Market for a new portal??

[lionheart_LH]

Hi,

I am working on several casual games (well i have many ideas but mainly working on one at a time lol)

I have looked into many different portals and they dont seem very fair. The royalties they give devs seem very low since the dev did the most work.

I was thinking as a side project while im deving my casual game i would create a portal which would be small but would be an extra place for people to upload their games and earn a high royalty in the range of say 60 - 70%

What are peoples views on this? and what would you like to see in a Portal?

[Sharpfish]

gametrove already does this for free, and even that can't compete with "proper" portals. The reason they charge so much is cos they initially at least spend a lot of money on advertising, setting up and good servers.

Setting up a proper portal is not something to be done "on the side" of making games, it just the reality of the situation cos many have tried (or at least talked about it) but the closest we have I think is gametrove.net

Try searching too, this has been discussed many, many times and it's not as simple as it seems.

[lionheart_LH]

Oh ok thats cool

probably better stickin with deving anyway :)

[esmelon]

don't forget about GameTram ;)

[KNau]

You don't start off "competing" - you have to build over a period of years to become a genuine player. Big Fish Games was far from an overnight success and the aforementioned GameTrove, while quite not there yet, is doing okay traffic-wise, especially since it really hasn't differentiated itself from any of the other sites.

I forget where I read this, but it seems to be true in most cases: Theoretically a marketplace will only tolerate 3 leaders. Two primary forces that jostle back and forth for top spot and then a third alternative that never quite makes the top spot but is still a major competitor.

The problem with the casual space is that the top spots are taken. It is near impossible that an up and comer is going to knock Real Arcade, Big Fish Games and ? Reflexive ? from their positions. With no differentiating factors the other sites (even ones that have been around for a long time) seem to cap out well below the market leaders.

If you're willing to differentiate and go outside the casual space there is still room for someone to give Manifesto (who seem to be dropping the ball) a run for their money.

I would encourage giving publishing a try, after all that's where the real money in this business is. Really, it's a smarter and safer bet than game development.

[oldschool]

Could you expand on the differentiating factors. Is it community or Real's game app; I'm stumped.

[KNau]

Differentiating now would probably mean going after another audience besides casual players like Manifesto is doing - or possibly specializing in one niche part of the market.

You could try to use technology (membership plans, social networking) to try to wedge yourself into an existing market but that rarely works. It's like releasing a Zune in an iPod infested world. Even if you have better tech it doesn't matter.

The problem is that the up-and-comers all have the same product as the market leaders. There are no exclusive titles and no exclusive technology, really no reason to pick one over the other. They're relying almost exclusively on an impulse-buy. Personally, I would go after a different specialty market rather than compete somewhere that's already saturated.