Portals and selling on your own?

[nights]

Hello!

As the shipping point approaches, I cant help to be curious. What does portals think of titles they market that also are available through a site on their own, now I'm not talking about larger fish like Reflexive who has a huge community themselves, but more like single-game companies.

I certainly understand that having a hot link in your game linking your own site is not very appreciated :p but I bet portal customers that *didnt* buy the game that later return and want to play again may find your private site and purchase the game here instead. This would no doubt be a small percentage of the players actually playing your game through a portal but nevertheless you would earn more (90% against 30% or so) by doing close to nothing!

Does portals care about this? Is it OK to also sell it yourself? :confused: Since they are fine with non-exclusive titles I cant see how this would be any different, but just to make sure.

What do you guys think?

[Pyabo]

I certainly understand that having a hot link in your game linking your own site is not very appreciated


Not only is not appreciated, it's expressly forbidden by most portals so far as I know. They don't give a damn if you sell it yourself, but they definitely won't let you advertise your site. What they would love most in the world is for all their customers to believe that all these games are magically springing forth from the bowels of RealNetworks (or whoever)... and no doubt many of them do. (we have plenty of examples to prove it)

[KG_Brad]

Is it banned by Reflexive? I'm going to try to sell through them.

[arcadetown]

Yup most portals won't mind you selling it yourself, I would definitely encourage you to. And yup like yourself most portals want to keep their users so links, excsessive logos, etc in potal versions are a no.

Your site is not only your direct marketing tool, it's also where you refer portals to showcase your product. So make it look good and don't sell your game for low ball price. Nothing scares us away faster from a developer submission than an unprofessional developer's site or $6 game, for example.

[nights]

(Duplicate)

[nights]

Not only is not appreciated, it's expressly forbidden by most portals so far as I know. They don't give a damn if you sell it yourself, but they definitely won't let you advertise your site. What they would love most in the world is for all their customers to believe that all these games are magically springing forth from the bowels of RealNetworks (or whoever)... and no doubt many of them do. (we have plenty of examples to prove it)

Sorry, maybe I wasnt clear enough but I didnt mean that I would advertise my own site through the content of the game. Rather that the players would find the site through either guessing address or through google.

[nights]

Yup most portals won't mind you selling it yourself, I would definitely encourage you to. And yup like yourself most portals want to keep their users so links, excsessive logos, etc in potal versions are a no.

Your site is not only your direct marketing tool, it's also where you refer portals to showcase your product. So make it look good and don't sell your game for low ball price. Nothing scares us away faster from a developer submission than an unprofessional developer's site or $6 game, for example.

Thanks Brian! Havnt really thought of providing you with the site rather than just the bulk game, good idea! Ofcourse this requires some more work before the release but may well be worth it as the site has to be done anyway.

[ZeHa]

excessive logos

What do you mean by "excessive logos"? Would I even have to get rid of a "loading screen" with my company logo (and replace it with "big rulin' portal logo") or would that be okay?

[cyrus_zuo]

Sorry, maybe I wasnt clear enough but I didnt mean that I would advertise my own site through the content of the game. Rather that the players would find the site through either guessing address or through google.

It is always very smart to offer something on your site in relation to your game that can't be found elsewhere.

For example, Reflexive has a website set up for each of our games. On the Big Kahuna Reef website you can find levels that you can load up into the game. The game specifically tells players that they can download levels, but doesn't tell them where. Some % of players go to the internet and google us that way and then they come to the site. As you move on from game 1 to game 2 to game 3, those visitors may become your customers over time.

The name of your game, if chosen well, may help people find your site. Having a secondary offering, such as additional levels, will make your website a valuable asset to you.

And I second the point of making your website look good. Portals get so many games that they won't bother to even play a game if the website looks trully horrible. It doesn't take much to make a reasonably attractive website.

[Emmanuel]

Portal customers, and casual games customers, are a lot smarter, more sophisticated and educated than you think. More and more games with deep gameplay such as Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children are breakaway hits (VV2 is #1 on BFG, even with all the mega sellers in our top 10 at the moment) while games trying to second-guess or patronize the audience don't do well. We don't try to make customers think we develop all the games, and they understand that we don't. They're just interested in a safe, painless, consistent trial and buying experience and getting games early (we're lucky to have a lot of those). Games clearly display the developers logos and credits. At least on BFG, we have a weekly developers feature showcasing a studio's games, right on the landing page (this week is Hipsoft, last week was Alawar, and we've had Sandlot recently as well). This said, as Brian mentioned, since we pay a lot of money to acquire, serve and support customers and grow the market for everyone, we obviously want to keep them, just like TV channels buy content from each other and third parties but don't advertise for the competing channels on their own air time, for obvious reasons.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[charliedog]

Sorry, maybe I wasnt clear enough but I didnt mean that I would advertise my own site through the content of the game. Rather that the players would find the site through either guessing address or through google.

Well that was my thinking too with Snaky Jake. But the results have been disappointing. The stats from my website clearly show that the vast number of people visiting it are coming direct from the links I've left on sites like Indie Gamer and Popcap. Very few have come from Google searches. I was very surprised at this. To give you some idea it looks like less than .01% of the people who downloaded the game bothered to google (or guess the http) for Charlie Dog Games. That;s not to say I haven't had plenty of visitors but they only come if they follow a link.

That's why it's quite sad that portals won't let developers link to their sites. The game is the best way to advertise your wares but it's not going to help you to get traffic to your site unless there is a link from the game.

One thing I would recommend is that you get the game up on your site before the portals do. That way it will be your demo with links to your site which end up on all the file mirrors not the big portals version with links to their site.

regards,

Tony

http://charliedoggames.com

[nights]

Well that was my thinking too with Snaky Jake. But the results have been disappointing. The stats from my website clearly show that the vast number of people visiting it are coming direct from the links I've left on sites like Indie Gamer and Popcap. Very few have come from Google searches. I was very surprised at this. To give you some idea it looks like less than .01% of the people who downloaded the game bothered to google (or guess the http) for Charlie Dog Games. That;s not to say I haven't had plenty of visitors but they only come if they follow a link.

That's why it's quite sad that portals won't let developers link to their sites. The game is the best way to advertise your wares but it's not going to help you to get traffic to your site unless there is a link from the game.

One thing I would recommend is that you get the game up on your site before the portals do. That way it will be your demo with links to your site which end up on all the file mirrors not the big portals version with links to their site.

regards,

Tony

http://charliedoggames.com


One thing I've noticed here is that you expect people to search for "Charlie Dog Games", isnt there a much larger possibility they remember the title of your game rather than the developers name? I did a google search for "Snaky Jake" and your site only came #7 or so which is quite weak, maybe do some SEO? Also, www.snakyjake.com isnt even registred? I'm not surprised you only have a few visitors, "Charlie Dog Games" isnt easily remembered when flashing by in the intro of your game. I'd say you should go for the game title.

[JoKa]

I agree, register the snakyjake domain and route it to your main page at least. Even better, register snaky-jake.com, too. You should also create a product page that includes the name of the game.
charliedoggames.com/?page_id=3 isn't useful for search engines, "/snaky-jake" would be much better. Additionally, create tons of backlinks by submitting PAD files.

[CJPinder]

Hi Tony,

Well that was my thinking too with Snaky Jake. But the results have been disappointing. The stats from my website clearly show that the vast number of people visiting it are coming direct from the links I've left on sites like Indie Gamer and Popcap. Very few have come from Google searches. I was very surprised at this.
http://charliedoggames.com

You need to optimise your site more for search engines. For starters I would suggest:

1) As joka has already said make your urls search engine friendly by including snakey-jake in them.
2) The top search hit for snaky jake at the moment is Superior's website. Ask Richard Hanson for a link to your website, they have a links page with lots of links on and it has a fairly decent page rank. He may even give you a link from the snaky jake page.
3) Try to get as many people linking to your website as possible (fairly obvious :-)
4) Your site is maybe a bit too new to have been assigned a page rank yet (it shows as not having one). Give it six months and you might find you suddenly leap up in the search ranks.
5) Consider changing the name of your games studio. If I do a search for "charlie dog" you are lost in the crowd and it will probably always be that way. If I was you I would promote yourself rather than someone called "charlie dog", go with "Tony Oakden Games", register tonyoakden.com etc. That way people will come to associate your name with the games they enjoy, search for you on Google and will find you.

I hope that helps,
Christian.

[cyrus_zuo]

To give you some idea it looks like less than .01% of the people who downloaded the game bothered to google (or guess the http) for Charlie Dog Games.

Do people have any reason to look for the game or your site in google?

I had talked about this in my last post, but I wanted to make sure the message was clear.

If someone finds your game somewhere else (a portal) and enjoys the game, then they are satisfied. They have no reason to search you out. The satisfaction came from the portal and you haven't given them any reason to believe that they should go looking elsewhere.

Does the game mention that it has downloadable content? Portals will let you mention that there is downloadable content in a game as long as you don't mention where it is. "Download free levels online" That will lead people to search for your website. Simply having a game on a portal will not generate many searches.

Are there difficult levels that have walkthroughs or hints online? Would the player think to look for them online if they existed? Does the game prompt the player in any way to want to go look online and find you? Could it?

I wouldn't expect that someone downloading a game will seek you out unless you give them reason to do so. I think it is a secret that should implemented whenever possible...especially as a way to attract visitors to your website.

[charliedog]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the great tips. This isn't something I've given a lot of thought to so far. My first concern was getting a game out. But now that I have a product to sell I need to consider these issues.

I'm pretty annoyed with myself over the online aspect of Snaky Jake. The game has a great little editor built into it which is almost shippable but I disabled it at the last minute because I thought the portals wouldn't allow customers to download create and swap content. Do people think it might be worth releasing a new version on my site with the editor enabled? I was thinking of setting it up so there is a new menu option to play and edit user created maps which are stored in MyDocuments. Players would then be free to upload and swap maps as they see fit. Of course I'd have a special spot on my FTP site on http://CharlieDogGames.com for them to put them.

Regards,
Tony

[Nexic]

What do you mean by "excessive logos"? Would I even have to get rid of a "loading screen" with my company logo (and replace it with "big rulin' portal logo") or would that be okay?


This just means that you can't cover your game in developer logos and only put in a tiny portal logo.

In general most portals expect the logos to be of equal size. I usually have a 1 full screen image showing both mine and the portal logo in roughly equal sizes and sometimes a small jagged blade logo in the credits. Other games just put small logos on the main menu, making sure the portals get one of equal size. Never show visible or clickable URLs.

[cliffski]

The game has a great little editor built into it which is almost shippable but I disabled it at the last minute because I thought the portals wouldn't allow customers to download create and swap content. Do people think it might be worth releasing a new version on my site with the editor enabled?


YES YES YES.
Why would you not do this? It's extra functionality for your direct customers that you have already implemented. Definitely do it!

[cyrus_zuo]

Hey everyone,
Do people think it might be worth releasing a new version on my site with the editor enabled? I was thinking of setting it up so there is a new menu option to play and edit user created maps which are stored in MyDocuments. Players would then be free to upload and swap maps as they see fit. Of course I'd have a special spot on my FTP site on http://CharlieDogGames.com for them to put them.


I'd make sure it works, and then I'd release it...your biggest issue though will likely be that you are already on the portals. The amount of traffic that the game is currently getting may not generate much use of the editor. There are of course ways to approach that problem (quickly releasing a part 2 for example...that is simply more levels and a level editor), but it is a problem to consider before spending the time (at this point).