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Geek Culture / Post #122 on selling games.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 00:27
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Been a year since the last post on this, so time for another!

Things may have changed by now, so what is currently the best way to sell games?

I have nearly finished a pretty original game in DBC. I think it is a seller. being as original games are short in supply, I think it is best to sell it.

I have read through a few of the old posts. Suggestions are...

Pay Pal on your website.. (How do I connect the Pay Pal to an automated download system?)

SareIt.com.. Is this still a good idea?

Anything new out there?

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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 01:05 Edited at: 24th Sep 2009 01:07
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I think with Paypal you can put a button on your site to receive funds, where you will have to check and manually send out a link, but you need to work with a separate system (i.e. Shareit.com) if you want to have the system automate a temporary download link for the customer. I could be wrong and Paypal could have a nice system for doling out software and/or keys...

If it really is a unique and interesting game, you can try to contact Valve to put the game on Steam, as there are tons of indie games on there now, including one made with Blitz. From there you would obviously not have to worry about bandwidth and hosting, DRM, etc. but for a small percentage of your profits. This is the route I would go personally.

I've only released one game as shareware, WordZap, and I used Shareit.com. It's a fairly reasonable service but I have forgot exactly what % they take for royalties.

Do you have a trial game we can download??


Senior Web Developer - Nokia
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 02:50
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It's a 2D game. Portable to phones, and things like the Nintendo DS type of thing. Don't have a demo, don't even have a working version yet, but graphics are pretty much done (they take me the longest), and the game is just a 2 week job... in which case it is nearly done. It is a game which I have always wanted to play. I'll get a demo working soon.

So the route is similar to before...

Being as somebody will probably want to port it I am wondering about copyrighting it.. so information about that would be good.

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Herakles
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 03:37 Edited at: 24th Sep 2009 03:38
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If you created it, it's already your intellectual property. You can put "Copyright 2009 *your name*" in the title screen to let people know that it's copyrighted, but you don't have to in order for it to actually be copyrighted, because it already is.

At least, that's the way it is with writing. Not sure if it works similarly with games.

Swordfight! My cheesy little first game!
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=147808&b=36
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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 04:11 Edited at: 24th Sep 2009 04:12
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Well, it's pretty difficult to copyright a game "idea". You can copyright the art assets and the game code, and get a trademark on the name, logo, and characters but the game idea is more difficult. The only game concept I've seen copyrighted was Tetris, as they have gone after people who have made clones. But if they redo the art assets, story, music and things like that, they can copy your your gameplay without issue. I'm not a lawyer but I'm fairly sure I've read about this before--- I mean just look at all the match-3 and Puzzloop (Zuma) clones out there.


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Herakles
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 04:24
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Well, technically the game concept is still your intellectual property, it's just that most people don't care if someone makes a "clone" of it, and for good reason. If someone stole the idea for Swordfight (not that there's much to steal from what I've revealed about it so far), I wouldn't be angry. In fact, I'd be honored that someone liked the concept of my game enough to actually work on it and make it. If they claimed the idea as their own, that's a different situation. But even then, the thing I wouldn't like is their claiming that they came up with it, not their actually making it. As long as I'm given proper credit for the idea, I don't give a crap what others do with it.

Swordfight! My cheesy little first game!
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=147808&b=36
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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 05:23
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Game ideas are a dime a dozen. Anyone can think of them


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 14:15 Edited at: 24th Sep 2009 14:16
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Well, I'll give Sharit.com a try. Do I just post a link to the site, or to the download? Do they charge for the service outright, or just by a percentage?

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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 17:58
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With Shareit.com, there's various commission models. From memory the two basic one's are a flat %15, or a fixed $2.50 fee + say %5. Either way the min fee is around $2.50 (US).

This doesn't include affiliate commissions, or any regional goods and service taxes (ie. VAT) they may take out automatically though. So be warned !

I've been using them years and are fairly happy with it overall, but I must admit that recently they're getting a bit too friendly with my money.

They can host downloads for you. Once you've setup your account, you then can setup product pages, from which you can set the delivery system to pretty much anything you want. If they host it, you have to upload it them etc.. Which can be pain if you update your products installer frequently.


Learn to code for FREE with PlayBasic Learning Edition
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 24th Sep 2009 20:46
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Thanks! That sounds pretty good really. I'll give it a try.

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