Free Games for Bloggers

[BinaryMoon]

I like giving stuff away so I have started the 'Free Games for Bloggers' initiative.

The idea is that people review my games on their blogs and in return I give them a free copy of whatever they review.

There should be a few bonuses to doing this.


I get extra links to my games
Extra traffic
Feedback from people who aren't developers


I don't know how popular it will be but hope that at least a few people post reviews. I'm particularly interested in the feedback on the games, and seeing which ones are reviewed the most will give me some idea of which games are most popular.

To start with I'll run it for a month but if it's successful I will make it last a little longer.

BTW I did ask permission from Savant and Si to give away their games, and they both agreed.

You can read about my idea here - http://www.binarymoon.co.uk/2006/03/free-video-games-for-bloggers/

[svero]

Thats kind of an interesting clever viral marketing idea. Ill be interested to know how it works out for you. Ie.. if you get enough takers to make it worth while. I guess even 1 extra review is worth something.

[BinaryMoon]

I figure this costs me nothing to run so it's worth giving it a go - and any feedback or linkage is good feedback and linkage. It hasn't had quite the activity I was hoping for but it's only been online two days so is early yet.

[Shaz]

How do you imagine people will play the game before doing their review? Are you expecting them to download from your site (or elsewhere), play the demo with whatever limits, and review based on that? Unless they have the full version to begin with, they may not have played for very long, or have experienced all the game's capabilities. If that's the case, you may be able to ask them to come back after receiving the free reg code and update/add to their comments.

[MrPhil]

How do you imagine people will play the game before doing their review?Word, it is the chicken and the egg territory.

PS Shazbot - LOVE the signature

[Savant]

How do you imagine people will play the game before doing their review? Are you expecting them to download from your site (or elsewhere), play the demo with whatever limits, and review based on that? Unless they have the full version to begin with, they may not have played for very long, or have experienced all the game's capabilities. If that's the case, you may be able to ask them to come back after receiving the free reg code and update/add to their comments.
Maybe they've already bought GameA they can review it to get a copy of GameB. Besides, Ben isn't asking for in depth analysis of the entire game - just a review.

You can generally get a great feel for a game from the demo. Especially casual games - OK, match these, get power ups, earn trophies ... got it.

If you can't, it's a failure of a demo and the developer has bigger problems to contend with.

[Savant]

I figure this costs me nothing to run so it's worth giving it a go - and any feedback or linkage is good feedback and linkage. It hasn't had quite the activity I was hoping for but it's only been online two days so is early yet.
Have you hit larger blogs with the news? Boing-boing, metafilter, rocket boom? That would give you massive exposure if one of those would list you.

[BinaryMoon]

Shazbot - to tell the truth I hadn't really thought about that. Although I agree with Savant. If people can't get a decent overview of the game from the demo then I should be worrying more about that than anything else.

Savant - I haven't tried boing boing or any other sites like that. It's not something I had ever considered but am definately going to give it a go now you've suggested it :)

Any other sites like those would be interesting as well.

I do have a couple of other larger blogs who are going to be linking to me soon so things will hopefully pick up as the month goes by.

I'm hoping that once there have been a dozen or so reviews things should snowball, the problem is getting the first reviews.