starting website selling just 1 game?

[Guillermo]

Greetings everyone, what's better? to start selling from you own website your only game -where it would be months until you release your second game- or start selling from your own website your only game AND other indie games developed by other companies too?

I can see pros and cons in both cases but as I'm unexperienced in this field I ask for your advise, thanks in advance.

[Sillysoft]

Personally I think it's better for a developer to just start with selling his game only. If you want to build yourself up then your focus should be on promoting your own games. You can always add other products later, and make a little 'launch' out of each one of them, trying to grow your customer base with each one.

my 2 cents

[Kai Backman]

After a few years in business I still sell just a single game. Yes, there are actually two generations of the simulator (the first and second) but you buy them all in a single piece. Seems to me it's working pretty well .. ;)

[Fost]

We have been selling one game 2 years whilst we work on others. I'm not saying that is what you should do, just that it proves it is possible to survive.

Just don't under estimate the amount of time you will need to spend on marketing once you have your first game out (and from then on, forever...)

[ManuelFLara]

The three last replies come from people who have just one game (Sillysoft has now more but AFAIK Lux was the only one for a long time) at their site and is making a living from it, and if you look at them they have some common things:
- They made the game (or simulation :) ) they truly wanted to make
- That game was really good
- They knew how to market the game to its right audience

Isn't that the obvious (not easy) path to success? ;)

[Emmanuel]

I just sold one strategy game until 10 days ago, when we added our minigolf game. If you're just starting up, you won't get very much traffic anyway, so selling other people's games is likely to not turn up much revenue. Also, people looking for your kind of game will not necessarily buy other types -- I can send you a million people from slashdot and none of them would buy.

Advice from an impatient person: don't be impatient for revenue, work on your second game and learn from the first, and it will come. That's what happened to us.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[destron]

here's how I would do it:

Before you start your business, get together with all your would-be employees, and start making some games. Once you have two or three games, post your web site and start getting publicity through banner ads, etc..

[ErikH2000]

Before you start your business, get together with all your would-be employees, and start making some games. Once you have two or three games, post your web site and start getting publicity through banner ads, etc..
That sounds pretty easy! I think I need a few hundred thousand to begin with this strategy though. Need something to pay those employees with. ;)

-Erik

[NuriumGames]

Well, I'm developing a prototype for the second game, selling just one for a few months and it's going fine :)