www.pixelartgames.com - Looking for business partners

[Loover]

Hello!

I've been working for some time in order to create a gamming portal / gamming data base for ONLY 100% Pure Pixel Art Games. http://www.pixelartgames.com

Now that the system for adding games (trought a private login), with options for adding videos/images/etc is ready, I'm searching for someone that wants to help me to upload the games, create the screenshots, make reviews or contribute in any other way.

What I don't offer:
- Money for each review or a salary. I want a business partner, not to contract anyone.

What I offer:
- A partner (me), that has a finished shareware game (Snap Mahjongg!), a 2d engine for rapid game development and is currently, working in another casual game.
- Sharing any earnings from affiliate selling of games or advertisment.
- A portal already working and ready to start to upload games, for several platforms, and with top download and top news lists. For each games it is possible to create a review, add screenshots and a youtube video.
- Private system (implemented with php upon the data base) for uploading games trought easy formularies. Statistics for the games, etc.
- 30 unique visits / day right now, because there are only 15 games uploaded and the portal is more or less new in its current look. This will improve by time, adding more games, etc.

What I want to find in a partner:
1) Someone that like games and that enjoy playing them, talking about them, etc. That will play each game that he/she will upload to the system and will be able to extract the feeling of the exprience and create a great review.
2) Good writing skills in english (my weak point because I'm spanish), for writing reviews.
3) Someone that finish what starts, and works well in a small team.
4) Php/html/css skills will be valuable, but are optional.

How will be the incomings (if there are any) be divided?
- This is something that we can talk about, of course, but currently I'm thinking in:
1) First, we will use the money for paying hosting, advertisment, or any other hyphotetical things we need to pay.
2) The rest of the money will be divided as follows: 75% will be divided equally between the partners (including me as a partner). The other 25% will be given as a bonus, so the partners with more and better reviews that month, will receive more (I'm working on that formula ). So I don't receive more that others, I want this to be clear as water.

How many partners?
- Well is not the quantity but the quality. I would like to start with a only 2 or 3 people, that will feel the portal as their own portal and will add and review at least 3 or 4 games each week. I don't want 20 partners that are not doing anything, I prefer less people, but the good ones.

Currently I'm adding both free and shareware games. I put an affiliate code in the shareware games, so if someone buy them, they give us 35%. As I said, I will share this money, and any other possible incomings from ads, with any associate/s that will help me with the portal.

I hope some of you would be interested because I really have problems when making the reviews, because my english is not good at all (I'm Spanish). And I want each of the games to have their own review, and to avoid to copy reviews from other websites. Furthermore, being alone on this is quite boring :P

Are there any pixel art games lovers out there that want to help me? Please? I'm open to any advice too!

Thanks in advance!

[Reactor]

Your english seems fairly decent to me. Is it not your main language, or do you just make a lot of mistakes?

[Loover]

Your english seems fairly decent to me. Is it not your main language, or do you just make a lot of mistakes?

I'm Spanish. I have good reading/listening skills, but not enough in order to make game reviews

[AlexWeldon]

Are you offering to pay, or asking for someone to help out of the goodness of their heart? I'm a contract writer and would definitely be interested in writing reviews... I don't have enough free time that I'd be willing to do it for free, but I could charge half my normal rate as long as it continues to be fun. Alternately, if you wanted to write the reviews yourself and just have me edit them for spelling/grammar/word choice, that would be even cheaper.

Anyway, send me a private message with your email if you're interested and I'll send you some writing samples and my rates.

EDIT: I re-read your post and see that you mention sharing ad/affiliate earnings. I think most freelancers, myself included, prefer to be paid a flat rate rather than gamble on the possibility of future royalties. I tried to visit your site - if it looked like a professional job that was already getting traffic, I'd be more inclined to take a chance - but it seems not to be working at the moment.

[Reactor]

Alex's offer is a good one, but I think you'd be fine at writing reviews, Loover. It could be a good opportunity to improve your english writing skills (which honestly, seem much better than a lot I've seen lately) Another idea might be to write the reviews, and then pay Alex a small amount to give you advice on how to better them.

[Loover]

I have edited the main post. Now it has more details, I hope it will be cleare now.

What you offer, AlexWeldon, is great, the problem is that I'm not looking for a contract, but for a partner. I mean, someone that will care about the portal as much as I will.

The portal is not working for you right now? Ah.... dreamhost, what a great hosting, hehe. Sorry for the inconveniences, try again in a while please, is working for me now.

I understand that nobody will want to pay me the 50% of the money I wasted to build the portal. So I'm offering it "for free", to someone that want to join my ship, but that will care of it in all the ways, exactly if it were his/her own portal, BECAUSE it will!

Thanks reactor for thinking I'm good at english, I think I will try to make my own reviews too, but I will need someone to read them before posting. I prefer he/she to be my partner better than to contract anyone.

[Reactor]

No worries

Don't give up on Dreamhost. They work well for us, and for a few other sites I have up with them.

[DayDream]

Just a quick - little off topic - 2c on the art of the website: Seeing you promote pixel games only - the look and feel of the site and the logo should reflect it. At the moment the logo is a combination of some photoshop filters - just about all pixel art is not.

I like the idea though... Good luck!

[Loover]

Feel free to pixelize it

[curry]

I think it looks pretty good, and pixel art games are a fun topic. In fact, I would enjoy reviewing that kind of game now and then.

But I don't think I would have enough time to stick with it constantly and be a partner, since I have to work on my own projects.

Also, I saw some strong language in the reviews and although such words are now common in movies and online comments, there is still a large part of the population in U.S.--the situation might be different in other English-speaking countries--that does not like to hear/see them, especially in materials for young people. Games are for any age but definitely for young people. I would not participate in a site with that kind of language.

(To explain why this is so: it might seem silly to taboo some words that seem arbitrary; I've taught ESL and I've also scratched my head at some of the things people considered bad in another language, so I know that it could even look illogical from the outside. But historically these words have a context in culture. It can seem low-class, vulgar, shocking, and/or insulting to people who don't embrace such words, and even more people consider it inappropriate for children.)

Best wishes,

Curry

[ChrisP]

Don't give up on Dreamhost.

Unless you want to. I did, and have never regretted that decision. Actually I abandoned shared hosting altogether and went for a VPS - slightly more expensive (about double the price), very much worth it.

[Loover]

I have edited the main post with more information

I think it looks pretty good, and pixel art games are a fun topic. In fact, I would enjoy reviewing that kind of game now and then.

But I don't think I would have enough time to stick with it constantly and be a partner, since I have to work on my own projects.

I understand this. In fact I think that 1 hour a day will be more than enough. So, think about it if you have this free hour.

Also, I saw some strong language in the reviews and although such words are now common in movies and online comments, there is still a large part of the population in U.S.--the situation might be different in other English-speaking countries--that does not like to hear/see them, especially in materials for young people. Games are for any age but definitely for young people. I would not participate in a site with that kind of language.

Yep, I think the current reviewer (a friend of mine) is maybe to much strong in his words. I will take this in count and I will talk with him, thanks. I suppose that things that in spanish dosen't sound rude, they can be very rude once translated into english, sorry about that.