Questions for the maker devs out there

[DarkFact]

What's the most efficient way you guys sell your games? I have been looking around the net and truthfully a lot of these sites seem really expensive for now more features than they offer. I know paypal is a requirement to take money securely, but as far as distribution etc what site hosters, digital sales places do you guys go with?

 

[Kes]

Two obvious places to start are Aldorlea Games and Amaranth Games.  You have to be able to produce a bug-free, quality game, but, AFAIK, these sites are very open minded at looking at games from new devs.

 

[Shaz]

BMT Micro seems to be a nice one for payment processing. Stay away from Plimus (now called BlueSnap) - they are NOT friendly to little devs and in addition to the per-sale fee, they also charge huge monthly fees if you don't have several thousands of dollars in sales.


As far as hosting, just look around at what's available and choose a low-end package that meets your needs. They CAN get quite expensive. You might prefer to initially sell through the portals and not have your own site, but eventually as you add games, if they're good, people will come looking for you and will expect you to have a forum and web presence. Facebook could be an inexpensive (free) alternative while you're getting started.

 

[DarkFact]

I have put some serious time in researching which method is best for game distribution. I have found that http://www.gumroad.com/ is the best for handling you items for digital distribution and handling the credit card purchases, aka they take 5% with no additional fees for storage, etc. PayPal rapes someone trying to get started with all kinds of hidden fees.

But for website hosting http://www.weebly.com/ has got to be hands down the best for building a site. Making a game is taxing enough and their tools and great customer support will definitely make a lot of indie devs smile. Between those two sites I don't have to shell any money out of the gate. Gumroad takes theirs from each purchase and the website is free and offers great stuff and as your game needs more, if and when it grows, they can grow with you.

My site is very incomplete but this is what I did in about 30 Minutes on evening http://angrygam3rs.weebly.com/ I haven't bought my domain yet but weebly has features to do that as well.

Thanks for all the support in getting my nose pointed in the right direction fellows thanks!

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

though if you're starting out, it might be hard to get people to buy your product or even look at it which makes it a nice option to use existing game portals for your first games because they already have a player base... then as you build your own player base, migrate to your own selling method... though yeah, gumroad's method seems to be quite easy and fast...

 

[Indinera]

I would recommend BMT Micro, I think they have a program around 10% (for them).

Once you've done that make your own website and try to affiliate with sites specialized in selling RM games, most notably mine and Amanda's, but there might be others.

The best way I've found to sell my games is to try to get the word out and have them available in as many places as possible.

 

[Gigglemoo]

I'll third BMT. I haven't seen what they're like personally as a developer, but they've always been great on the affiliate side and that's not too common in the industry. I'd definitely use them if I was going to produce something for affiliate websites (Aldorlea, amaranthia, etc).


I'll also second the "Nah" for Plimus/Bluesnap. Here's a quick article I found. I can't confirm if it's accurate, stopped using them before it was posted.


Another option for your own website is the Humble Bundle Store. They're very trusted by game purchasers, while a custom-looking store might not be. You can read a bit more about it here.


You'll want to make sure people can actually download their games later while shopping around. Many of the payment providers only let people download them for ~90 days and charge your customers a "download insurance" that allows them access for another year or two.

 

[DarkFact]

The place I found will store the rights indefinitely. I wanted PC guys to have the same privileges as the Xbox live guys when it goes to Xbox. Man thanks for all the information guys you've been a huge help.

 

[Shaz]

I'll also second the "Nah" for Plimus/Bluesnap. Here's a quick article I found. I can't confirm if it's accurate, stopped using them before it was posted.

Yep, that article is accurate. I didn't realise the $75/month fee for < $2500 sales applied to affiliates as well - I left them LONG before then (when I left, they were charging just $5 a month when you didn't have ANY affiliate sales).


In addition, the email they send to the customer really emphasizes the REFUND option, and I know that a lot of people were taking refunds (and I believe the dev paid the whole amount, including the bit that originally went to Plimus, PLUS a refund fee) when they WEREN'T unhappy with the games - just because Plimus made it so easy for them to do. So they'd get their cut from the sale, then another cut when the refund was processed, and it all came out of the dev's pocket.