The obvious #1 is download.com, what are the rest of the top 5? I need this information so I'll make separate buying tracking for the top 5 and the rest of the download sites will use the same buying tracking number.
Well, I have never submitted a game to any sites, but as far as regular shareware is concerned, download.com and tucows are the big ones.
Tucows is seriously a waste of money. You'll appear in the 'What's New' section for about 20 minutes before the next batch of games knocks you off the page. Might as well set the money on fire - same net effect.
Well, you could write more about why you think tucows is junk... Not that I'm a tucows fanboi, but it would be nice to know what's so bad about them, regarding games. EDIT: Ah, Savant just did.
Tucows is worth it if you don't give them any money... Actually its probably not, because even after you game finally appears on their site (after like 4 months), you won't get very many downloads, and most of the people who come to their site won't buy anything. Really, the time it takes to sign up for a developer account is probably not worth it. Oh, and when I submitted Xeno Assault II, after 3 months they finally got back to me and told me it had be refused because although you could choose 'windowed mode' you couldnt choose how big the window was... So I'd have to add in new features for them, and wait another 3 months. Hah!
Holy crap, that's outrageous! What the hell do they care about what features a game does or does not have?? Especially this feature! Sounds like that site will be going downhill in the long run.
Before 2002, Tucows was really one of the best download sites. The last time they still showed (free) quarterly stats, I was getting about 45,000 page views and 20,000 downloads (per month) for one game. Some time after that, adding new products was still free but you had to pay to update them. I think that was a really bad move, because you get all those outdated versions that nobody wants.
I agree.. sounds like Tucows is a crap now. Now they are charging to move the game review in the Queue.
Hm, they didn't refuse my game even though you can't choose the window's size... Maybe your window was too big? :] Anyway, yeah, I think Tucows is not worth the hassle. Though... I have no idea about the number of downloads or sales I got from them. Probably zero (for the sales, at least). Still, it's nice to have a PR4 page link to my site now and then . Back on topic, my top 5 list (for the Windows version) is: www.Gamextazy.com www.madmonkey.net www.gamealbum.com www.soft32.com www.freedownloadscenter.com. For Mac: www.apple.com www.macgamefiles.com www.Versiontracker.net www.macupdate.com (in that order)
Tucows wouldn't let me pay - which after reading this thread is a good thing. They rejected both of my credit cards claiming that "I changed my phone number in the past 6 months" which apparently means I am totally untrustworthy. I asked if there was anything they could do. They responded with a firm one word answer: "No." Fine. Don't take my money. They listed Lugaru after about a week though, and gave it 5/5 cows... Go figure. I guess the fact that they rejected my credit card didn't get passed on to the rest of the staff.