Pre-Installed Indie Games on New PC

[stanchat]

I just purchased a new ACER machine from Best Buy and just realized that the machine came with 10 pre-installed games from Oberon Media

Big Kahuna Reef 2
Bricks of Egypt
Dynasty
Galapago
Jewel Quest Solitaire
Luxor 2
MCF Ravenhearst
Mystery Case Files - Prime Suspects
Treasures of the Deep
Zuma Deluxe


This is an interesting marketing strategy to pre-bundle these games. I also wonder why they chose these particular games.

Here is the link to to ACER branded casual game site:
http://acerdt.oberon-media.com/index.htm?origin=gm_prgf&refid=ADTV07

[chanon]

Are they full verions or trials?

[barrygamer]

yes, interesting. Oberon seem to host portals for all kinds of sites (I guess they're the biggest in the biz?).

I'd say the games in that selection are all oldies, but goodies.

[stanchat]

Are they full verions or trials?

They appear to be 60min trials but I only played BKR 2 and Bricks of Egypt.

[tagged]

A family member got a new laptop late last year and had most of the same casual games included, all were trials. So it's been going on for at least 6 months now.

[NielsK]

Wild Tangent (http://www.wildtangent.com/) has been doing this for a few years. They have distribution agreements with Dell, HP and Toshiba.

[mrobert]

That's a very interesting approach.
A while ago, when we used to ship CDs with our games, we used a similar deal with a few partners, to include demos of their games in the remaining free disk space.

[oNyx]

Another thing I noticed recently are pre-installed demos on U3 USB sticks (e.g. SanDisk Cruzer Micro).

It's pretty convenient. The games can be played directly from the stick.

The two installed games were Big Fish Games Sudoku and Mahjong Towers Eternity (also by Big Fish).

[kevryan]

This can be a very lucrative income source. One of my games (full version) was pre-installed on Acer computers for a one time $288,000 fee. This was quite a long time ago so perhaps the economics of what is paid have changed by now. You also get the advantages of exposure to lots people that would never have discovered and downloaded your game. I think the exposure and brand awareness are worth as much long term as whatever is received in the short term.

The Windows sales of Marble Blast had big permanent jump after the full version was pre-installed on Macs. There was another big permanent jump in Windows sales after it came out on XBLA. So not only can you receive revenue from the original licensing deal, but it can also bleed over into other areas in positive ways.

[Nikos Beck]

This can be a very lucrative income source. One of my games (full version) was pre-installed on Acer computers for a one time $288,000 fee.

You paid $288,000 or you were paid $288,000?

[JoKa]

You paid $288,000 or you were paid $288,000?

Let me guess - he spent that much to get his full version distributed, because exposure is all that counts! ;)

[kevryan]

You paid $288,000 or you were paid $288,000?

Oops, sorry I wasn't more clear, they paid to have the full version (not a demo) on their machines. I remember Compaq doing something similar around the same time. This was more than a decade ago and I don't know how much things have changed or if these type of opportunities are still out there.