Indiegamer Developer Discussion Boards - Indie Business http://forums.indiegamer.com/ Discuss business-related topics, including sales, marketing, publishing, serving customers, legal issues, search engines, download sites, and web hosting. en Wed, 22 May 2013 08:01:29 GMT vBulletin 60 http://forums.indiegamer.com/images/misc/rss.png Indiegamer Developer Discussion Boards - Indie Business http://forums.indiegamer.com/ Game Marketing Guide http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35482-Game-Marketing-Guide&goto=newpost Mon, 20 May 2013 23:44:53 GMT Hi all gamers, let me introduce my new blog about mobile game development. My focus is to help indie developers on their way to successful game publishing. My fresh article is about marketing of mobile apps and games (http://www.appfreak.net/mobile-app-marketing/) - please read it and I... Hi all gamers,

let me introduce my new blog about mobile game development. My focus is to help indie developers on their way to successful game publishing. My fresh article is about marketing of mobile apps and games - please read it and I appreciate any feedback.

Also, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

Thanks! :) ]]> Indie Business R3v http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35482-Game-Marketing-Guide Game outsourcing company|Offer arts for you! http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35472-Game-outsourcing-company-Offer-arts-for-you!&goto=newpost Fri, 17 May 2013 07:08:29 GMT Silk Road Game is always open to cooperate with you! As a 3D game art outsourcing service supplier,we create maximum value based on our professional experience and the full confidence both in quality and ability.We have abundant experience and distinguished abilities in all aspects of 3D... Silk Road Game is always open to cooperate with you!
As a 3D game art outsourcing service supplier,we create maximum value based on our professional experience and the full confidence both in quality and ability.We have abundant experience and distinguished abilities in all aspects of 3D games,such as characters,properties,scenes,models and animation.

Feel free to contact us if you have needs.
http://www.game-silkroad.com
info_game@silkroadcg.com
Tel:+86-0755-88321361　
Fax:+86-0755-88321361 ]]> Indie Business silkroadgame http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35472-Game-outsourcing-company-Offer-arts-for-you! Communications: Webpages, Forums, Twitter, Facebook... http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35440-Communications-Webpages-Forums-Twitter-Facebook...&goto=newpost Wed, 08 May 2013 07:48:08 GMT For the second time in as many years, I'm thinking of a revamp of my webspace and I'm considering what directions to go in order to spend my time most efficiently. Would like to hear what others think.

My background: I do Android games. Have one, moderately successful game (Pirates and Traders), and a couple of smaller spin-off/test projects. Currently working on a number of new projects.

Website: Sees a reasonable number of hits/week. An important reason for this is that I maintain a wiki/manual on the site (so people looking for help automatically hit up those pages), but there's is also a deal of traffic to the forums and blog, which are the main other content parts of the website.

Blog: Used for any "long" posts I need to do, as well as general thoughts. Thinking of doing more blogging in future (e.g., once a week rather than 1-2/month), though I am unsure about just how useful regular blogging is.

Forums: Used to be active (with people posting bugs/questions), but have been dead for a couple of months now. Still plenty of reading there, but all of the activity seems to have moved elsewhere. I am considering archiving/closing the forums down.

Looking at other indies on a similar level, I tend to see a similar development, with very low levels of activity (1-2 posts per day) even with 20+ times the number of members.

Facebook: I have a facebook fan page for each of my projects. P&T has a pretty active page; people send me PMs as well as post on the wall with questions and comment on news postings. I post links to the blog here as well as game-related announcements. The Facebook page is great because it gives me a "direct" communications channel to everyone who has liked the page (assuming the posts get into their newsfeed), as well as some possibility for discussion though it requires more from users than a forum. It has pretty much replaced the forums as my "support" page. On the downside, it has a very poor structure (no good ways to maintain links, etc), and answers get lost in the timeline/comments system, so I get repeat questions fairly often. Thinking of using Notes to set up a FAQ + links section. Wish I could find a good way to post from my blog to different FB pages automatically.

Twitter: Not a big communications channel, but still useful as a means to keep in touch with some users + with other game developers. I auto-post everything from my facebook pages to twitter, which is the majority of my tweets.

Google+: Lost opportunity. If there was a way to leverage the '+1's the game(s) have into a useful social network, this would be a much more powerful communications channel than Facebook. But there is no way to do so (that I know of), so for the moment it's completely useless.

Mailing lists: Don't use. Most mailing lists I know off are dead or dying. Facebook is the essential equivalent for me at this time.

At the moment, my thought is to:
  • Cut back the website so that it is essentially blog + links. I'll probably turn on comments on posts again (used to redirect to the forums before), so that non-Facebookers have a place they can comment (and hope that the comments don't get overrun with spam again).
  • Facebook Pages for each game as main communications channels (other than e-mail).
  • Twitter for mirroring facebook pages.

What experiences do others have for this sort of stuff? Most in doubt about the forums, but I think closing them is the rational thing to do. Tumblr? Any other services that people find useful? ]]> Indie Business strategy http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35440-Communications-Webpages-Forums-Twitter-Facebook... Pricing on music for slot machines? http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35438-Pricing-on-music-for-slot-machines&goto=newpost Tue, 07 May 2013 05:02:07 GMT I got a request to write some music and provide a few sound effects for a slot machine game and I have no idea what I should be charging. Does anybody have any experience in this area? Would definitely appreciate some guidance. Not worried about creating the music/sounds so much as I am about... I got a request to write some music and provide a few sound effects for a slot machine game and I have no idea what I should be charging. Does anybody have any experience in this area? Would definitely appreciate some guidance. Not worried about creating the music/sounds so much as I am about getting a fair price for the work.

It's just for one game at the moment and it only requires a few musical tracks and a few sound effects. ]]> Indie Business JGeer http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35438-Pricing-on-music-for-slot-machines tablet earnings http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35437-tablet-earnings&goto=newpost Mon, 06 May 2013 14:55:07 GMT Hi all, I'm talking to a publisher about potentially porting one of my Flash titles to tablet. Their tablet sales numbers right now aren't encouraging. Is anybody willing to share rough sales numbers on tablet titles at various price points? ]]> Indie Business lennard http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35437-tablet-earnings Game Art Prices http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35430-Game-Art-Prices&goto=newpost Sun, 05 May 2013 13:32:50 GMT Hi! My name is Tom Klovholt, I work as an full-time freelancer and have just created an info page for game art prices: http://gameartprices.info/ Its meant as a price guide for indie-devs how are looking to hire freelancer, to give them an idea of what different type of graphics... Hi!

My name is Tom Klovholt, I work as an full-time freelancer and have just created an info page for game art prices:

http://gameartprices.info/

Its meant as a price guide for indie-devs how are looking to hire freelancer, to give them an idea of what different type of
graphics costs. I get a lot of questions about prices, so hopefully this page can be a useful tool for both freelancers and game devs.

If you would like to give your participate in this project and give your votes, send me an email for username and password to the site.
An please include your portfolio and how many years you have been in service (you have to be working 50% or more as an freelancer).

I would really appreciate if you could contribute with your game art to the site for other freelancers to vote on.
If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback you can reach me on this e-mail: tom.klovholt@shadow-embryo.com ]]> Indie Business Dhondon http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35430-Game-Art-Prices ads http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35418-ads&goto=newpost Thu, 02 May 2013 17:17:30 GMT I have been trying to get Google ad-cents on my site and i get this email
Quote:
Hello,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:
-
Insufficient content
]]> Indie Business red_dr4gon1 http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35418-ads Pricing game art http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35416-Pricing-game-art&goto=newpost Thu, 02 May 2013 12:50:49 GMT Hi,

I have a fairly specific idea of what kind of art I need, but no idea of how much it would cost to hire someone to make it all. I've looked at some of the artist portfolios, but they never seem to discuss their rates. Is there a useful discussion on this somewhere? If not, would it be appropriate to describe what sort of work I'm looking for and ask the artists here for a small sample with pricing data?

Also, is there a better forum to discuss this sort of thing in? I need some idea of how much money to have set aside before starting anything and I'm not planning to hire right this moment, so this post technically isn't an offer for paid work.

Thanks. ]]> Indie Business DGM http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?35416-Pricing-game-art