I'm new to the shareware business side of game making/selling and am at the point where I've got a game ready to sell -

http://www.tatescolony.com/games/games.php

but I'm stuck on trying to decide who to use for a registration service...

After reading tons of posts here and weighing the pros and cons, I'm going to have the demo separate from the full version, and give the user a download link when they purchase the game...not even bother with registration codes. Keeping that in mind, and also keeping in mind that I'm a total unknown in this industry, who should I use for a registration service?

Regnow has the affiliates appeal, but does that justify the 20%?
I'm very interested in the affiliates program for the exposure...

Have you considered eSellerate? Really complete, with excellent customer (client, vendor) service. And with a good affiliate program too.

I had briefly looked at it before, but just now read a bit more about it.. Looks good. The installer feature looks interesting.

What are the drawbacks of esellerate, if any?

Biggest drawbacks of esselerate are :
-affiliate program doesn't work unless you do special builds ( there's no cookies in their system )
-no multilingual store

note that i still use them though. The service is really excellent ( they reply within the day to any question )

pat.

I'm in a similar situation although my first product is not a game. Based on the information on RegShare (http://www.regshare.com/) and on the individual company websites, I'm considering BMT Micro (http://www.bmtmicro.com/) and SWREG (http://www.swreg.org/). Any comments about those services? I'm anxious to hear about anyone's experiences with any service.

The multi-lingual issue is something I've wondered about...

How badly are you hurt by not supporting non-english customers? What other languages should you support?

I use swreg, and my experiences are that they basically "work" but they've got a typically British attitude problem to the concept of "service"; they're somewhat pompous and arrogant when it comes to dealing with your issues. But they have a very low commission rate and ultimately the most flexible service, technically. Make sure you're VAT registered in the EU if you sell though them or your EU customers will be creamed of 17.5% that you can't reclaim.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
But they have a very low commission rate and ultimately the most flexible service, technically.
Speaking of which... You can customize SWREG's order pages to look like your website, with no extra charge.

This feature (which BMT Micro also have, in their 15% service), could improve your sales, if used properly.

What are the down sides of picking multiple registration services? For example, let's say I wanted phone sales from BMT Micro, internet sales through SWReg, the integrated seller SDK of eSellerate, and the affiliate program from RegNow? Are there any (back-breaking) issues with that? Some thoughts: 1. Some registration services have a monthly flat fee. Incurring multiple monthly fees is a little painful until you've ramped up your sales. 2. Do any reg services have exclusivity agreements that would prevent this? 3. It's more complicated and time-consuming to set up accounts with each reg service, especially if they each have to integrate somehow with your backend processes. 4. Until sales are higher, payments could be delayed as the payout balances of one or more reg services could be less than the minimum they'll write a check for.

As for me, I'm currently using BMT Micro for everything. The 15% scheme, with custom order forms. I put together some dummy pages, and they webbed them up very quickly. As I'm submitting to more and more sites, I'm giving thought to signing up with RegNow for their very popular affiliate programs.

I have used BMT Micro for years, and they are great :)

There are many other good ones too- in fact, I think all the major registration services do a good job.

Another vote for www.bmtmicro.com here. Nice people and nice service.

I'm doing all right with BMT Micro except that I've gotten confused-customer-emails a couple of times because their download instructions email didn't arrive quickly enough for their liking. (emails of the "I paid! Where's my game? You're a thief!" variety. Always arrive while I'm asleep, and when I write them back the next day they're sheepish because they got their email.)

I tried to use RegNow, paid $10 for registration. They promised to activate our product in 1 or 2 bussines days or let me know if there will be any problems. I waited for 5 days (2003-09-02 Thuesday till 2003-09-06 Saturday).

Then I registered for free with ShareIt (on same Saturday) and one day later our product was activated.

We started to sell our game successfuly.

Few days later I got response from RegNow that our product was finaly activated without any note about delays...

Then I thought about renaming "RegNow" to "RegLater"...

I know several shareware authors, who work with RegNow and looks like they are happy about it. Personaly I am dissapointed and consider those $10 wasted. :/

I've used Regnow for about 6 months and have had no problems at all with them. They've got a very full-featured service, customizable purchase page, automatic VAT handling(you can opt to have it added to the price, or included in it), many delivery options for your customer, many payement options, multi-lingual store, automaticly display price in many currencies, great affiliate system, and many, many more options and features that I can't think of off the top of my head.

And they were actually pretty quick about setting me up. 1 or 2 days I think.

Their 20% fee on purchases seems a little high to me, but i guess that's fairly normal.

Still waiting for regnow to implement my keygens ( 1 year later :) ).

Esellerate did it in a week. 5 stars for esellerate service for me.
( they are going to implement royalty splitting for the end of the year, which is good news )

pat.

I'm using swreg.org and have had no problems. The few times I've contacted them I've had a reply within a day.
They offer a flexible service and a choice of fees. Either 15% no monthly fee, or $1+4% and $20 monthly fee.

I'm not selling much at the moment, so I'm on the 15% no fee plan. Obviously at a certain point it's cheaper to switch to the $1+4% plan (as long as stuff you are selling costs more than $10...), and it's good to have the option. They also have a micropayments option which is a better deal if you are selling low-cost stuff - but that also has a monthly fee.

I've used their customisable order pages so that when you get transferred to their server to complete the sale it still looks like my site, and I'm also using a keycode generator which they remotely query as required. This means that I know for certain how many and which keys have been given out.

Cheers - Steve

I'm using BMT micro for my first shareware game, and I think they do a good job as they answer my questions very promptly, and customize my order screen to my liking. The instructions at their site, though, is slightly below par which was why I had so many questions in the first place!