Unproven affiliate sites.

[ErikH2000]

For people who pick and choose which affiliates they will use to sell their games, I am interested in what it takes to get you to sign on. I think there is a consensus that certain proven portals/distributors/affiliates are an obviously good place to have your game (i.e. Big Fish, Reflexive, etc) and it is more a question of them wanting to carry it. What about the unproven guys you've never heard of? If somebody approaches you and says they want to carry your game on their site, what pushes you one direction or another?

Some factors I can think of:
* Country the affiliate is based in.
* How professional their site looks.
* Other games on the site: Are they good games? Are they in the same genre as yours?
* Is affiliate using same payment processor? i.e. Plimus, RegNow, etc.
* Amount of work in changing your game, i.e. changing order links, branding.
* Showing some knowledge of what your game is about in initial contact.
* Royalty percentage offered. i.e. if somebody offered you 80 or 90% of the sale instead of 60 or 70% which seems more standard.

I am very interested in what you consider the key factors to be for making a decision to offer your game on an unproven affiliate site.

Would you go along with this statement: "If I don't see a substantial piracy/order fraud risk, and it looks like I'll make enough extra sales to justify my time spent dealing with the affiliate, then I would make the deal." Is it as simple as that?

-Erik

[Nexic]

I usually make a quick judgement based on the following things:

Are they selling products other than software? (if they are this puts me off)

Does their site look professional?

Do they have a decent amount of traffic? (i check with metricsmarket, though I know this isnt totally accurate - still, it gives a good idea)

Is their site full of non game ads?

Do they speak good english?

Do they sell other games at an obviously discounted price? (like Deprice)

[ErikH2000]

Thanks, Nexic--this is good information!

-Erik

[ggambett]

I also see if they have known games from known developers. If they have Jewel Quest, Big Kahuna and the like, they're probably OK. In other words, I let the others do the work for me ;)