Launch HN: MagnaPlay (YC W23) – Indie gaming subscription service for PC
Ooof, well I&#x27;m looking at my purchase history on steam and in 2022 I made three purchases for a total of just over $50 and played _none_ of them. 2021 I bought 8 for ~$200, loved 5 (finished 4 of them), and played 3 kinda (one didn&#x27;t run on M1 MBP). 2020 spent $400 on mostly mainstream games (like Civ6). The one game I <i>hated</i> was a relatively expensive indie game at $38. Loved and finished all the mainstream games (or played them to death in the case of Civ6 and its updates). Bought and never played amongus. The two indie games rated 1 never played and 1 hated.<p>I don&#x27;t mind spending money on games I like, and even games I <i>might</i> like. Unless the game turns out to be a swindle, I don&#x27;t mind paying for them. Even the one I hated, I didn&#x27;t mind paying for: they&#x27;d put a lot of effort into it, they just missed the mark massively.<p>The game I play the <i>most</i> has a free version limited to the tutorial, so I got to try it before I bought it. I personally would be served better if I could try more games without paying for them if they were shit.<p>Does paying $8 improve the situation? I can try a lot of games. The games that I play a lot of would potentially earn more money from me in the long run. My favorite game I&#x27;ve put in over 200 hours over two years. I paid $20 for it. Would that developer make more money in that period from magna than the cut they got from Steam?<p>What about the games that were fun, lasted maybe 20 hours of play time, and would normally get like $5 cut? It would suck if they got less.