"Free" Filter Thread - Desura

I know we all need to support game devs, but why is there no "free" filter?

Edited by: AskaLangly

That's not a bad idea, but I'd like to extand that idea even further. Namely:

Free as in "freedom" filter — that would show games that are released under a Free Software license.

And as a separate filter a price filter, where one would have several choices:

• gratis — i.e. free as in beer
• under 5 €
• 5-10
• 10-15 €
• over 15 €

Maybe giving the last four categories a name would be a good idea, since prices would show in the currency of the user. Alternatively there could be a conversion that e.g. in country X "cheap" is Y amount of local currency.

There was actually some discussion about this issue in the 'Register an "Open Source" game' thread.
In the end it looks like they will just keep it simple.

Aww, I wanted a free tab so I didn't have to hunt them down. I'm a cheap, cheap man.

Seeln wrote: That's not a bad idea, but I'd like to extand that idea even further. Namely:

Free as in "freedom" filter — that would show games that are released under a Free Software license.

And as a separate filter a price filter, where one would have several choices:

• gratis — i.e. free as in beer
• under 5 €
• 5-10
• 10-15 €
• over 15 €

Maybe giving the last four categories a name would be a good idea, since prices would show in the currency of the user. Alternatively there could be a conversion that e.g. in country X "cheap" is Y amount of local currency.

Really like this Idea. +1

i think a price filter would be great to add

I agree also.

Agreed. i was looking for some free games yesterday, it took me about half an hour to find two or three to try out...

Add another agreement to this idea, especially if a price tier is added as well.

Price and 'free' filters sound very good indeed.
Add another agreement from me.

Edited by: Adriankyles

Who is the price filter primarily intended to benefit? Consumers who want to pay less for games, or developers who want their games to be browsed? I don't like the idea of filters that bias the shopping experience towards cheaper products, because I personally probably won't be producing those. If I could bias the shopping experience in any way, I'd rather bias it towards a ratings system, reviews, or other indicators of quality or production values. I think I'm more likely to produce those. I don't expect everyone to share my interests or biases. I just wanted to point out that it's not an automatic given to everyone that a cheaper games filter is a good thing.

I don't like Steam's periodic firesales either. They devalue developer content and mainly benefit the portal - Steam - itself.

bvanevery wrote: Who is the price filter primarily intended to benefit? Consumers who want to pay less for games, or developers who want their games to be browsed? I don't like the idea of filters that bias the shopping experience towards cheaper products, because I personally probably won't be producing those. If I could bias the shopping experience in any way, I'd rather bias it towards a ratings system, reviews, or other indicators of quality or production values. I think I'm more likely to produce those. I don't expect everyone to share my interests or biases. I just wanted to point out that it's not an automatic given to everyone that a cheaper games filter is a good thing.

I don't like Steam's periodic firesales either. They devalue developer content and mainly benefit the portal - Steam - itself.

I'm not sure you understand the motivation behind this.

Even if you disregard the 120+ GOG games I own for being mostly DRM-free, on-sale re-purchases of old CD-ROMs, I own somewhere around 600 CD-ROMs that I paid $30-60 for back in the pre-Steam era. I've actually been losing interest in playing games as I learn to take pleasure and get something useful by programming or writing or doing something else creative as a hobby (or wasting my time on fanfiction and youtube vids which are both free and in endless supply).

Whether or not there's a filter, I'll only pay so much for games. Adding a filter just reduces the time commitment I have to make in order to find new stuff within my price range that I may like. That, in turn, makes me more likely to actually check what games are out there.

In other words, the filter is primarily intended to benefit both users and developers. Users because they waste less time consciously ignoring games they won't buy anyway (and, in turn, find searching for new games more pleasurable) and developers because more receptive users see their product. (It's similar to the rationale behind this blog post titled Why ad blocking is not a moral dilemma. People who would have used the filter but can't aren't magically made more receptive to your pricing by the absence of a filter and may be made less receptive.)

In fact, I actually keep a list of games that I'd like to have, but which I'm not willing to buy because they don't satisfy the three conditions on this list:

• Is it DRM-free?
• Is it on sale for at least 50% off?
• Is the sale price $5 or less?

I simply have too many backlogged games, used novels, fanfics, writing ideas, and programming projects to be in any kind of hurry to pay for a game I may never play. (And the only exception I made was when Legend of Grimrock hooked me at first sight and I bought it for $7.50 rather than $5 when GOG offered it at 50% off.)

I suppose my point is "Welcome to the global, multi-media entertainment market. Even if demand stays constant, supply is way up which means that market value for your creations has dropped as your competitors offer more for the player's dollar. That's how capitalism works. Things like Steam fire sales and Humble Indie Bundles work well because they let you tap into impulse buying for extra market share."

Edited by: ssokolow

I hate haveing to look for the free games haveing a free filter would help alot i dont have alot of money to buy games its nice to see all the free games at once

Not nesisarraly a free filter, but as we can sort by name. Personally a sort by price, would be nice.

I also agree on a sorting system or filter. I can imagine it to be a bit complicated, though, considering prices can change.

As for the comment by bvanery above, I agree with ssokolow.
There's a large difference between a f2p game and a p2p game.
Let's say there are people who would 'abuse' this privilege to get f2p games and f2p games only. Do you think they'd buy a game without it? I'd say it's very unlikely.
I know plenty of people who mostly play f2p games, not because they don't have the money, but because they don't like the risk of wasting their money on something they eventually won't like. Take Duke Nukem Forever, after so many years many people hoped for an amazing game, but what they got was far off from that.

While a rating, review, download amount and other sorting are nice as well(Although I think they already exist), a pricing system will do no harm besides making it easier for the people searching for a free game to find it.

If you're opposed to a filter for some unfathomable reason, then at least add a sort by. Even if it is a filter, it doesn't even need to have a "free" option -- it could be, for example, "$0-5." (I don't actually know what the price ranges are, since I'm the type of person happy5crazy just described that wouldn't buy a game just because I don't have the option to filter them out.)

I think a price filter would make endless scrolling much easier