Hello,

I was browsing through Yahoo! and decide to type in: "Arcade Lines" and "bugatron", games published by Dexterity and Retro64, respectively. The results I got were close to 3,900 entries.

I've checked out that a majority of these entries came from download sites. If anyone can shed some light here, I'm curious to how these games receive so many submissions? -Is it by a service? -A submission tool? -or some other means?

I'm currently using Shareware Tracker and it has placed my games in 40 download sites as of now. I'm looking foward to expand this. I'll appreciate, and perhaps other indies reading this post as well, any help you guys can give.

Much Thanks!
Steve Z

I'm using Robosoft and I do this by myself.

If you don't have much time, I believe author of Robosoft will do job for you for $50, it's really a good deal if you don't have time. I heard also about Martha (www.freelanceworks.com) and Dave (http://www.sharewarepromotions.com).

Or type 'shareware submission service' in Google, many results.

Nedzad Orman

Thanks Nedzad! I did check out sharewarepromotions.com and asked them whether they focuses on shareware games. They replied back telling me they don't have much clients who sold shareware games. I might give them a try and see if their marketing strategy works well.

Free site submission service... (http://www.addme.com/)

Dan, it looks like that service is for search engines, not download sites.

For Arcade Lines and the other games from Lobstersoft we are using Shareware Tracker (www.accusolve.biz), which is a semi-automatic submission application like Robosoft.

I like it best, because you can add you own sites to it, so you don't depend on the author of the program to add them. This is especially necessary because we have a German version of the game which we submit to German shareware and game sites.


And the support form Eric, the author of Shareware Tracker is great!

For Bugatron, I used Northstar Solutions (http://www.nstarsolutions.com/swsubmit/index.html). They have a shareware submission service that is inexpensive and effective. I also did a few myself by hand.

Bugatron and Arcade Lines are both popular games that have been around for quite a while. Because of this, many sites just add the link without any submission at all..

-Mike

Originally posted by LordKronos
Dan, it looks like that service is for search engines, not download sites.


It is, I just got the impression from his post that he was interested in increasing the visibility of his game. I have a nasty habit of always posting slightly off topic... ;)

Originally posted by Mike Boeh
Bugatron and Arcade Lines are both popular games that have been around for quite a while. Because of this, many sites just add the link without any submission at all..


Yah, we've benefited from that too. A lot of new sites "scrape" listings from existing sites, so your existing listing is picked up and carried forward. One of the benefits of being around a while.

-David

Thanks for your help guys! I just want to add one thing: I tired Shareware Tracker as well as RoboSoft3, I personally feel that Robosoft3 is much more efficient in submitting your product to download sites. Of course, it doesn't hurt to try both software :)

There is a free submission software, you can download it from trialware.org.

Originally posted by Steve Z
Thanks for your help guys! I just want to add one thing: I tired Shareware Tracker as well as RoboSoft3, I personally feel that Robosoft3 is much more efficient in submitting your product to download sites. Of course, it doesn't hurt to try both software :)

I use robosoft 3. I've tried sharewaretracker, and recently tried it again. It seems like a solid submission tool, but it doesn't seem to offer much that I could really justify switching from one program to the other. The one thing with robosoft is that you have to pay for database subscriptions. I'm not sure that's the case with sharewaretracker.

Shareware Tracker requires a yearly subscription also. You pay something like $80-$100 for the program itself (and the first year's subscription), then I think it is only something like $50 a year after that. The other option is that you can choose to not purchase the program and instead just buy a temporary license. I think it is $15 for a one month license (there are also 3 and 6 month licenses). This is a good deal if you only submit to download sites once or twice a year.