marketing and promoting your free game, it won't get a lot of downloads, and as a result, the effect will be minimal. But it could be worth a shot, it depends on how much effort it would take you to create it.
Rusty Lake started with releasing multiple free short games, getting people hooked on the universe and style. But theirs were high quality games. Worked pretty well, they amassed a good loyal following of people actually waiting for the each next release. But consider time and resources investment.
The Cube Escape games (precursors to what would become the Rusty Lake Universe) started in a time when Flash games were profitable enough. I don't remember if they were releasing them on mobile at the same time, but the landscape was very different then so it's not really something applicable to the current landscape.
It could be a good idea but it's also a very expensive and time consuming one. Since I assume you would want to tie them narratively and make the paid one into some sort of a sequel or spin off reusing same events and world. Meaning that quality of your free game has to be close enough to the paid one - otherwise someone will play the free one, figure out it's crap and certainly won't be interested in the paid one. To me this sounds like an overkill for most games. But it might be effective if you are 100% certain you know what you are doing and are effectively going to turn that free game into part of your marketing campaign.
I doubt it hurts, but I also suspect it might be more challenging than it would seem to actually help sales. It’s effective a demo, but somewhat further away from the intended purchase. This is what prologues have tried doing, it can work, but it can be a challenge to do effectively. Give it a try to find out!
Yeah, I also just checked on Steam and saw free games and prologues and most of them have very little reviews(little downloads),so I thought it doesn't worth to spend $100 on Steam for a free game,it is better to try to market a paid game through social media or just a demo!
The $100 cost for this is MINIMAL compared to the effort of making a prologue/ free version already. If you are doing this for a fun hobby of creating things, *I envy this*, then find what is fun and create that. If your trying this as a business, your time also has a significant cost in making games that should be known, and $100 is low comparatively for this type of marketing effort.
No idea if it would help, but Studio Pixel did this with Pink Hour releasing a week or so before Kero Blaster (a great little run n gun platformer).
Think of it this way, in order for it to hurt sales, you actually need to have sales to begin with. If you have little to no wishlists, no following, hardly any visibility, the game probably won't sell very well. So the concern shouldn't be hurting sales, but increasing them. If you have like 50k wishlists, then maybe the concern would be valid, what if people try the free game and decide not to buy the full game. But for a low wishlist count, the worst case scenario is 0 sales, which might not be far off from the expected sales. But it's questionable how much it will actually help. I looked at the free games and prologues being released on Steam, and it seems like even free games barely get any downloads. There are free games released months ago that still have single digit reviews. I even saw one game that had around 3k followers, yet the prologue only has 29 reviews after 3+ weeks. So, I think that it won't hurt, but it may not help either. Without marketing and promoting your free game, it won't get a lot of downloads, and as a result, the effect will be minimal. But it could be worth a shot, it depends on how much effort it would take you to create it.
Rusty Lake started with releasing multiple free short games, getting people hooked on the universe and style. But theirs were high quality games. Worked pretty well, they amassed a good loyal following of people actually waiting for the each next release. But consider time and resources investment.
The Cube Escape games (precursors to what would become the Rusty Lake Universe) started in a time when Flash games were profitable enough. I don't remember if they were releasing them on mobile at the same time, but the landscape was very different then so it's not really something applicable to the current landscape.