Apparently the person you responded to? I also care, at least somewhat, who makes the games I play. If I know or like the team who made the game, I tend to get a bit more into the game / community.
As an extreme example, I made a (really bad) Quidditch game in Flash when I was in high school that I played for dozens of hours... pretty much only because I made it. (It was kind of surreal at the time having simple AIs that I coded outplay me.)
Meta: I can't reply to the parent comment by johnghanks, but this is what I don't like about moderation here.
I disagree strictly with their assertion, and the way they said it, but the comment is useful and opens a conversation I'm interested in.
Do people here really not want to talk about how/why origin of games might be pertinent, whether games are fungible?
Isn't it at least interesting that this viewpoint exists? Mind you I'm also interested that it's disliked; but I don't want to discourage such comments.
Strictly I'm against the site rules (discussing downvotes) but hey ...
I played many bad Quidditch flash games back in the day, and I enjoyed each and every one tremendously. Before the WB branding juggernaut took over, there was precious little interactive Harry Potter content online outside of the news sites, so I took whatever I could get.
Did you ever publish your game? What was it called? Tell us more!
Not OP but I find I’d easily get a game because I empathize with its creator in some way. It’s more likely what they make may align with me, though even the act of choosing to acquire a game makes it more likely I would enjoy it (mere-exposure and you can’t enjoy a game you wouldn’t buy). I’m hardly a gamer at all, but that’s how I ended up getting Disco Elysium—and it didn’t disappoint.
I think Patreon takes it to the extreme—you can literally support a game developer, and get whatever they make without knowing what it will be.
(Related: buying merch of your favorite band, even if you don’t really need those T-shirts and rarely wear them.)
With X-Plane it’s different; I got it for state-of-the-art flight model simulation (surprisingly low price point pushed me) and only recently started paying attention to who makes it. It’s really cool: I reckon they must make most profit from selling FAA-certified version for professional pilot training, but they still choose to offer pretty much the same program (sans some really specialized hardware support) for peanuts to enthusiasts. Supporting non-enterprise consumers must cost them, though I suppose they get bug reports in return.
Liking the creator doesn’t only cause one to buy a product, but significantly increases the chances they will champion it to support the creator further.
@johnghanks
I can't tell if you're trolling, but I'll take it in seriousness. Because you may not want to financially support a company that you disagree with ideologically? (cough) blizzard (cough)
As an extreme example, I made a (really bad) Quidditch game in Flash when I was in high school that I played for dozens of hours... pretty much only because I made it. (It was kind of surreal at the time having simple AIs that I coded outplay me.)