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[zratchet]

What makes you want to preorder or get early access to a game if an established brand is not attached (i.e. an indie game)?

[Eclipse]

A very nice trailer could help. Or even better an awesome demo\sneak peek, I remember preordering Recettear as soon I tried the demo for example

PS Steelstorm is awesome!

[TeeGee]

We're currently selling pre-orders of a game that was completely unknown when we started (same for our studio). We're pretty happy with the sales and the attention it gets.

Here's what worked for us:
- We've made sure we've got a pretty website we can use as a basis for promoting our game.
- I promoted the game heavily on our website and various forums, released many pretty screenshots and other materials.
- We prepared a short but polished preview version of the game.
- Sent screenies and the preview build to many gaming websites, asking for a preview, interview or at least a mention.
- Done the above for a while, building traffic and some hype.
- When the game was known and it's development advanced enough, we prepared

and a longer preview version.
- We launched pre-orders. Purchasers enjoy lower price, get to play the preview build, can affect development through feedback on our forums, and will be sent the final game before the official release.

Worked pretty well.

  

[GaiaDreamCreation]

I preordered some games I wanted to try (and probably buy) because there was a good discount.  With no discount, I don't think I would have preordered.

[moi]

for an indie game, the principal interest would be to support the develloper

[Nix]

What payment methods do you use for preorders? I've heard PayPal is a bad idea because they tend to freeze accounts for that sort of thing.

[TeeGee]

Just BMT Micro, like with normal sales.

[Eraser]

Yeah I think when I release my first commercial game I'll use something like bmtmicro even though I have the ability to do it myself through paypal. Getting a frozen account for high sales and more limited payment options is kind of annoying (plus managing limited download access)

[Nix]

taxes are also a lot more complicated with PayPal

[zratchet]

We did a lot of this for Steel Storm and though general player-base feedback has been good it managed to get a 55 on Metacritic 

I'm not sure yet exactly what we'll change in the future, but I have come to the conclusion that Metacritic is 1) extremely frustrating and 2) doesn't really matter that much.

We're currently selling pre-orders of a game that was completely unknown when we started (same for our studio). We're pretty happy with the sales and the attention it gets.

Here's what worked for us:
- We've made sure we've got a pretty website we can use as a basis for promoting our game.
- I promoted the game heavily on our website and various forums, released many pretty screenshots and other materials.
- We prepared a short but polished preview version of the game.
- Sent screenies and the preview build to many gaming websites, asking for a preview, interview or at least a mention.
- Done the above for a while, building traffic and some hype.
- When the game was known and it's development advanced enough, we prepared

and a longer preview version.
- We launched pre-orders. Purchasers enjoy lower price, get to play the preview build, can affect development through feedback on our forums, and will be sent the final game before the official release.

Worked pretty well.

  

[zratchet]

A very nice trailer could help. Or even better an awesome demo\sneak peek, I remember preordering Recettear as soon I tried the demo for example

PS Steelstorm is awesome!

Glad you liked the game! Are you on the Steam forums or group at all?

[zratchet]

taxes are also a lot more complicated with PayPal

why?

[Nix]

taxes are also a lot more complicated with PayPal

why?

VAT

[zratchet]

Does VAT get calculated for a US business that does not have a euro office?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i believe so; for any game you sell to someone in europe you have to pay VAT for those countries, it's illegal not to (although you probably won't get caught if it's just a few games). e-commerce service providers like fastspring and bmt-micro handle VAT for you, so you don't have to worry, but paypal does not, so you have to do it yourself

[Nix]

A quote from the page I linked:

Non-EU companies that trade with European consumers (private customers) need to register and account for VAT.

[TeeGee]

Services like BMT Micro also have other advantages. Want to sell your game through affiliates? Ok. You need a nice webpage allowing customers to re-download their games? No problem. You want to customize the order email or maybe handle multi-platform sales automatically without using separate products? Just ask.

These services are designed around selling software online, and their employees are prepared to handle the most common requests. They are much more specialized than PayPal, which is a general-purpose payment processor.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i didn't know they did the redownload thing, that's interesting. as far as i knew they all just gave links that expired and didn't allow re-downloading months later

[TeeGee]

You can set how long the link should be available, but by default you don't get a re-download site. You can email them about it though, and they will set it up for you. Same for many other features.

The point is that they have established methods for solving the most common indie developer requests, and it takes just a few emails to set some custom solutions, even if they are disabled by default. Good luck trying to make PayPal do some custom coding for you that way.

[Zaphos]

This older thread on payment processing options is probably still relevant: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9696.0
(though some of the opinions have changed, for example notch did have significant problems with paypal after that thread iirc)