Tell me why...

[Jack Norton]

Tell me why a good game, one that sells for 2/day, should be put on sale on a big portal like bigfishgames or real?
I took a look there yesterday, and beside finding really boring the fact that both portals have the SAME games for sale (yes, let's play ONLY puzzles!), I also saw quite some games that I thought they were selling well (from posts on dexterity forums).
So I asked myself why? If a game sells well, why give to portals a free 75% of the money? Why waste the opportunity to build a huge customer base (at rate of 2/day you make over 600+ customers in only one year!).

Maybe people look only at short tearm goals like making 5000$ the first month even at the price of losing lot of customers email? they prefer not to make their site visible?

Please someone with more experience than me explain why someone would want to do that... I honestly think that until UBM is selling so well will never put it on any portals at their conditions (15% royalties and price reduction to 15$ or 19$)...

[svero]

Because the audience of potential customers is so large that in practice there's not much overlap between the 2 a day you normally sell and what the portal sells. So really what you end up getting is extra exposure you wouldn't have had anyway. As your own audience grows the overlap grows but the portals have such a huge audience relative to most small indies that adding a game to a portal doesn't really harm you. It's bonus money.

[Diodor Bitan]

Why waste the opportunity to build a huge customer base (at rate of 2/day you make over 600+ customers in only one year!).

You don't waste it, you keep getting the 2/day customers.

In fact, it is possible that some of the customers brought in by the big portal end up on your web site as well, one way or the other (looking for updates, word of mouth, etc.).

[Jack Norton]

Because the audience of potential customers is so large that in practice there's not much overlap between the 2 a day you normally sell and what the portal sells
hmm in effect that could be a good explanation, I'm not very sure if it applies also to niche games like mine...however I noticed that Spidweb Geneforge 2 is on Real too... that quite surprised me ;)

[cliffski]

generally speaking I agree with you, I am going off portal sites, preferring to steer visitors to my own page. I have a few regnow and plimus affiliates, but my only big portal exposure is real.com for StarLines INC. to be honest, unless you make some generic unoriginal puzzle game, these portals arent interested anyway. My next game is about politics, so I dont see it sitting next to "Colormatchmagicpuzz!" any time soon. I'd much rather build up a lot of links to positech.co.uk from people who play starship tycoon, who already know me as a supplier of more complex indie games.

And as for the earnings, I make maybe 3-4 times as much each month from direct shareware sales as I do from RealGames, and maybe about the same (on average) through a few retail deals, so I see my direct shareware sales as the way forwards. (especially now I am a plimus customer and pay even less commision ;))

[Jack Norton]

And as for the earnings, I make maybe 3-4 times as much each month from direct shareware sales as I do from RealGames, and maybe about the same (on average) through a few retail deals, so I see my direct shareware sales as the way forwards. (especially now I am a plimus customer and pay even less commision )
wow so those big portals don't give much money to devs? well, no wonder... I made a quick (hypotetical) calculation:
UBM on real at 19$ = 15% royalty = 2.85$ per sale!
UBM from my site at 24.95$ = 10% plimus commission = 22,45$

lol they should sell about 10 times what I sell from my site... and honestly I don't think that's possible with a niche game like mine... ;)

[crazyhermit]

Hi Jack.

I've had both a puzzle game on Real and a niche game. With the puzzle game they sold WAY more than 10X what I make. 130+ sales in ONE day even.

However, the niche game only sold about 10 per month and they quickly removed it. It was a big waste of time

I agree with cliffski. If it's not a another puzzle game, stick to selling it yourself.

[Chris00]

hmm, that's something I could never understand. Why Puzzle games sell so good? Personaly I can't play a puzzle game for very long before I get bored.

[Andy]

Why Puzzle games sell so good?
First of all why not? :D
And who said that they are selling so good? ;)

Answering the question of my lovely Jack... :D
Let me guess why Jack - to grab some more money probably. No?

PS Amount of clever peoples discussing huge amount of terribly imporant questions here - but really the game is very simple - make good piece of code and sell it by all possible ways. That's it. :)

[Mike Boeh]

Platypus made it all the way to #1 on Real- and it's in its 8th week in the top 10. I don't think *anyone* could ever call Platypus a puzzle game. That rule just isn't true today- look at games like Magic Ball and Ricochet, which have also done quite well on the portals.

[svero]

And in fact true puzzle games (ie things where you have to logically solve something) do so poorly on portals that they no longer accept them.

The only games that sell on portals are easy arcade games. There are a few small exceptions but nothing worth noting. Looking at the top 10 on real today...

Jewel quest - arcade
Zuma - arcade
feeding frenzy - arcade
ballistik - arcade
puzzle express - arcade
mad caps - arcade
shape shifter - arcade
rebound - arcade
platypus - arcade
ancient tripeaks - havent played it..

Now some here might take issue with my classification of jewel quest and puzzle express and zuma as arcade games, but essentially you aim and shoot. There's no real thought to them. At least not much more than say asteroids. They're casual arcade games with just a touch of thought added. But I could argue that any arcade game has a touch of strategy to it.

[Jack Norton]

PS Amount of clever peoples discussing huge amount of terribly imporant questions here - but really the game is very simple - make good piece of code and sell it by all possible ways. That's it.
well, do I have to remind you my "better 1$ million in 10 years or 100k$ in 1 year" statement? :D
(posted in dex forums some time ago)
Portals may be the best way to sell a particular product, but NOT the best way to sell another kind of product... or you mean that between a puzzle game and a RPG there's no difference?? ;)


And in fact true puzzle games (ie things where you have to logically solve something) do so poorly on portals that they no longer accept them.
Well I wasn't meaning specific puzzle games, but even arcade/action games...all casual games.
Anything that doesn't involve management, resource control, building an alter ego, creating a character, etc is a casual game :)

Saying that, my last game is just a trivia game, so quite casual. Maybe I should try to get it on BFG or Real? :D