Becoming an affiliate

[Robert Cummings]

How does it work and how much do I usually get per title sold?
Please give in-depth tips as I'm very serious about it. I really appreciate it!

[Indiepath.T]

You'd be better off approaching the organisations looking for affiliates directly if you want to understand what percentage cut you would get. It's also worth trying to find out on what your percentage is based. Do you get paid on the Net Purchase price? the Net Purchase price after the developer has been paid? or on the $2 that is the Net profit :D

In terms of the work involved, it's a lot of work to start with, especially if you integrate the affiliate products into your site. After that it's just updating.

On a final note, we are about to stop selling such games on indiepath.com, the site will be dedicated to the company, products and services. Should we want to continue the resell of such games they will be sold on one of our other sites and will be completely seperate from our core business. So..... we could have a nice template up for sale ;)

[lakibuk]

In terms of the work involved, it's a lot of work to start with, especially if you integrate the affiliate products into your site.
It's not that much work to put affiliate products on your site.
First you sign up as affiliate (for example on RegNow).
Then a simple link is all you need to download the affiliate demo and set the affiliate cookie, which will ensure your commission.
Like
regnow.com/softsell/visitor.cgi
?affiliate=XXXX&action=site&vendor=YYYYY
&ref=http://www.indiepath.com/IndieGame_Demo.exe

[Indiepath.T]

especially if you integrate the affiliate products into your site.

Meaning rather than just links you have thumbnail pictures, screenshots, detailed game information, reviews, comments, best sellers and utilisation of sort algos (sort by name, date, rated etc..)

[Nexic]

As for your cut, you will likely get 30%-50%, depending on how many copies you are likely to sell.

[Reactor]

Here you go, we're after affiliates (http://superfurious.com/partners) . A quick explanation is on the page.

[Gnatinator]

I'm looking for affiliates too. Comp1337 instructions here. (http://www.photonikgames.net/sellourgames.php)

Is the average really around 30-50%? At plimus, the default is 30% (I keep it at 30). I know some developers who set it to 20%.


I imagine if you sold a lot of copies you could negotiate more. I certainly would give you more if you sold a decent number of copies.

[Nexic]

I can't understand how any affiliate could possibly survive, making a crappy 20% O.O

If you actually want to make some money find a developer who is prepared to give you a decent cut. After all, they almost certainly wouldn't get those sales at all if it wasn't for you.

[soniCron]

I can't understand how any affiliate could possibly survive, making a crappy 20% O.O

If you actually want to make some money find a developer who is prepared to give you a decent cut. After all, they almost certainly wouldn't get those sales at all if it wasn't for you. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about here! ;)

A developer spends 8-16 months making one game. They have, say, two on their entire site. Let's say they make 10 sales a month from each title for a total of 20 sales a month @ $20 (and for simplicity, no payment-processor fees). That's $400 a month.

Now let's say the affiliate has 8 games on their site and they get 20% per game. Let's say they make the same number of sales per game as the developer. (10 x 8 x $20 = $1,600) $1,600 at 20% is $320 per month. That's $320 per month for 1/16th the work and 1/100th the cost of the developer.

The affiliate has the advantage of selling titles he didn't develop. To create 8 games, we're looking at 8 x 8-16 months ~= 5-10 years of pure development time. Those aren't bad savings, not having to spend 10 years making the games to sell!

In addition, the issue simply boils down to supply and demand. If the developer has a particularly popular item, there may be a significant number of affiliates clammoring to sell the title and get their cut. With so many folks wanting to sell his game, the developer can afford to choose what percentage he offers the affiliate sale. While the affiliate may want 40-50%, the developer can just as easily get 2 additional affiliates who are willing to sell at only 20%.

Since there is no storefront, since the affiliate didn't front any of the development costs, and since there is no physical material to distribute, the distrobution costs are almost 0 (bandwidth and hosting being the exception). With odds like that stacked against the affiliate, I'd say the affiliate is lucky to be getting as much as 20%!

[Robert Cummings]

20% and you suck it up? :)

Nope, 30-50% is a good value - I don't accept that 20% is good enough. There's a lot of work involved in keeping customers happy, providing technical support, bandwidth fees, hosting fees, website mantinence. PHP, MySQL, liasing with your partners.

It is a full time job, and not easy money as you seem to imply. I actually know a lot more about it than it seems here, but I am casting out a wide net for the purposes of sharing information I learn with my peers.

I don't believe that anyone should keep secrets tightly close to their chests - it doesn't help anyone, least of all ourselves.

Once I get set up (I am a competent web designer) and learn a little more about the PHP backend, I will be sharing my findings with others. Perhaps we can turn that 1% CR into something special?