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[ANtY]

On laptop

[TeeGee]

Umm, I don't get it. How's this a competition to BMT Micro? BMT is a payment processor, your website is essentially a portal. These are two very different things. Payment processor allows you to accept many different forms of payments when you sell the game on your website, some affiliate portal or otherwise. A portal is just a distribution method.

Indievania doesn't even compare to BMT Micro as a payment processor, as it only uses PayPal and doesn't allow me to sell directly from my website. And BMT doesn't compare as a portal, because it's not a portal in the first place.

That said, it can work, but you have to promote the hell out of it. Recently we've had showmethegames.com, indiedb.com, new gametunnel.com and indiecity show up. None of them drives much traffic or sales from my experience. How do you plan to promote your website? It certainly does look nice.

[BattleBeard]

 Hey, I'd totally sell my indie games on thar, bookmarked for being better than Steam.

Now just make a program for it, and you'd get 1000 internets

 Wait though, if someone buys a game, the download link would be easily sharable. That...doesn't sound safe.

[moi]

you would need something like  exclusivity.
Good exclusive games.

[Craig Stern]

Games have to be at least $0.99, though I could lower than to $0.50 if there is demand for it, but I think thats low enough.
And when it comes to browsing through games, I am hoping to develop recommendations based on the user's previous purchases/ratings, but that's not applicable for new users to the site. So I'll have to just focus on making browsing games as easy as possible for new users - http://beta.indievania.com/games (added genre/platform selection to the menu tonight), along with making sure the quality games are presented first.

Oooh--please, nothing lower than $0.99. Frankly, the fact that games are sold as low as $0.99 right now makes my stomach curdle; and I can't even imagine a game receiving a boost in sales from dropping lower than that, even on a smart phone.

About as pay-what-you-want: when you add that feature, I'd suggest giving the developer the option to set a minimum payment amount (e.g. pay what you want, as long as it's at least $1.99).

As for driving traffic: have sales and bundles, publicize them like crazy on gaming websites, and set aside an advertising budget. Also, it couldn't hurt to drum up some free publicity via interviews (e.g. this).

[moi]

you should sell only exclusive games and sell them for $99 each.
Instant fame.

[Paul Eres]

phantasy star 4 was 99$ on release for the sega genesis, and it sold well. snes games frequently were $80 or $70 on release. i think the market for $100 games is just waiting to be opened up. everyone's afraid of trying it, but i suspect it'd work. it's how apple computers work (more expensive than everything else so the wealthy buy them as status symbols) so why not games?

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

[hanako]

That's going to come into the old "how do you define an indie game" question.

There are games in the adventure category by small groups that go for $30, some with limited editions that go for more (not to mention the one that requires a biofeedback system to play!). There are the English releases of hentai games which may not actually count as indie but certainly don't count as mainstream. There are some niche strategy games for pretty high prices...

[gambrinous]

phantasy star 4 was 99$ on release for the sega genesis, and it sold well. snes games frequently were $80 or $70 on release. i think the market for $100 games is just waiting to be opened up. everyone's afraid of trying it, but i suspect it'd work. it's how apple computers work (more expensive than everything else so the wealthy buy them as status symbols) so why not games?

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

Dominions 3 which has quite a following has persisted at it's $55-$60 price point with no sales below that AFAIK.
(falls under niche strategy game!)

[Oddball]

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

Tommy Refenes' iPhone game 'Zits and Giggles' was on the Appstore for $400 before Apple spat their dummy out and pulled it.

[Pishtaco]

what is the most expensive indie game? the highest i can think of is aquaria on release for $30

Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge and some version of War in the Pacific came out at about $80.

[tomka]

that's a slick looking site, also love the mac support.

would you support more platforms? i.e. web based or possibly android?

[qubodup]

nexuiz on the main page links to http://beta.indievania.com/games/nexuiz and that link seems broken.

[Vermeulen]

Just a small update - still working on the site and hope to get out of beta end of the month.

One significant change is that instead of the 9% commission there will be no commission. Bandwidth costs are low enough that I don't think thats needed - so 100% of the price of the game goes to the developer. This might change for specific specials/bundles but right now there is no commision

New features added are the review system, pay what you want and additional payment options (based on current sales customers have actually added additional payment around 30% of the time), and the key system for developers to sell Steam keys or any other service keys

No plans for Android/Web based stuff, though Android might be possible later on

The focus right now is on figuring out the promotions/specials system. I want to make sure developers have control of their price at all times and can control sales - but at the same time there needs to be the right timing so that we constantly have scheduled specials/promotions for customers. So thats still something I am figuring out

[ANtY]

Hmm, this will probably change some people's attitude.