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[Terry]

Hi guys,

I have a BUSINESS question.

I'm hoping to have VVVVVV available to sell really really soon. I'm wondering which is the best sort of selling-website-thingy to use? What are the pros and cons of each? Does anyone have any advice?

The two I'm looking at, I suppose, are Plimus and BTM Micro. I'm worried about Plimus because Caravel Games use them and they seem paranoid about security and are generally quite annoying to deal with, in my experience - on the other hand, a lot of people seem to use them and people are kinda familiar with them, I guess. BTM Micro seems like a pretty good alternative, but when I tried to sign up I was a bit shocked at how 1994/IE6 their website and payment system seems to be, and I have to wonder if they're really very reliable as a result. They also seem to take a pretty huge chunk as a percentage, but maybe that's normal.

Any advice?

[brog]

I haven't sold a game yet, so this is speaking as a customer: I haven't bought a game through Plimus, I have bought a couple through BMT Micro.  It was no trouble to BUY from BMT, but the downloads were obscenely slow when I bought Solium Infernum recently - to the point of the download failing a few times, and the developer emailing out an alternate link to customers who had problems.  (This didn't happen on an earlier purchase; Armageddon Empires downloaded no trouble.)

I don't know what the problem was; maybe you could ask Vic Davis (developer of SI) what happened and if he'd still recommend them?

[undertech]

I've purchased a game from Plimus. Have had no issues. This was about 2 years ago, though. Note that Data Realms (the company I bought from) still is using them.

[Charcoal]

I just put my game up last week.

Originally I went with Plimus.
They seemed good and fairly professional.
But when I was testing, I tried a few different coupons codes and eventually got hassled over the phone a few times, not something I would want my potential customers to deal with. And I seemed to be losing many potential customers on their shopping trolley pages.
Also, there were no provisions for giving away free copies of the game through the service.

After that I went with BMT micro and have not had any problems.
I've given away a few free copies and the (few) people that have brought it (seem to) have had no problems.

So, I'm a big +1 for BMT Micro
and a -1 for Plimus.

[Craig Stern]

I use BMT Micro and have had no problems with them whatsoever. I also was signed up with Plimus for a while, but I find BMT Micro's website easier to navigate and use. (Plus, BMT Micro has slightly friendlier rates and minimum payment amounts that you can set.)

[TeeGee]

BMT Micro is very popular among commercial indie devs and has very good reputation. Their customer service is supposed to be top-notch. Popularity means it's easy to affiliate with other devs as most already have accounts there.
Also, a while ago I read a message from BMT rep on the indiegamer forums, in which he said that they are working on a one button payment solution. It would work so if someone paid at least once through their service, he or she would get an account, and then could buy stuff from other devs PayPal style - without entering all the lengthy data. It'd be really a huge advantage.

Plimus is supposed to have some issues sometimes - like phone calling customers (though BMT does that occasionally as well), but tons of people use it and they are happy.

I personally use eSellerate and I'm happy as well. They are a bit more expensive, but they never call customers and they provide a very good service overall. Affiliates are harder to get though.

Some people on indiegamer started to use FastSpring. It's a relatively new service on the market, and as a consequence they are a bit cheaper and inclined to implement new features to attract customers. People who use them are happy too.


To be honest, it doesn't really matter that much which one you pick unless you're trying to get into a specific affiliate network. They all provide good service with only minor flaws and advantages here and there.
There's also nothing stopping you from having two at once. In fact, some professionals even recommend it, because in case one provider's servers are down (unlikely but happens), you can quickly switch to the other one. Also, more affiliates.


 

[jrjellybeans]

We used BMT Micro to sell The Cherokee Indian.  I agree that the site looks cheap.  But, we've read that it has great service and is a pleasure to work with.

In addition, check out this post on the indiegamer forums.  It might help you decide a little better:

Indie Gamer - Which E-Commerce Service To Use?

[Oddbob]

Yeah, the problem with all of them is from a customer point of view - they're shit. I want to click and buy as fast as possible, not fill in a million form fields first.

However, given Plimus' want to hold onto the order before ringing at times, I class them as more shit than the rest

[edit]RE: Fastspring. I picked up Astro Tripper from PomPom and honest to goodness, the download speeds were fucking appalling. I could have walked to their offices and got it in person faster. 2 hours for a 75 meg file is embarassing.

[Zaphos]

I remember Aquaria had a lot of trouble with plimus when it came to releasing a new version of the game, I think basically requiring to handle everything manually and generally handling customers poorly, so ... http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=1426.msg17831#msg17831 ...

[deathtotheweird]

I was gonna mention Aquaria and plimus but you already beat me.

from a consumer standpoint I really like what Tale of Tales use, Payloadz (www.payloadz.com). but ive also never had problems with BMT micro.

they are pretty fast, link appears instantly. and if your link expires they have a form you can submit to get a new link

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

brog: that possibly wasn't bmt-micro's fault. they aren't always the ones that host the download.

i recommend bmt-micro because plimus calls people up on the phone to verify and offers a 'refund, no questions asked, no approval required by the dev' option which a ton of people use to cheat and get free games by buying a digital copy of a game and then "returning" it for a refund digitally. plimus also charged me 10 cents over paypal automatically and i still have no idea why; i emailed them to ask but got no response. it's not worth fighting over, but still, why the heck did they charge me 10 cents for no reason? bmt-micro forever.

payloadz is actually just a paypal wrapper, and doesn't offer as many services and features (many of them essential, such as fraud protection and re-downloads and affiliation) that e-commerce services offer.

bmt-micro and plimus take virtually identical chunks as a %, so i'm not sure what you mean by a huge chunk. last i checked, plimus takes 10%, bmt-micro 9.5%

[brog]

brog: that possibly wasn't bmt-micro's fault. they aren't always the ones that host the download.

It was from "download.bmtmicro.net".  But yeah, I don't know what the problem was.

[Alex May]

We use BMT Micro for Eufloria. They are great and their customer service is top notch. Recommended, although I've not tried others. The only thing I'd say is their sales data analysis is not ideal.

[alspal]

I don't like with these sites how you have to give so much info, when you're just paying with paypal - doesn't make much sense to me.

[Craig Stern]

Oh, one other thing about Plimus--they have weird file name requirements that BMT Micro doesn't have. I had to rename my files so none of them had spaces when I was offering them on Plimus. It was kind of a pain in the ass. Just FYI.

[Eraser]

I don't like with these sites how you have to give so much info, when you're just paying with paypal - doesn't make much sense to me.

Makes perfect sense (at least in the US): Taxes. They have to file theirs, US citizens have to file theirs.

[Terry]

Cheers for this It really sounds like BMT Micro are the way to go, so I think I'm gonna give them a shot.

Thanks!

[Hideous]

PayPal > all

[TeeGee]

That's why it's included in any e-commerce service .

[William Broom]

PayPal > all

http://www.paypalsucks.com/