Game and Portals

[filharvey]

k,

I'm in the process of finishing up a new game, and was wondering from your experiences who I should take to Market it. I can do that, but would prefer to get someone else to handle it for me.

I'm too much of a programmer, and also not great at the marketing side of things.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

Phil

[Coyote]

Joe Lieberman (Terin) (http://www.vgsmart.com)

Aside from that, there are a lot of people here who might be happy to sell your game if it matches their portal / affiliate needs.

[Nexic]

Most portals and affiliate sites work on a non exclusive basic, this is perhaps the best way to make money with games when you can't generate your own sales by yourself. This means that you can get money from *all* of these sites and still sell it on your own site without paying royalties.

You should submit to some of these people:

ArcadeTown (you will get some good long term exposure here)
Reflexive Arcade (good but short term)
Big Fish Games (good but short term)
Alawar (they mainly do exclusive publishing)
GameXZone(pretty good for a non portal)
NextArcade
TotalGaming
Oberon Media
RealArcade

If you want someone to do *all* promotion for you, exclusively try Alawar and PopCap. (some portals will also do an exclusive deal, but this is fairly rare)

When you release your game be sure to submit to software archives and Download.com, also send out a good press release. I use http://www.softpressrelease.com/ and they make me quite a fair bit of money when compared to the amount it cost. I also hear good things about terin, as mentioned above.

Good Luck!

[ggambett]

If you want someone to do *all* promotion for you, exclusively try Alawar and PopCap. (some portals will also do an exclusive deal, but this is fairly rare)
Several portals will also be happy to act as your publishers, if the game is good. Some of the biggest portals (Yahoo, Pogo, MSN) are difficult/impossible to contact yourself, so in that cases you can sign with a non-exclusive deal with a portal but also giving them exclusive rights for publishing in certain other portals. For example, Oberon Media has put our Betty's Beer Bar in MSN.

I'd argue in favor of doing it yourself. When I started this I was as tech-guy-only as I could be; but dealing with the portals is not that difficult nor time consuming, and you don't need much marketing knowledge - that's what the portals do. You only need to know how to sign an agreement and how to make custom builds (ie showing their logo in your splash screen). I think doing it yourself is absolutely worthwhile! And, in my case, it's also quite enjoyable.

[Yarlen]

I'll just mention TotalGaming.Net also as a potential distribution partner. ;)

http://www.totalgaming.net

[Nexic]

NextArcade
TotalGaming <-----
Oberon Media
RealArcade


I didnt forget you!

[filharvey]

Thanks for your help.

Once it is ready for showing, I will contact these people.



Phil

[Savant]

Oh sure, no, don't include us.

I know, I know, you hit because you love...

;)

[Nexic]

I'm *not* the all knowing portal guru! Don't complain if I can't remember all 234,324,342,342 of them! :P

[berserker]

I'll just mention TotalGaming.Net also as a potential distribution partner. ;)

http://www.totalgaming.net

Can you describe what kind of partnership do you offer? I found no indie kind of titles at your website and no specific information about it.
You can mail me at: yaroslav {at} enkord.com

[Yarlen]

I didnt forget you!

Heh, thanks. Didn't see that. :P

[Yarlen]

Can you describe what kind of partnership do you offer? I found no indie kind of titles at your website and no specific information about it.
You can mail me at: yaroslav {at} enkord.com

Sure, I'll hook you up with some info later today. We're in the midst of rebuilding, so you'll see a much greater indie presence very soon. :)

[Sybixsus]

How does one go about approaching/submitting to ArcadeTown and GameXZone? I can't find anything for developers on either site.

[Nexic]

Brian Fisher from Arcade Town can be contacted by private message on these boards. (I don't want to give you his email because if it's not on the site he might not want too many people to contact him by it).

I think his user name is ArcadeTown.

[Applewood]

Don't complain if I can't remember all 234,324,342,342 of them! :P Actually, it's *his* fault if you can't remember his ahead of those others :D

[Savant]

Actually, it's *his* fault if you can't remember his ahead of those others
Agreed. But hey, we're not even 2 weeks old yet! Give us time. :)

[Sybixsus]

Thanks Nexic, I'll PM Brian.

[arcadetown]

How does one go about approaching/submitting to ArcadeTown and GameXZone? I can't find anything for developers on either site.
Most enterprising developers figure out how to use a contact link on a site ;)

[Sybixsus]

Most enterprising developers figure out how to use a contact link on a site ;)

If you mean the generic contact form on the "Contact" page, I tried that a few weeks back and didn't get any reply. So I wasn't sure if I was getting in touch the wrong way, if the message got lost somewhere along the line or if - as is often the case - no reply meant no interest. :)

[Chaster]

If you mean the generic contact form on the "Contact" page, I tried that a few weeks back and didn't get any reply. So I wasn't sure if I was getting in touch the wrong way, if the message got lost somewhere along the line or if - as is often the case - no reply meant no interest. :)

Ditto. I received no response when I submitted via the generic contact form on the Arcadetown site over a month ago... Just assumed ya weren't interested... correct?

[billy7777]

Same here... I recieved no response when I used your contact form. I too assumed you were not interested. Correct?

Thanks
Bill

[ManuelFLara]

Ditto. I received no response when I submitted via the generic contact form on the Arcadetown site over a month ago... Just assumed ya weren't interested... correct?
Same experience here.

[arcadetown]

We get a lot of submissions and try hard to evaluate everything. We kind of have a feel for what will sell with our audience (although we've been proven extra right or wrong a few times). So sorry if we didn't respond, it's hard to create time to respond to every request. Sometimes I long for the days when had a simple fulltime job with well defined hours (as I type this at 11:30pm).

[ggambett]

I want to support Brian on this one. I hate when I send emails to people and don't get a reply; but I can tell you Brian is a good guy and I'm sure he does everything he can to be polite - believe him when he says he doesn't reply because he doesn't have time.