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Originally Posted by Golan
"Let's remove the issue of any registration fees."
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I think that registration fees are EXTREMELY irrelevant, unless (a) you live in a third world country, or (b) quality is not an issue, or (c) the engine of choice has no 'try before you buy' option.
Making a quality game takes time. That time could be spent flipping burgers at McDonald's. For example, I find that a typical scene takes AT LEAST 3 hours to draw, 1 hour to code (floor, Z buffer, hot spots), and another 3 hours to make something interesting happen in it (conversation trees, possibly new characters or animations). At minimum wage in Britain, that means an opportunity cost of 8 hours, or 40 quid, or 70 dollars. Multiply that by a thirty scenes for a small game, add the learning curve, failed experiments and of course creating sprites, etc., and the final cost for even a modest fan made game is around four thousand dollars. That is, you could have made four thousand dollars in McDonald's, but chose to make the game instead. If the game is large, the cost could be two or ten times that.
If game engine 'A' allows you to speed up your work by just five percent, it will save you around two hundred dollars. So fifty dollars is nothing. And I speak as someone who was unemployed with no real income when he started his game.
Like I said before, I have nothing against AGS. It serves a vital role, and the number of users proves it. If you want an easy start with lots and lots of help there is really no other choice. It has to be AGS. But if you have long term plans for a serious game, then you need to look around, and a modest registration fee is simply not an issue.
