I'm close to releasing my first shareware game. The problem is, I'm trying to write the About Us page for the site, and I'm realizing a little dilemma that I have. You see, I'm just a one man operation, it seems silly to say 'us' and 'we' when it's just me. Are there valid reasons for pretending to be a larger company, or should I just say that these games were created by me and give my name, etc.?

I don't know how many solo operations there are out there, but I haven't seen a lot of sites admitting that their just one man operations (Llamasoft comes to mind). Is there a sense of security that someone gets from thinking that their dealing with a larger company?

Or will customers favor the whole indie concept and say 'Hey, this seems like a trustworthy guy, I feel comfortable purchasing this on his site.'

I'm primarily concerned with what method will generate more sales, or at least encourage the customer to feel comfortable giving their billing information. What do you guys think?

Is there a sense of security that someone gets from thinking that their dealing with a larger company?

Or will customers favor the whole indie concept and say 'Hey, this seems like a trustworthy guy, I feel comfortable purchasing this on his site.'
I'm using a mixed approach, you can see it here http://www.mrio-software.com/aboutus.php. I'm not alone so I can say "we" when I talk about Mr.io, but I also want the customers to say "hey, they look like a bunch of trustworthy guys" :)

EDIT : Broken link :( I included the sentence ending dot inside the url block...

I like the way that nklein software (http://nklein.com/) does it on "their" "about" (http://nklein.com/about/) page:
nklein software is a subset of Patrick Fleckenstein. In all pages herein, we shall use the royal "we". Yes, we realize that using "we" when we mean "I" is a cheesy gimmick that gives the impression that we are a sizeable organization with a significant budget. Lacking any huge PR apparatus, we'll take what we can get.But then, nklein does not really look like it's aiming to present a commercial facade.

As for me, I will use the royal "we/us" on my about pages because HedWare is an organization, albeit small. There are four total employees (none of which are on the payroll yet): me, development, design, and marketing; my wife, who does all the documentation and provides QA lift; my 7 year old daughter, who provides playtesting and QA, graphics, and design feedback (for the youth-oriented titles); and my 5 year old son, who mostly provides comic relief, and some minor playtesting feedback.

-daniel

What are those "About us" pages good for anyway?

For convincing people you are not just going to steal their money.

Originally posted by BlueWaldo
For convincing people you are not just going to steal their money. I never quite understood it. I could make up just about anything I wanted, put it there, and get away with it. Most people wouldn't know how to verify that you've only been around since 2003, not 1991, yet for some reason it still gives them that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Originally posted by LordKronos
I never quite understood it. I could make up just about anything I wanted, put it there, and get away with it. Most people wouldn't know how to verify that you've only been around since 2003, not 1991, yet for some reason it still gives them that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Those people are commonly refered to as 'sheep'. I think most people WANT to believe you are being honest with them therefore, they never check. Hence, they are misled easily and end up becoming herded and therefore 'sheep'. Of course, people complain I was born cynical so I may be wrong.

I just use "we" basically, and I have three seperate email addresses. I think basically you kind of want people to think your'e a company with employees if you're going to sell games. If people think you're a single person they're not as likely to take you seriously.

Keith

Technically, if you are registered as a company, you should use "us" because a company must at least have a director and secretary. If you are self-employed (at least in the uk), you can trade in any name (even your own name) so if your trading name is QuickSoft, you could write "..QuickSoft is Joe Devel, a self-employed, independent game developer based in Blah, BlahBlahLand..." which can be harmlessly compressed to "...QuickSoft is Joe Devel, an independent game developer based in Blah, BlahBlahLand...". I am planning to use the latter.

An About Us page is mandatory because that is the human face of your website. I always visit the About Us section of an unfamiliar website if I want to order their product. First I want to see a genuine address (no POBox please!), a telephone/fax number - it gives me confidence that these are real people not fly-by-night scam artists. Ofcourse I'm not going to check, but it is a psychological boost. Additionally, I would like to get more information about the guy (or employees) running the company...a link to your resume is welcome if I like to probe deeper. A professional passport size photograph of you wouldnt hurt either. Altho I wonder if that could affect sales if people dont like the way you look :).

Explaining on the site why "we" are actually "I" and I have to say "we" to look professional doesnt look professional - give the correct info upfront instead of beating around the bush trying to be friendly. People are busy. Make every word count.

A sale comes after trust. And trust can be augmented thru out your website. All parts of your website must provide information at several levels of detail. The lowest level for the busy guy, the next level for somebody that wants to go behind the scenes, and max detail for the detective. For example, you could have a section that shows how you designed your game right from back of the envelope to final screen shot. Split it up into multiple pages instead of 1 huge page, have thumbnail shots that expand to full-size etc. Many may not read it or people would just dip in and out but that effort has established trust because it shows you take your work seriously.

The About Us page is not just a way of trying to instill confidence in the consumer, but also an opportunity to tell them why you are doing what you are doing.

For example if you are making games that are educational to children, mentioning that, and the reason why you make those products in your About Us page really helps to make a bond between you and consumers looking for that kind of product. They feel you understand what their needs are, and this makes them feel good about supporting you by buying from you.

...an About Us page is definitely a must. I for one would never buy from a small, independent-looking site without first finding out as much as I can about the people who are trying to take my money. Are they even still in business? Is their "About Us" page and the rest of their site up to date?

I would say that the "sheep" are the people who buy from a new web site without first checking that they're not going to get ripped off!

It's always worked for me - I've been buying online for many years and have never been duped (touch wood!).

JC3D, I would go for "us" when talking about your company.

But to really instill a customer's confidence you should also attempt to build a community feel for each individual game in your catalog, in which case it's best to hear everything about that particular game straight from the horse's mouth - the programmer/developer.

Also check out Jim Grindin's "Company Information" page at Solecismic Software, which talks about himself as founder - similar to what Jaggu is saying. It's honest, interesting, and contains enough info to make even the most paranoid buyer feel at ease (and plenty to inspire many a shareware developer too!).
http://www.solecismic.com/sole/index.html

Create a programmer biog on a separate page - "About Joe Bloggs" which also links to any other games you've written and is written in the first person, eg "I wrote my first shareware game in 1987...". Check out Dan McDonald's "About Us" page for his team, I think it works really well and has a nice personal feel to it:
http://www.rainfallstudios.com/team.aspx

Create a blog-style news page for the game, detailing any updates - no matter how small - and talk as "I" when talking about the game, but refer to "we" when talking about what the company is doing... eg "Today I'm working on an editor for [insert game title here], which we'll be releasing free of charge to all our existing customers."

Personally I trust a site far more if it has a personal, human touch with a company, no matter how small, behind it - and a busy discussion forum with hardly any negative feedback is always a winner in the confidence game.

A great example of a mainstream games site where there's a vibrant online community based around just one game/brand is www.sigames.com, the home of soccer sim Championship Manager. It's a massive community site - if there was a "buy now" button I'm sure they'd sell thousands of copies each week, but they have a publishing deal with Eidos. To give you an idea how big this game is in the UK alone, V4 sold 130,000 copies in the first few days on sale.

Hmmm...I never thought the "about us" page was to convince the buying public that you are reputable, I thought it was there so the developers could pat themselves on the back and say nice things about themselves.

I guess either way, the point is to try and put a personal touch on an otherwise emotionless and contactless medium. If you can touch a potential customer on an emotional level, you're far better off than just trying to overwhelm them with screenshots and technical specs.

Though I never underestimated the About Us page as a vehicle for building your reputation among prospects, I am pretty sure it will drive my visitors away. I am afraid saying that my company is based in Russia because our country is known for being flooded with hackers, who just can’t wait to get their hands on your credit card numbers. Hackers are everywhere, but we have lower living standard here, and many cannot afford themselves buying even cheap software. That gives software piracy a boost. But serious hackers are in their business not for money, and many other countries have them too.

Still I’m not sure. Did anybody come across the same problem? Any experience?

... I hate to admit it, but honestly, yes, I would blink and worry slightly if the page said the company was based in Russia. ;) Not just the credit-card hacking thing, but also I remember being told at some point that the usual copyright laws didn't apply in Russia so you'd always head to .ru sites to get your warez or cheap book reprints or whatever... If this isn't true, please tell me.

Because of this, I would tend to worry that the products had been stolen from someone else and were being resold from Russia because it was so hard to shut them down.... :)

Yeah, I'm the same as papillon: I usually steer clear of .ru websites. On the other hand, I think that because of the lower standard of living in Russia, you can get inexpensive high-quality games (and other apps) from Russian (and other countries') companies. I recently read about a survey of average yearly salaries for IT professionals: the US was at the top (at around $60K USD), Ireland was around $30K USD and it quickly dropped from there. Russia, I believe, was somewhere in the area of $4K. So, though bstone (and others) may be at a disadvantage due to distrust/prejudice, they really make up for it in price competition! ;)

Posted by papillon
I hate to admit it, but honestly, yes, I would blink and worry slightly if the page said the company was based in Russia. Not just the credit-card hacking thing, but also I remember being told at some point that the usual copyright laws didn't apply in Russia so you'd always head to .ru sites to get your warez or cheap book reprints or whatever... If this isn't true, please tell me.We have copyright laws here, but the problem is they are hardly followed by the government. Prosecution of small infringers is not cost effective. Usually only big institutions (e.g. banks, brokers) get charged for violations, because they have enough money to make the prosecution attractive.

Posted by papillon
Because of this, I would tend to worry that the products had been stolen from someone else and were being resold from Russia because it was so hard to shut them down....A good About Us page could possibly offset this by telling about the company in a trust-worthy way. Not sure though.

Posted by kerchen
Yeah, I'm the same as papillon: I usually steer clear of .ru websites.I can see it. That’s why I’ve registered a .com domain for my website. But speaking about Russia on my About Us page would get it back to the status implied by .ru, wouldn’t it?

That’s why I’m stuck. Listing your physical address is good. Listing your physical address in Russia is not :(

Anyway, I have a hope. I think making my About Us page with a strong personal feel to it, much like that of Solecismic Software, could help. I would prefer to be honest and hope that my sales won’t drop to zero :)

Posted by kerchen
I recently read about a survey of average yearly salaries for IT professionals: the US was at the top (at around $60K USD), Ireland was around $30K USD and it quickly dropped from there. Russia, I believe, was somewhere in the area of $4K.Sad but true. Working as an IT professional, you can have $2.5K - $6K depending on the region you live in. Living in Moscow is a different story. There you can get as much as $12K-$18K per year, mostly because IT companies work for US and some other European countries there.

Posted by kerchen
So, though bstone (and others) may be at a disadvantage due to distrust/prejudice, they really make up for it in price competition!Hmm. I’m pretty sure that distrust/prejudice coupled with low prices will only add to the suspicion barely helping in getting sales. OTOH, having low prices is not that easy because we should use services from US (e.g., RegSoft, SwiftCD). Furthermore, I don’t like the idea of selling shareware and using warez myself. Buying shareware and having $4K per year is not something you can do at the same time :) That’s why you shouldn’t be afraid of the competitively low prices. If I want to support other shareware developers, I have to keep my prices on a good level.

I'm yet another developer who underestimated the importance of the 'About Us' page. For the last couple of months it has been a slightly obscure joke history of lexaloffle - target audience, my brother. Recently I received an email from someone who wanted to buy one of my games, but wanted reassurance that there was a human somewhere in lexaloffle land. Time to review my site again..

J

p.s. My account disappeared. Weird.. maybe an artifact of the HD crash?

@bstone

Have a section in your FAQ somewhere which addresses the fear, uncertainity and doubt that will arise among your customers who want to buy your software but are wary of .ru sites. Pretty much like the answers you have given to a poster here.

Its quite likely that you are outsourcing your credit card processing to an order processor in the US/Europe. In that case, you can stress that you dont have access to your customer's credit card details at any time and that it is handled over a secure connection by a US/European company.

@all

What is the perception of non-american/european - third world developers - by americans/europeans? Will you buy a game (assume its good) if a developer says he is based in India for example?

Well, at my level of net-knowledge, India has a decent rep... everyone's always outsourcing to India for cheap tech labor, aren't they? If the product was good and the payment processor was standard/ reliable-looking, it wouldn't bother me that it was from India. (I had some nice indian shareware once, but I can't remember what is was...)

Dunno what Joe Average thinks about it.

Originally posted by jaggu
What is the perception of non-american/european - third world developers - by americans/europeans? Will you buy a game (assume its good) if a developer says he is based in India for example?

I wouldn't have major qualms about buying a well-made game from most anywhere if they use a well-known third party CC processor. If the site does their own CC processing or they're using a processor I've never heard of, then I subject the company to a lot more scrutiny. However, I can't recall having ever seen *any* games from Indian developers (well-made or otherwise), so finish your game, jaggu, so I can find out what my response would be. :D

Thanks, jaggu. I’ll follow your advice.