Ok, so I started small, worked hard, developed a Java puzzle game straight to comercial level. See my announcement here or the game here. I know some things about development, but I have no ideea about marketing. What should I do ? As i see it, I have 3 options: - try to market it myself and probably have moderate success (if any) - find a publisher and get a deal (as in they sell the game and I get royalties or they buy the whole project). I think that's hard to do. I wouldn't know where to look for a publisher interested in a small java game like mine. (any ideeas ?) - get an associate (as in I sell him a big share of my company and he takes control over the buisness part, leaving me with development only). I already know someone interested in this, but the negociations are tough and I'm not sure if this is my best choice. Any advice would be helpful (how much would you expect ?). Thank you.
Well... A jigsaw game is something that could do well on the big game sites like bigfish, real etc... I don't know much about jigsaw games except that I've seen a few on those sites that sold well. So my first task would be to go to those sites and download all the other jigsaw games that did well and then see how my game stands up against them. Give it a real honest self critique and then if it's not up to par go back to work on it until it's as good or better than the titles already being sold, or at the very least provides something unique that the other titles don't. A unique and compelling selling feature might save a game that is otherwise not as good as the competition. So for instance if the other games don't let you import your own pictures but yours does.. that might be of interest. I'm not sure it's enough or that the competitin doesn't allow it, but I think you get what I'm saying. If the game is already up to par, or once you have it up to par if more work is required , then I think it's a simple task of submitting it to the various online game sites and seeing how it goes. If the game is in-fact as good or better than what they're currently selling then they should accept it. None of that prevents you from also pushing the game from your site and making the most of the online version to get sales. I'd submit the downloadable demo everywhere I can using either a submisstion tool (promosoft) or a submission service (robosoft). The online version should really push the full version of the game too. Try word-mojo at freshgames.com. Notice how when you finish a game there's always a button to download the deluxe-version. That's the kind of thing you want. Anyway.. that's where I'd start...