How to sell indie games on-line ? Thread

I'm a UK developer and would like to hear opinions on ways to sell games on-line.

Found advice on gameacademy.com/selling-your-indie-pc-game-without-steam

This information is geared towards the U.S. I did upload a game to Amazon's own indie game section only to find out I could only offer my game for free because I did not have a U.S. bank account. I queried this with Amazon via e-mail and they confirmed this was the case until they sort out some legal things to do with export laws.

Thanks.

What about itch.io or steam?

that article is pretty misleading. No Steam isn't the only game in town, but it is absolutely has the largest audience. The Humble store is just that - humble. You may get 95% to Steams 70% , but you'll probably also be selling about 100 times less there. (no, that's not an exaggeration)

May I ask why you are against releasing on Steam?

Edited by: AJ_Quick

Draakhex, AJ_Quick, thanks for the speedy replies.

Steam seems trust worthy and secure. I am a fan of Steam and bought Linux games via their platform: Trine 2 and Half Life

It's the GreenLight part of Steam that feels like a black art. Their faq (steamcommunity.com/greenlight/faq/) states it's the community that dictates whether a game gets distribution. The pressure of scathing reviews on the Steam platform worries me because I have friends and family who use Steam daily.

(light bulb) perhaps I should start with a free game on Steam to get feedback and reputation?

Thanks for letting me mind-dump here.

Best regards

Being worried about the feedback on your games.. you might be looking to get into the wrong business.
Grow a thick skin, because you can't avoid it, no matter how good your games are, negative people are the most outspoken.

If your going to do a free game first, use indiedb, gamejolt and itch.io to release the project and gather feedback to either improve the game for a paid release, or understand how to market your next product, and hey if the games great, you might even get hired by getting noticed

tuxjsmith wrote:

I'm a UK developer and would like to hear opinions on ways to sell games on-line.

Found advice on gameacademy.com/selling-your-indie-pc-game-without-steam

This information is geared towards the U.S. I did upload a game to Amazon's own indie game section only to find out I could only offer my game for free because I did not have a U.S. bank account. I queried this with Amazon via e-mail and they confirmed this was the case until they sort out some legal things to do with export laws.

Thanks.

Try "crowd funding." It's something you can do when your project is near finished and it acts as a pre-release to your project. Not only can you make gamers aware of your title but you can also gain financial support, which could be used for more marketing. Social media is the other "biggie"...especially if you know someone with a lot of followers. Dropping links on social media can earn you a lot of product views. Unfortunately, those who are more popular on social media sites tend to be the best marketing tools for products.

You might want to look into third party marketing options as well. This option will cost you but depending on who you partner with, fees may be taken from sells instead of up-front. If you have good credit, you might want to consider a bank loan and go for a commercial campaign. Tv commercials still seems to be the number one way to market a product because you can place it in front of so many people at one time. Of course the commercial option isn't cheap (in the US).

The alternative to Tv commercials would be online commercials and that translates into Google Ad Services. Again, you'll be spending money going with Google Ad Services. You can also place an ad in the local news paper or do a press release. No matter which way you go, marketing is the hard part for new developers trying to get their foot in the door for the first time but if you can defeat this demon and make bank...you'll be able to market the way you want to next time around.

Good luck!

I have been looking at various sites to get my game onto when it's complete, gog and humble store are possibilities, but I will be taking a run at Greenlight soon, really Steam is the target platform for numbers.

orangepixel, TKAzA and mrjohnson78,

Thanks for your feed back.

So I've investigated Humble: support.humblebundle.com/hc/en-us/articles/202742080-Humble-Store-FAQ-For-Developers

and ich.io: itch.io/docs/creators/payments

An important feature is whether they sort out EU VAT for me and they do.

This cartoon explains why, the actual web page goes into greater detail: media.kotaku.foxtrot.future.net.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2014/12/vat-rules.png

Regarding payment, Humble are not an option for me in the UK since I would have to rely on an international wire transfer which will cost fifteen dollars.

ich.io allows us to use a Stripe or PayPal account. Stripe sounds interesting.

Finally, you all make an important point that creating a product is just the start. After that we have to create awareness and parse feedback.

Thank you all very much for your comments.

Yeah. I would place my comments but everyone has hit the nail on the head. indiedb, gamejolt, itch.io, indiegogo and humble are some really great options to sell if you don't want to go on steam.

But social media marketing will definitely get you game promoted without using much money. I wish you all of the luck tuxjsmith.

Thanks jammin804.