Idea how we all get more sales

[joe]

Hi Indies,

I just had an simple idea how we all can get more direct sales for our games. It's very simple:

1) We create a simple blog (for example based on wordpress). Ev'ry indie with at least one game release can register himself to his blog.

2) Ev'ryone now can write a blog entry when he has a new release (but new releases or updates/patches are the only messages that are allowed - no reviews or something - just a small release message). It may include direct downloadlinks and links to the website of the developer.

3) Now we have a blog that could be interessting for people who like indie games, because they will be informed when there is a new release.

Okay, nice idea so far, but how do we get lots of traffic on this blog you may ask?

Ev'ryone who is registered as indie developer at this blog will get an email message ev'rytime a new release message appears on the page. This email includes a direct link to digg this story on digg.com.

If a lot of us are doing this ev'ryone would have the cance to get to the front page of digg.com which brings us tons of traffic as you know.

Of course, we can also include "digg this"-buttons on the blog itself, so that if once our blog is popular we get a lot of "diggs" from our readers.

What do you think of this? Do you think this could work? If there is any interessts I would setup a domain and set everything up, so no one of you will have work with it but can benefit from it.

[soniCron]

Or you could just buy (http://www.usersubmitter.com/) your way into the hearts of geeks. :)

[joe]

Cool, didn't know that. But no one of us poor indies does have the money to buy diggs :-)

[joe]

btw: buying diggs is also some kind of spamming digg.com - i hope they find a solution to prevent this else only the people with money will get on the front page and not the cool stories.

with our blog it's no spam - because i think we all agree that a indie game release is it worth to get dugged, isn't it :-)

[Sillysoft]

In all honesty, I don't think that every indie game release is deserving of a digg. Also, digg recently announced that they'll be adding some controls so that if the same group of people all digg the same things it devalues it. i.e. they have anticipated people doing exactly what you say, and will fight it if necessary.

As for a blog that announces all the new indie game releases, GameTunnel (http://www.gametunnel.com/) does pretty much that. And GT is savvy about getting things on slashdot and such (when it's truly warranted - which isn't for every indie game release).

[ninesquirrels]

Essentially, the site you are talking about is GameTrove - all user entered and supported. The only thing missing is the digg part of the equation...

No?

www.gametrove.net
Seriously - we should support Dan's site more - it's pretty sweet.

[Pyabo]

Agreed. GameTrove is the site I always meant to create if I could just get over this whole lazy bastard issue I have. :)

[princec]

Gametrove gets my thumbs up too. Excellent resource. Needs more marketing/press.

Cas :)

[Pyabo]

But that being said... I think Joe's original idea ain't half bad. The advantage here is the open, blog-type format.

[ninesquirrels]

I think Danimal looks at these posts - maybe we could get a list of features for him to add to GameTrove (like developer blogs attached to the games) that he would add in return for us actually giving him some press?

I mean, reeally - he dosen't make a dime off the site except for some trickling google ad revenue, and he lets anyone and their dog put their game up - it seems like the natural place for indies to start if they wanted to make an indie-portal and put some marketing behind it...

I mean 0- I coughed up *my* $20 in the tip jar over there - did you? :)

Cn

[Grey Alien]

anyone making decent sales from gametrove? Is it only developers that go there or do actual gamers go there too? Thanks.