Casual Game Distribution

[the myth the legend]

I'm just about complete with a new casual game, and I was wondering if anyone can help point me towards some lesser-known distribution sites that might get me some good numbers.

By lesser-known, I mean sites other than Real, Shockwave, Big Fish, AOL, Yahoo, Oberon, Reflexive, and TryMedia.

For instance, anyone have their games on gamefiesta.com or fliptopgames.com? Good numbers?

Thanks for helping a newbie! :-)

[Mike Boeh]

You might want to add arcadetown.com to that list...

Fliptop is a reflexive affiliate as far as I can tell...

[Promaginy]

You might want to add arcadetown.com to that list...

Fliptop is a reflexive affiliate as far as I can tell...

Can you explain to me why being an affiliate is different than being a portal? Is not the purpose of affiliate sites/portals to drive traffic and sales? I am confused by the distinction,

[svero]

When you're an affiliate you're linking to someone else for the sales. You have a storefront but the final sale does not occur through you directly. As well the customer belongs to the person you're affiliating and not to you.

When you're a publisher/portal/developer etc... you are the one making the actual sale either through a merchant account or a credit card/reseller service. The customer is yours. If a portal sells your game you make a special version for them and they make the sale directly and then remit a royalty to you. If an affiliate sells your game normally at some point the customer lands on your sales page either with a cookie or some affiliate id in the URL to say who referred the sale, but you are the one selling the game and you remit an affiliate royalty to them. If fliptop is strictly an affiliate of reflexive it means that they are selling reflexive games so you wouldnt ever submit to them. You'd only submit to reflexive. It's equivalent.

[Yarlen]

I'd suggest TotalGaming.net (http://www.totalgaming.net). It's not an automatic deal, since we're pretty selective, but it doesn't hurt to have us take a look. ;)

[Robert Cummings]

reflexive games so you wouldnt ever submit to them. You'd only submit to reflexive. It's equivalent.

What about % royalties? doesn't this mean if I submit my game to Reflexive, and an affiliate sells the game, that I get an even smaller slice of the pie?

[svero]

That would depend on how the royalties are calculated. And it can vary from publisher to publisher. So, no it doesn't necessarily mean you get a smaller percentage as some publishers won't let that affect the developer's bottom line.

Its up to you to figure out how its calculated for the particular publisher in question. I'm not 100% certain but i think reflexive works in a way that the developer makes the same amount whether it is sold by one of reflexives affiliates or directly by reflexive. James can probably answer that.

[Skinflint]

Reflexive pays the same to the developer regardless of who sells the game. It doesn't matter where the sale occurs...the percentage agreed to pay to the developer does not change, and that's based on the sales price, which the developer sets. The affiliate percentage comes out of the percentage that Reflexive gets.

I would also like to add (at the risk of sounding like a commercial) that the affiliate's customer remains the affiliate's customer. We really try and not have our logo everywhere so there's a level of transparency for the affiliate. (Ok, off the soapbox...)

[svero]

But the affiliate doesn't really keep the customer, because they don't get the customer information from the sale unless they're grabbing it off their site before the sale is made in some other way. That's what I meant above by affiliates not retaining customers. Not that logos and stuff steal the customer away. Of course having the sales info doesnt mean you really have the customer either but a lot of sales forms have built in stuff to try and retain the customer like checkboxes to add them to mailing lists and so on...

[Promaginy]

If fliptop is strictly an affiliate of reflexive it means that they are selling reflexive games so you wouldnt ever submit to them. You'd only submit to reflexive. It's equivalent.

Can a developer exclude some affiliates so that they are not allowed to sell its games? Let's say that as a dev, I thought that the affiliate's site was very poorly done and I would not want my product sold through them.

Also, can affiliates ever be given exclusives from a payment processor? Because they are a popular site, they can qualify to sell certain kinds of games.

I am getting the sense that Affiliates are in many ways, hangers-on to the entire industry. Is that fair to say? Why would somebody shop at Fliptop vs Reflexive?

Sorry for all of the newbie questions, but the entire Affiliate system perplexes me and is also interesting (I have considered setting up my own affiliate site as a sideline).

[dburger]

Can a developer exclude some affiliates so that they are not allowed to sell its games? With RegNow you get to individually approve all affiliates. With Reflexive, you don't have control over which affiliates carry your games. So it varies with the program.

Also, can affiliates ever be given exclusives from a payment processor? Because they are a popular site, they can qualify to sell certain kinds of games. I've never heard of affiliates being given exclusives. The whole point of an affiliate system is to get your games in front of as many customers as possible to increase sales.

I am getting the sense that Affiliates are in many ways, hangers-on to the entire industry. Is that fair to say? Affiliates aren't hangers-on they are simply a bunch of (mostly) small websites that use their traffic to sell a few games and make a buck. IMHO, there is a fair upside and very little downside to using affiliates. You will get a few extra sales and more people will be introduced to your game. These customers most likely would have never seen your game otherwise. If someone is at an affiliate site and at that moment for whatever reason decides to download your game you want to take advantage of that. View affilates as simply another way for your game to reach a larger audience. Yes you pay a commision for that, but there is always a cost of attracting a customer, whether its advertising, or promoting your website or whatever. it is just a cost of doing business.

There is the issue with some programs, including most portals, that you don't get the customer info. This is a valid concern, but a seperate issue from affiliates.

Why would somebody shop at Fliptop vs Reflexive?.The user isn't making this choice. They are simply browsing the net and happen upon one of the affiliate sites, and decide to give your game a try.

[Promaginy]

Affiliates aren't hangers-on they are simply a bunch of (mostly) small websites that use their traffic to sell a few games and make a buck. IMHO, there is a fair upside and very little downside to using affiliates. You will get a few extra sales and more people will be introduced to your game. These customers most likely would have never seen your game otherwise. If someone is at an affiliate site and at that moment for whatever reason decides to download your game you want to take advantage of that. View affilates as simply another way for your game to reach a larger audience. Yes you pay a commision for that, but there is always a cost of attracting a customer, whether its advertising, or promoting your website or whatever. it is just a cost of doing business.


Hi Denis,

Thanks for the response. It was very helpful. A few more questions for you.

Since Affiliates offer the same games as each other (everyone is selling Big Kahuna Reef, Ricochet, etc), how can they be distinguished from each other? How is Flipside different from Insane Games besides the name and the general website presentation?

Has anybody ever tried to create a specialized Affiliate site dedicated to only a few game genres? This is something I have been considering.

[dburger]

Since Affiliates offer the same games as each other, how can they be distinguished from each other? How is Flipside different from Insane Games besides the name and the general website presentation? You have a valid point that many of the affiliates don't really differentiate themselves. They tend to all look very similar and have similar games and presentation. What they do differently is reach different potential customers depending on how they are linked, what search results they turn up for and how they promote themselves. From the game devleoper's perspective it doesn't matter much that they all look alike, just that they reach untapped customers.

Has anybody ever tried to create a specialized Affiliate site dedicated to only a few game genres? This is something I have been considering.
There are definitely affiliates that specialize. If you have a plan for marketing your web site to a specific audience, then by all means focus on selling a genre of games that will apeal to that audience. One reason many affiliates don't specialize is that it is not much more work to carry all the games than a small subset of them.