What is your opinion of big gaming portals like Bigfish, Realarcade, Shockwave, etc...

Is it possible that by running huge advertising campaigns customers who would once find you on download.com or other places need no longer surf around for games? They just visit the portals and get something there. Distribution gets tied up and you can either not list with them and lose those customers or list with them and lose a large percentage of the sale.

Or is the opposite true? Are they bringing new customers to the game and giving indies more places to distribute and show their wares? Do they provide new opportunities for distribution and add to indie scene more than they take away?

I suppose it depends on your definition of "developer". I know there have been discussions in other threads recently regarding 1st-party sales versus 3rd-party-only sales. I think the stance of a studio in regards to that topic determines the threat level of the big portals. For instance, we're focusing on 3rd-party sales; obviously large portals benefit us greatly. If we were focused on the flip side, though, I would feel threatened by the aggressive tactics employed by some of the portals.

If we can get links to our own merchant wares sites, then they are good for us. We can use their momentum and leverage to bring in more customers who wouldn't be exposed to our other wares and smaller sites.

Otherwise, if they win the search engine placement war -- ranking of sites according to 'free game downloads", have their
OEM software installed on new computers for unsuspecting consumers, AND shut up off new third party games from, us, the small developers -- then things are looking VERY BAD.

I was thinking about the same thing. I think they are a threat... Then I felt fear, then I thought if one day if I grow I might follow the same strategy and harm new developers. Big fish small fish issue here. They can only be beneficial if they are fair, but there is no rule here for them to be. Small developers are also a threat for them (sometimes a threat for other small) since they do not pay tax, they lower prices, and some are really good etc.

ergas

The big portals are merely the online manifestation of the evil bricks-and-mortar retail industry. It is inevitable.

Cas :)

Hehe well, I don't think they're really a threat.
It is simple, don't submit games to those sites ;)
Jokes apart, I see that the "serious" indie dev don't list their games in such portals.
There are a lot of way to distribute your games.
Anyway, since you put a link to your homepage, ppl in time will start to know your company better and maybe will prefer looking directly in your website.
Spidweb for example never put his games for sales as affiliate (as far as I know!) or in game portals.
I really don't see the need to put game for sale on those portals. You don't have any guarantee about royalties.
Sure you get more exposure... but how do you know that you sold more THANKS to that exposure? :)
I'd try them ONLY if my games won't sell a copy in 3 month :D

The big portals are merely the online manifestation of the evil bricks-and-mortar retail industry.
That is the TRUTH! :D

Well then, the best thing to do is to encourage the formation of big, not-for-profit, unaffiliated but selective portals strictly for indie games. And stuff like the indiegamer website. If word gets around, people might start to go there instead of to commercial portals, if they think the products are more interesting and higher quality.

You can compete with each other but still have collective unity against the big players.

that's a good idea :)
I am always willing to have other indie or ppl of the community as affiliates, as long as I have control over sales :p

If Steve V. and Russell really got their acts together they could start making serious income and proper businesses out of their online indie fanzines. They're two of the best indie resources on the web right now along with DIYG but they're woefully undersupported and don't yet have a proper business model - although Steve's working on his with the Indie Shop.

At the end of the day a pure portal is of little value to consumers, but a magazine is far, far more useful. This is why physical magazines sell and why advertising in those magazines costs lots of money.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
If Steve V. and Russell really got their acts together they could start making serious income and proper businesses out of their online indie fanzines. They're two of the best indie resources on the web right now along with DIYG but they're woefully undersupported and don't yet have a proper business model - although Steve's working on his with the Indie Shop.

At the end of the day a pure portal is of little value to consumers, but a magazine is far, far more useful. This is why physical magazines sell and why advertising in those magazines costs lots of money.

Cas :)

I would have to invest a lot of money into indiegamer if I wanted to turn it into a real business. How might I try to do that?

- Someone would have to add content to it more regularly - at least once every other day to attract regular readership. Since that someone can't possibly be me, I expect I'd have to hire someone to do it. And probably more than one writer to keep it interesting.

- Content would have to be more player-geared to attract regular folks and not just people in the indie scene. Those are the potential customers.

- The site would have to advertise to gain a readership - I'd say it would need major advertising for several months WHILE having regular interesting content added before it could hope to have a large enough regular readership to attract advertising dollars or a good amount of affiliate sales.

Anyway.. that's just the tip of the iceberg. I don't see it happening anytime soon. Not so much because I wouldn't like to see it become a real business but because my focus has to remain Twilight right now. If I had a lot of extra money floating around I might consider investing to build up the readership etc... but at the moment funds are strict.

Originally posted by princec
If Steve V. and Russell really got their acts together they could start making serious income and proper businesses out of their online indie fanzines.


Here here here....!

- Anthony Flack -
Well then, the best thing to do is to encourage the formation of big, not-for-profit, unaffiliated but selective portals strictly for indie games. And stuff like the indiegamer website. If word gets around, people might start to go there instead of to commercial portals, if they think the products are more interesting and higher quality.

You can compete with each other but still have collective unity against the big players.

Hmmm.....so if I join the indie union, does that mean I make twice as much for half the work, like other unions? :)

This has been discussed before. The successful indies don't need something like this. And the reason that some indies are unsuccessful is not because they don't have a big portal.

I'm with Anthony.

The big portals work for the same reason that Wal-Mart, Malls, and department stores succeed - they cash in on the convenience they bring the consumer. I'm a sucker for convenience myself - the last thing I want to do on a Saturday is wander from remote independent store to remote independent store shopping. I'm a "get in, get everything I want, get out" kinda guy.

However, the big guys haven't totally squeezed out the little independent shops yet, either. I do patronize some specialty shops that fit my unique interests - games & comics shops, a music store, a favorite used book store.

The Internet is a little different in that it is, by it's very nature, already extremely convenient. But there are other factors involved. Security is one thing - I'd rather not have my credit card number going to bizillions of little online shops. I'd rather limit my exposure to just a few sites. Education is another thing - which means marketing. It's easier for me to check a couple of web sites to see what new games are out there that I might be interested in, rather than hitting 5,000 sites and doing regular search-engine hunts just in case there's something new out there in a particular category.

Now, I don't necessarily need RealArcade to serve that purpose - but the money involved there means it already has exposure to casual game fans. Ditto for GameSpy. I think some level of centralization - ideally a more developer-centric one such as GarageGames - is extremely useful.

This has been discussed before. The successful indies don't need something like this. And the reason that some indies are unsuccessful is not because they don't have a big portal.


True, for now, but what about in the future?

Originally posted by princec
If Steve V. and Russell really got their acts together they could start making serious income and proper businesses out of their online indie fanzines. They're two of the best indie resources on the web right now along with DIYG but they're woefully undersupported and don't yet have a proper business model - although Steve's working on his with the Indie Shop.

At the end of the day a pure portal is of little value to consumers, but a magazine is far, far more useful. This is why physical magazines sell and why advertising in those magazines costs lots of money.

Cas :)

Yah, those guys need to get on it! :)

I accidentally ran into this one this morning, and wanted to try and respond tonight after work. Which is likely the first point. I have a very full-time job that keeps me busy 50 or so hours a week. When I have free time I really enjoy doing my website...at least most of the time I enjoy it...

I also have another website I run that is much larger and actually a money earner. However I don't run that site or Game Tunnel for the money. Certainly money is nice, and I expect the sites to pay for their hosting (which GT hasn't come close to doing yet, but will in the future), however if I was doing it for the money I'd be spending my time elsewhere. Indie gaming isn't a huge money making sector of the economy. I think it will grow to be bigger than it is now, but even if Indie Gaming was making a lot of cash, there is no way it could have paid for the time I've put into Game Tunnel this year.

My intent was to create something that would basically help out the indie community. I know that not everyone agrees with what I do or how I do it, which is just the nature of the beast. I've been approached by Alawar and others to basically turn the site into an advertising spring board for their efforts. I likely will use those types of things in the future as I have time, but time is limited and between the two sites I run, the continual graphic projects I do for others, client websites, my full time job and my family, I use most of my time before I can really get much done.

So I look at the site as my mostly alturistic help of Indie gaming, (again I do hope to have it pay for itself and some of my time...my trip to the GDC last year was expensive as well...dunno how Greg keeps up on everything, he has to be independently wealthy...though I know he isn't), I think Game Tunnel is doing everything anyone could hope of it (and increasingly better all the time!). I would love for it to be a money maker, but when I sit down with 20 minutes and try to determine what is more useful, writing a rough draft of a game review or working on affiliate options, you can guess where my time goes. Conversly, if I'd spent all the time I've spent on the site working at Denny's, I'd have a very nice totally paid for car by now, so looking at the money side of it has the tendancy to put me off a little.

Doing the site is a fun thing, and I hope it is enjoyed and used by many. There are certainly ways it could be done better, and perhaps I'll pursue those at some day in the future if I see a real money value return for my time. As always, I encourage anyone who has an idea on how to do a site like mine in a better way to have a go at it, another site would only help indie games. However running a site like this is a ton of work, and requires major amounts of continual dedication by multiple people. Kyle Nau has been a big part of my site getting to where it is because he is the only reviewer out of 25+ that have offered who has stuck with it and been consistent. Often reviewing games ends up being a lot more like a job that has no entertainment value than you might think, and game reviewers bail quickly after realizing it isn't very much fun.

Anyway, I'm lost somewhere in a midnight ramble...I'll try to reel it in.

I think Real is VERY bad for indie gaming...I've mentioned that before, so I won't jump into that now.
I think sites like mine are good for indie gaming, but they need to be run full time to be really worth the most to developers, and I don't think the money is there for our sites to support anyone full time or even part time for that matter.
I think patience and fortitude win the battle in the end. How many Indie gaming sites come and go each year without anyone knowing they are there. Greg's has stuck around as has Steve's. I'm about to hit a year. I hope that developers can appreciate what that really means. Next year at this time how well-visited will the sites be? I've doubled traffic since July and am very happy with how things are going, I think with the year-end awards in December I could well double traffic again setting the site up very well for the new year.
I'm always welcome to suggestions on how to make things better or suggestions on how to turn it into a profit-generating website. As mentioned I run another website. It gets 10x the traffic of Game Tunnel on any given day. I've learned through running it for 4 years how to patiently build up a large audience and what it takes to keep a site growing. I SADLY expect Game Tunnel will be around long after many developers who read this forum will have hung it up and moved on. However, if you have thoughts on ways to make things better, let me know, I might just implement them.

That's far more rambling than any one person should ever have to endure so I'll stop. :D

Heh,

It's funny that someone mentions having a huge indie portal. My friend and I are kicking around the idea of an Indy co-op site.

It would be a site consisting of indy games. Each person in the co-op would contribute their fair share of the bandwidth costs, marketing, etc.

The thing is....not every indy would qualify. For one thing, there would have to be a quality standard that a fair amount would not meet. Even if most folks meet the quality standard, there would be a support standard that folks would not have time for...so in the end...the co-op would consist of 3-4 games at first.

Over time, as folks consider developing indy games -- they may consider putting it in the co-op and designing their game to meet the set standards thus improving overall indie quality.

I do not think this is a bad idea. Farmers (like orange-grove farmers) do this so why shouldn't indies? The average consumer will not go out of their way to find games. For most folks, RealArcade works. I feel it's imperative that indies start considering something like this.

I feel there is going to be a bigger opportunity for online sales now that more people are getting use to paying for digital content online (through the likes of iTunes and other music suppliers). As consumers get comfortable with the mentality for buying digital content -- the indy market has the potential to grow. At the same time, the indies may lose presense as these big publishers step up their marketing efforts.

Any suggestions on where we should start?

-- FinishIWannaBeA

hey,

I have been thinking of a similar idea to a coop. In that a group of people get together to share resources. I guess it is like a coop. Combining efforts could benefit everyone involved. There are similar small business organisations too. Where the group works on things which benefits their members. Below are some ideas on the subject.

I think the benefits could be:
- sharing advertising costs.
- better deals able to be negotiatiated with advertises(which is basically what the big portals are).
- sharing resources.
- upselling games.
- making a centralised source for people to buy games, making it easier for people to get games.

You would need to do it in such a way that it is beneficial for all involved. Which I think may be hard. Maybe not :)

Some examples of sharing resources could be setting up a PAD repository to make it easier for download sites to get our games without having to submit to hundreds of sites. Maybe this is what the shareware association is about, and perhaps something they could/will do.

Other things could be working on code which benefits the group. Much like opensource. For example, for online games a match making service. Making a program which people can buy games from. Each game in the group could also sell each others game.

Other things could be upselling games. The problem with that is some people may have many more eyeballs looking at their games. An easy solution to that is to have each of the people use affiliate links for others games. So if you generate the sale, you get 50%(or what ever they negotiate with others). Or perhaps say you advertised to a webpage with all your games on it. Each of the people who paid for the advertising would get a cut of each sale.

I think finding the right people to do it with would be the hardest. You would want people that are commited to it for as long as you(many indies drop out it seems), as well as trusting them.

Some people may want to find games which are in the same genre, or different genres. The ideas being that people like games of certain genres. Which could either mean more, or less sales.

There would be many more opportunities for a group to advertise that is for sure. The negotiating power of the group would be increased, and larger amounts of advertising could be bought.

Even if the group decides to cut a deal with one of the larger portals(eg realarcade), a group of people with good games should be able to negotiate better deals for each of them.

It should even be possible to negotiate better deals with billing services. If the group is generating lots of sales, it will be much easier to get better deals, than if each of them approached them seperately.


Anyway, I think something like this organised between a few people which know each other could be good.

Have fun!
http://www.holepit.com/

I like the idea of a indy portal.
I'd for sure sell my games giving 30% to affiliate without any problems...!

I think that the portal should consist also of reviews, tip & tricks, patches, etc.
It should be a general meeting point, not merely a list of affiliate games for sale!

Maybe ppl who see USM on a site won't try it, but after a good (eheh well, if the game deserve it!) review, they may be interested to try ;)

(of course this apply to any game!)

Perhaps more volunteers are necessary? People who enjoy indie gaming, want to support it, and get to be part of the "scene" and all that. Game developers can easily help out the indie magazines by offering up a bunch of free copies of their games, too... for reviewers of course, but also for reader prizes - and some just as a perk for those who put the hard work into doing the site.

>and some just as a perk for those who put the hard work into
>doing the site.

Wow.. great idea! I'll keep that in mind when Cletus is released!
:-P