Bravo Reflexive

[Indiepath]

The Game Center Solution is exactly how an affiliate programme should operate!

[dburger]

Yep, the new Game Center is great. Well done guys.

[Indiepath]

Oh dear :(

Firefox can't find the server at www.gamecentersolution.com (http://www.gamecentersolution.com).

[Indiepath]

Site is still down :( - Back now, only 14 hours :( :(

[Spaiz]

Great news! But why it wasn't announced to all affiliates?

[cyrus_zuo]

Apologies on the downtime, we've been working out a couple of issues.

Game Center Solution hasn't been announced because it isn't quite finished ;).

We got to the point where Game Center Solution did everything that the Reflexive affiliate control panel did, (and a bit more!) so we decided to make it live so that everyone could enjoy the new features.

However, you'll note the (beta) mark at the top of the page. We're still working on several enhancements (and of course that will always be). Once we have our initial feature set complete (likely this summer), we'll do a full roll-out and announcement.

Some things that are already on the new server, that I suggest checking out:
* Report saving - You can create custom reports and save them to the site and then just click on the report title to run it each time you log in.
* Branding Images - 2 of the 3 branding images can now be uploaded directly on the server. This lets you brand your downloads and your sales page directly from your control panel.
* Game Info - clicking on any game title gives you all game info and images.
* Game Filters simplified - White and Blacklisting has been made a little easier.
* Help! - Throughout GSC, you'll find little tip boxes that describe the page that you are on, helping to explain how to make best use of that page.

There are of course many things coming soon. One of the key drivers of this change is to make the affiliate program more of a white-label program. We're working to remove any mention of Reflexive throughout the process (from downloads to sales to support). The goal is to make a program where you can grow your own business, keeping your customers, instead of referring them away.

[Ryan Clark]

That all sounds very good, Russell!

But any word on when Mac games might make an appearance on Reflexive? We would gladly use your affiliate system, if only we could get some Mac games, too.

[Roman Budzowski]

Yes, we want Mac games too. Let me say it once again. We want Mac games! :)

best
Roman

[Jack Norton]

Last time I asked, they said should be very soon. Let's hope so :)

[Sharpfish]

Yeah, another vote for mac games! ;)

I love the new control centre (when it's not down), though it (and my affilliate links) have been down all day so that's not quite so exciting. Hope it's up soon. ;)

And it all seems to make more sense and work better/cleaner than the other control panel, and the branding of installs/splash is great, a real goodwill gesture in my opinion. I really like what you are trying to do with masking the reflexive side of things and it sounds fair to me. Just in time for my own website relaunch (this week) with new graphical identity.

Cheers Cyrus/Reflexive.

[jankoM]

I have nothing against portals but I wouldn't exactly encourage any of them to start selling Mac games. What if Mac games sell so well for indies (and thats why we love them so much) exactly for the reason that all big portals are generally not selling on mac so the only real "portal" that nicely lists your mac game is apple.com and that is all you need?

If all the portals start selling and marketing mac games (with discounts, clubs, huge collections)... do you think your game will be noticed without them?

I am just asking.

[Sharpfish]

If all the portals start selling and marketing mac games (with discounts, clubs, huge collections)... do you think your game will be noticed without them?


I was requesting mac games from the perspective of an affilliate rather than a mac developer. I assume the same issues/politics would apply to mac games as they do to PC games currently and it's down to the devs to offer them to portals or not?

[Jack Norton]

I have nothing against portals but I wouldn't exactly encourage any of them to start selling Mac games.

Mac games (good ones at least) indeed sell fine without the need of any portal. Still there are some devs that refuse to affiliate it normally or do tricks like having complete different vendor: for example they affiliate it using plimus without custom build, then you check on their website and they use esellerate, so basically you sell their games without seeing a penny.
So the only hope is that they accept a portal deal (like reflexive one) and that reflexive start to sell mac games.

There are really A LOT of developers I personally contacted asking to sell their PC games with plimus+custom build, they started to ask lot of questions and they were totally diffident and evasive.
So I just wait a bit and got the very same PC games affiliated with reflexive, getting 40% commission instead of standard 30% I would probably get plimus. Plus, those devs don't even get the customer email.

Not really great way of doing business for them I think :D

[jankoM]

ok... I see your point Jack.

[Roman Budzowski]

Janko,
Have you ever noticed that Big Fish Games sells Mac games? And with PNP you can sell those games as affiliate. The only problem is that I don't want to redirect my customers to BFG. And the problem with direct affiliating is that there is not enough content for us - I would like Fairies on my site, though you can't get it direct. That's just one example.

best
Roman

[Sharpfish]

Reflexive affilliate centre/download links STILL down (2 days now), hope you get it sorted soon guys. :(

[Indiepath]

Down for me again, this is starting to hurt.

[Jack Norton]

Here works fine today and yesterday. Maybe is something related to UK only ?

[Sharpfish]

Possibly blocking UK area browsers/isps. If any non UK based site has an affiliate link to reflexive I can try then post it please. Or if someone non UK based wants to attempt an affiliate download from mine or indiepaths site and let us know if it works?

So Jack, you can access http://www.gamecentersolution.com ok then?

Any news on when a fix is going to be in place or what the issue is and why it only affects certain sites/areas? Maybe they are experimenting on which areas (if blocked) they could afford to loose ;)

thanks

[Indiepath]

Reflexive told me yesterday they had a router problem - I hope they resolve this.

[cyrus_zuo]

Reflexive told me yesterday they had a router problem - I hope they resolve this.
Our provider has been dealing with some issues, it is a very uncommon issue, and not directly related to us, AND very badly timed (when is it ever well timed?).

However, the length of time of your outage is much more than we've experienced, will look and see if anything else might be causing the issue. Thanks for the heads up :).

On the Mac side, it is still something we really want to do. However, I think realistically it will take awhile. Anyone know a good Mac programmer they could recommend?

[Sharpfish]

Links/centre back up for me (since late last night)... zero d/ls for yesterday (to be expected) but at least it's working now in time for my website re-launch this week. :)

Can't complain as I've never had any trouble with it before.

Thanks

[Sharpfish]

while we are on the topic of reflexive (ok, I was anyway), does anyone know (esp directed to James/Russell etc) if you can set a higher threshold than $100 before a royalty payment is made?

With conversion charges @ my bank it would make more sense to send 1 X $1000 payment than 10 X $100 payments (loosing ~ $200 in conversion charges compared to just $20!). I prefer to wait longer and waste less. ;)

And I suppose direct to bank transfers in local currency is out of the question?

thanks if anyone can help, I did try emailing support but that q went unanswered.

[Indiepath]

What about payment via Paypal?

[James C. Smith]

By default, Reflexive’s payment threshold is $100 but we would gladly change the threshold on your account to any number >= $100. Just e-mail your request to general_finance@reflexi... or contact your account manager.

Reflexive offers royalty payments via check, paypal (preferred), ACH (U.S. only), or Wire Transfer. There is a $30 fee and $200 minimum for wire transfers. All others are free and have a minimum threshold of $100 or any higher value you request.

See attached form for changing payment method

[Sharpfish]

Thanks James, that's a great help. Russell also PM'd me similar info so thanks to him also. I will probably look to changing it to my PayPal account (I must have overlooked that option), failing that the threshold change will suffice.

rgds and thanks

[Olivier]

Reflexive's GCS program seems good, I'm in the process of giving it a try.
So far I noticed a serious flaw when I tried to buy a game via PayPal. I can set the product's price to whatever I want (except $0.00) by changing the URL in my browser's address bar.
I didn't finish the ordering process so I can't tell if this is really a flaw.

[Thorbrian]

So far I noticed a serious flaw when I tried to buy a game via PayPal. I can set the product's price to whatever I want (except $0.00) by changing the URL in my browser's address bar.That doesn't change the price of the game. That just changes the amount of money they are sending through paypal. The price is automatically verified against the amount sent before the purchase is fulfilled. There is nothing paypal provides to let us confirm the amount before it is sent. Also, we have emails sent by our system if there is any error in a paypal Instant Payment Notification (IPN) at all (including price discrepency) and so far the only attempt to trick the system on price that I can recall seeing is me in testing.

Thanks for checking things like this out and bringing them up though - at Reflexive we always appreciate affiliate feedback, especially when it might lead to improvements in the system.

[Skinflint]

Well, I just tried the method that you described...(nevermind, Brian answered this at the same time as me...) :)

[Olivier]

That's good news guys. If one day that *flaw* is used and abused, maybe could you use PayPal's encryption system (so the price can't be changed in the URL) to avoid customer support: people sending less money and pay them back, asking people to send the remaining sum etc.. That's just an idea.

[Spaiz]

I'm always forgetting to ask: Please, add GeoKey link to the new panel.

[cyrus_zuo]

Already there :)
Use the link to Reflexive at the bottom of any page of the GCS control panel.

:)

[Spaiz]

Already there :)
Use the link to Reflexive at the bottom of any page of the GCS control panel.

:)

hmmm....this link leads to reaflexive-inc.com, not to Reflexive.

[cyrus_zuo]

hmmm....this link leads to reaflexive-inc.com, not to Reflexive.

Below that one :)

[Olivier]

The GCS system seems to be down again. Just for the week-end, that's bad. I can't login either. :(

[Olivier]

Seems to be working again.
EDIT: Huh was talking too fast.. :(