We're an indie studio building Stromburg, a Rust-style survival game. Early on we had the classic debate: paywall the game, or keep it free and find another way to fund development.

We went free. Here's the reasoning, in case it helps other indie devs wrestling with the same call:

1. Survival games live and die by population. A Rust clone with 12 players isn't a game, it's a chatroom with crafting. Every dollar of friction at the door costs you the density that makes the genre fun in the first place.

2. Your real fans don't want a discount, they want proximity. The people who'd pay $20 upfront for early access are usually the same people who'd happily pay monthly just to watch the game get built and have a vote in it. That's a better trade for both sides.

3. A public roadmap is a marketing engine. Every dev log is content. Every feature vote is a reason to come back. You can't get that from a one-time purchase.

So the game is free, and we built an "Insider" membership instead — dev logs before anyone else, playtest keys, and a vote on what we build next. It's a bet that community beats a paywall for a genre this social.

Curious how other builders here have handled the free-vs-paid call — especially anyone doing multiplayer/survival.