Are you gonna write about why you failed? If you explain what's hard about shareware business then others could use that knowledge to find a way around.

I wouldn't have said that was public depression matthew. I was burnt out from working on games constantly.

I'll still be doing games as a hobby, but pursuing other non-computer interests as well.

This means that someone here has to start making and finishing good games to compensate..

Why close down the site? Is it much work to maintain? Just because you need a day job doesn't mean you can't have other businesses too.

Well said.

Bah, threads like this are making me sad. Good luck Richard, live long and prosper and I hope you'll find a career in something you like doing.

Yeah, I don't really understand why you are shutting down... you can still leave your games up for purchase. Does it really take much effort to maintain the site and keep the games for sale?

You have a talent for writing games, good ones, and what's more, you also have the skill required to finish them.
I can't understand why did you take this decision, specially after your success with Neon Wars.

I don't know, perhaps you can continue writing shareware games, but without trying to make a living out of it.
A 'conventional' job + games sales sounds like a good combination to me, anyways, good luck with your new projects.

As I've said before I want to move on to do new things. Also, even selling one game means I need to be registered as self-employed (and that means pay a bit more in tax) and then fill in tax forms every year. It's not worth the hassle for a few sales..

Anyway.. I do have other hobbies and I'm not really a computer geek.

The avatar is from a great Dr. Who episode that was on this year. I'm actually pretty happy right now.

I can.

Almost every shareware developer, including myself, gets a reality check the instant they bring their first game out, when it suddenly dawns on you that your original sales numbers, which you thought were conservative, turn out to be extremely optimistic, when the reality of marketting and advertising costs become the only thing holding you back, and when you finally realize it's not going to work without a serious monetary investment, which won't net the same return anyways.

Shareware is just as competitive an industry as commercial games, and doing it full-time or even part-time can seriously wear someone out. The big players in shareware own the market practically, and trying to squeeze in can be next to impossible sometimes. It's not completely impossible, as we've seen Neon Wars make review spots in more than one magazine, but three or four magazine spots are nothing compared to the hundreds of magazine spots the big-name shareware companies get for each product.

And you're even competing with the people doing games for free. Everyone's against you.

And yes, you pay more in taxes. It costs even more money too when you have someone else do your taxes for you. (I mean, over the cost to have someone else do a simple job-based tax return.)

It all comes down to money sooner or later. Bills have to be paid, food needs to be bought...

Sucks, hunh?

--- Kris Asick (Gemini)
--- http://www.pixelships.com

Especially the ones that own large corporations.

Just ignore that and use the create.html file as the index..

Put the images in the Images directory..