Totally made my day!

[SteveZ]

Hi all!

I nearly jumped out of my seat when I saw download.com placed "Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys" on the front page today under "Whats New in Games"!

check out at: www.download.com and scroll down!

Also got a sweet rating (http://www.download.com/Cactus-Bruce-and-the-Corporate-Monkeys/3000-2111-10328055.html?tag=sptlt_g) from them too!

Wow, what a friday. After spending 3 hours at the lab for some schoolwork, this really made my day!

I guess I just felt like celebrating with you guys, because my roomates have no idea what's the big deal.

-Steve Z.

[ggambett]

Congratulations, and may the big sales be with you :)

[Dan MacDonald]

Convert! convert! convert! :)

[MrPhil]

Whooooo Hoooooooooooo!!!

Congradulations :)

[Trixx]

Congratulations Steve !!! I wish you to stay on the front page for a looooong time :)

[tolik]

This is terrific!!! I remember somebody saying "hey, download.com is covered by real arcade now", now we see who's handling the portal ;)

[Andy]

This is terrific!!! I remember somebody saying "hey, download.com is covered by real arcade now", now we see who's handling the portal ;)

I liked this one. :)
Yes, SteveZ. Could you please push our game there a little bit as well. :D

Congrats really. And good luck. ;)

[MirekCz]

Great work. Congrats. Hope you get the sales high as well :)

[Fry Crayola]

Good luck. Seriously hope it works out, gets plenty of recognition.

[Mirage]

Congratulations, Steve!
I hope you will get more sales from this than I'd got. :)

[SteveZ]

Thanks! I appreciate your encouragements.

This is the order statistic on Regnow for the last 1 1/2 days that the game was spotlight on frontpage of download.com:

****************************
Products Selected: 288
Billing Page Hits: 44 (15.3%)
Confirmation Page Hits: 10 (3.5%)
Failed Products: 0 (0.0%)
Completed Products: 6 (2.1%)
Refunds: 0
Chargebacks: 0
*****************************

Feedback on the %?

[Andy]

You should really add 1,136 downloads at D.Com SteveZ.

So, supposedly everything was going from D.com directly it gives us 0.52% conversion rate (don't forget that some are still considering to buy ;) ) - that's OK for good game at D.com specifically.

All another percents - billing/confirmation - why they are so different? :confused: But this is not too big problem anyway.

[Sirrus]

I may be a little late here, but good work!

[merovingian]

So don't get me wrong, I could easily be missing something, but what's the advantage of BMT, Plimus, 2Checkout or any of the other guys as opposed to getting a merchant account with a credit card service and handling the downloads yourself?

In any event, I'm not quite a newbie, but I am finally getting back in the business of indie game development after a long hiatus, and I need to catch up on how the world has changed in my absence. Last time around, we used Paypal and literally shipped the sucker by hand out of our garage. These days, we want to do e-commerce and downloads.

Goal #1 is keep the costs as close to zero as possible - no burn rate.

[EpicBoy]

So don't get me wrong, I could easily be missing something, but what's the advantage of BMT, Plimus, 2Checkout or any of the other guys as opposed to getting a merchant account with a credit card service and handling the downloads yourself?
That you don't have to get a merchant account and handle the downloads yourself. :) They also handles taxes, VAT, etc.

[merovingian]

That you don't have to get a merchant account and handle the downloads yourself. :) They also handles taxes, VAT, etc.

Hmmm... I ran a type S corporation and that wasn't all that bad... Accounting software is your friend... Now if we had actual employees as opposed to partners, well, that would be a whole new ball of wax...

Thanks for the info...

[EpicBoy]

Well, not using one really conflicts with what you listed as your #1 goal:


Goal #1 is keep the costs as close to zero as possible - no burn rate.

Managing all the book keeping yourself isn't going to help your burn rate. :)

[Sirrus]

10% isn't going to brake the bank either ;)

[merovingian]

10% isn't going to brake the bank either ;)

No, but I'd much rather donate it to a worthy charity than an intermediary...

[EpicBoy]

It's not just the 10%. The time you spend managing all of this accounting/book keeping is time you aren't working on/marketing your games. Time is the most valuable commodity an indie developer has - to throw it away seems foolish.

But, to each his own...

[merovingian]

It's not just the 10%. The time you spend managing all of this accounting/book keeping is time you aren't working on/marketing your games. Time is the most valuable commodity an indie developer has - to throw it away seems foolish.

But, to each his own...

Seriously, it was like 2 or 3 hours a month, tops...

The inverse, of course, is that the better I do, the more insanely well I'm paid to do basic accounting ...

[GBGames]

Seriously, it was like 2 or 3 hours a month, tops...

The inverse, of course, is that the better I do, the more insanely well I'm paid to do basic accounting ...

I believe years ago Steve Pavlina argued that the same thing. He didn't have to do much work at all and gets to save quite a bit of money. Fraud was rare. I believe Mike Boeh was arguing about the convenience and ease of using a payment processor. People talked about how fraud was rare, but perfectly good sales could be sacrificed by the filters used by the processors. It is interesting that this same discussion is coming up again. B-)

That said, this year I will be getting a payment processor. I'm already inexperienced, and so having to learn law and taxes would just be on top of learning how to complete and sell a game. Maybe in the future I might find an advantage to handling everything myself.

...oh, and to be back on topic, congratulations SteveZ!

[ninjasamurai]

It is interesting that this same discussion is coming up again. B-)Well, it wasn't... you bumped a 1 year old thread :D !!

[george]

I believe years ago Steve Pavlina argued that the same thing. He didn't have to do much work at all and gets to save quite a bit of money. Fraud was rare. I believe Mike Boeh was arguing about the convenience and ease of using a payment processor. People talked about how fraud was rare, but perfectly good sales could be sacrificed by the filters used by the processors. It is interesting that this same discussion is coming up again. B-)

That said, this year I will be getting a payment processor. I'm already inexperienced, and so having to learn law and taxes would just be on top of learning how to complete and sell a game. Maybe in the future I might find an advantage to handling everything myself.

...oh, and to be back on topic, congratulations SteveZ!

haha man you're funny. this conversation is from over a year ago :) tho it's my fault for accidently posting in this thread and bumping it up. :D

EDIT:





It is interesting that this same discussion is coming up again. B-)
Well, it wasn't... you bumped a 1 year old thread !!

(didn't see your post, you and i posted at almost the same time)

actually i bumped it up by accidently posting an irrelevant message about my webhost (i dunno how the hell i did that) and then gbgames posted. then the moderators moved my post to the appropriate thread. heh just one of those weird moments :)

[tentons]

Even a year ago is "coming up again" if you consider Pavlina's words were several years back. :)

[GBGames]

Hah! That's what I get for using New Posts and not checking the date. B-)