Contacting Portals to launch game

[Grey Alien]

Hiya, just read the other thread about "best" portals and as I'm about to contact a bunch of portals about my new game I thought that it would be great to get a bit more info from you lot. I've already contacted these:

Reflexive Arcade (they sold my games before)
BFG (they sold my games before)
Arcadetown
Real Arcade
Trymedia (they cover a lot of portals I believe, but which ones?)
Oberon media (they cover MSN games, Pogo.com, France Telecom, Yahoo! Games, RealArcade, Shockwave, AOL ... + more?)

but I wonder who else I should contact? I don't want to duplicate my work because Trymedia and Oberon media obviously cover so many portals, or is it still worth going to the portals that they cover individually?

Also, when trying to look for other portals (I have quite a big list of possible ones), it's hard to work out which ones are just affiliate sites. For example is HeavyGames an affiliate of arcadetown? I can't figure out how to easily tell if a site is an affiliate site or a genuine portal - I'm assuming that it's not worth contacting an affiliate about selling your game because they only deal with portals (perhaps I'm wrong about this.)

I'm not really looking for a single publisher as I want to cast a wide net because my next game is a Christmas game. I'll also sell it direct of course.

Any advice would be great and much appeciated. Many thanks in advance.

[Grey Alien]

just found this big list of portals:
http://www.logler.com/2006/05/30/casual-games-portals-major-list-fourth-edition/

pretty useful but the question still remains about who are you supposed to contact to actually get the games on these portals as often the portals are "fed" games by the media companies/publishers. Also are any of the portals on that list affiliates or download sites only (e.g. Gamextazy) or are they all "pure" portals? Anyone know? Thanks.

Furthermore are sites like miniclip and shockwave just for flash games, which is no use for downloadable games unless you have a flash demo...?

[terin]

My book has the contact info for all these people (www.indiegameguide.com) but really a great deal of that section is taken from the IGDA white paper on casual games.

I suggest starting there... Places like ArcadeTown are pretty easy- they have a link on the site to submit a game :) Places like Yahoo are more... labrynthic.

-Joe

[Grey Alien]

Thanks Joe, yeah for some reason I couldn't find the arcadetown link yesterday but found it today. You are sure right about some sites hiding away their developer contact info.

[val]

Gamextazy is Alawar's site. They started to take games for their sites on non-exclusive basis, so you may contact Alawar and offer your game there.

[Grey Alien]

Thanks Val. Strangely my last two games made it onto Gamextazy just by doing a shareware submission service, I didn't need to do anything special.

[val]

Thanks Val. Strangely my last two games made it onto Gamextazy just by doing a shareware submission service, I didn't need to do anything special.

They accept PAD sunbmissions too. But they tend to replace all titles from affiliate programs with direct agreements.

[Grey Alien]

Thanks Val. Well for now I'm having to email lots of portals (if I can find an email address), or use the contact form on websites to get the correct contact information about who to speak to about my games. Wish me luck!

[Stridge]

Hi,

Grey alien, what have you done for your Easter bonus? Have you send it to all these portals?

[Grey Alien]

Stridge: At the moment I've sent out preliminary emails to see if any portals are interested in relaunching Xmas Bonus (in December) and Easter Bonus (in March). They were on Reflexive and BFG early this year and as they are seasonal I'm trying to relaunch them to generate more revenue. Also I'm going to release Xmas Bonus 2 very soon and I'm sounding them out about that.

[Nexic]

HeavyGames only sells game that are sold on ArcadeTown.

[Grey Alien]

OK thanks, so no go with Arcadetown = no go with Heavygames and a few other sites no doubt.