Coromon is on sale right now for $5, but I’m hesitant to purchase it after discovering that they have microtransactions and a cosmetics store embedded into the game. Like, I love and try to support indie developers as much as I can, so I have a growing list of indie games on my wish list on Steam that I often purchase. I was shocked and honestly confused. Why would any Indy developer do this their game? It seems counterintuitive and honestly just stupid. I mean, look at any other successful indie game out there. Stardew Valley, undertale, Celeste, cassette beasts, just to name a few. None of these have any sort of microtransaction or cosmetics that you can buy in the game that I’m aware of. A soundtrack, sure.
It just kind of makes me apprehensive to buy any sort of game like that, like why couldn’t you just develop a new DLC for 10 or 15 bucks that has a bunch of additional cosmetics included in it and label it as character customization additions included? When you hear Mike or transactions or cosmetics, you think of cash shop bullshit like EA, Activision, Fortnite. So strange to me!
That’s what makes money. Pointing at the 5-10 indie games that won the lottery isn’t really relevant to what is required for the average indie game.
This is an interesting comparison. Winning the lottery isn’t tied to honest hard work or passion or anything like that. It’s literally a gamble. Stardew wasn’t really a gamble, it was a passion project that delivered to people what they wanted. There are other games that are very successful too. The “average” indie game is also some really strange hyperbole to use, how do you even know what’s average? is there a scale, a criteria, a rating board for “lottery” indie games and “average” ones?