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[stevesan]

I just want ppl to be able to subscribe to an announcements mailing list. What good ones do people use for their games?

[bateleur]

So far the best I've found is: https://www.madmimi.com/

...but I haven't looked into this for a while.

[turgoz]

I've been searching for one of these as well. Right now I am eyeballing google groups or just a google spreadsheet. Nothing has caught my fancy.

[AuthenticKaizen]

I have listed a few popular ones over here
http://www.pixelprospector.com/affordable-e-mail-marketing-services/

[CrazyEthan]

I have listed a few popular ones over here
http://www.pixelprospector.com/affordable-e-mail-marketing-services/

Agreed!

[Vino]

I use and love Mad Mimi. There's maybe others, but meh. I tested them all and Mad Mimi was the best for my purposes.

[stevesan]

Hmmm I'm a bit surprised that these sites charge at all for anything...cuz really I all want is the ability to maintain a list of email addresses automatically (subscribe, unsub, etc.). Are the services that these sites offer worth it for indie devs?

[RudyTheDev]

Hmmm I'm a bit surprised that these sites charge at all for anything...

How would they afford hosting and website maintenance costs otherwise unless they are in business of something else and offer this as a free feature?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Hmmm I'm a bit surprised that these sites charge at all for anything...cuz really I all want is the ability to maintain a list of email addresses automatically (subscribe, unsub, etc.). Are the services that these sites offer worth it for indie devs?

they're more than worth it. let's say you make commercial games, and release them pretty regularly; how else will you contact people interested in knowing about when your next game is released without an email list? you could ask everyone to subscribe to your rss feed or something, but that'll probably miss a lot of people who don't use rss. you need some way to keep in contact with your fans

you *could* email them individually yourself, but there's a couple of problems with that -- most email providers don't let you send to large numbers (hundreds or thousands) of people at once, they have a limit. they're also more likely to mark your email as spam if it was mass-emailed and doesn't have an 'unsubscribe' option on the bottom (they may mark it as spam anyway even with that, but the chance is less). plus handling all the subscriptions and unsubscriptions to your hand-made list manually is a lot of work

i'd say it's even a good idea for freeware developers to have a newsletter, because it'd be nice to be emailed whenever one of my favorite freeware indie devs releases a new game or a new update to their game

anyway, the one i use is YMLP "your mailing list provider"

[guneyozsan]

I am using Mailchimp for my newsletter in my site. I like their approach very much. Its free service is large enough until you become a very big business. Their services are also used by big professionals. I am seeing their stamp time to time in some emails.
http://mailchimp.com/

[stevesan]

Yeah I guess that's fair. I guess there are so many amazing services out there that are free, like DropBox, my expectations of what I should pay for are completely skewed.

I'll start using MailChimp then - it seems popular and I like the interface.

Thanks folks!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

dropbox is not free -- it has a free trail. if you use more bandwidth than they give you, or want more space, you have to pay

it's the same thing for most mailing list providers. the one i use, YMLP, is free up to 500 emails. if you need more than 500, you need to pay

[brettchalupa]

Someone already suggested MailChimp, and I can definitely back up that recommendation. I've been using MailChimp for a year now, for work and personal projects. I really like it. There is a variety of plans, and the free one has been sufficient for me.

I would also recommend TinyLetter. MailChimp recently acquired TinyLetter, and it's a little bit of a smaller scaled MailChimp. It may fit your purposes even better than MailChimp. Both are free and worth trying.  

[PompiPompi]

I am using AWeber(still paying eventhough I don't link the mailing list anywhere :/).
But some other guy(game producer) had a notice from AWeber that his mailing list got hacked and someone sold all his links to 3rd party(which means all the people on his mailing list got spam).
It wasn't his fault, it was purely AWeber's fault.
So it's kind of scary.
I would really love to hear which mailing list provider is the most secure. I guess AWeber isn't one of them. :/

[Hima]

I am using AWeber(still paying eventhough I don't link the mailing list anywhere :/).
But some other guy(game producer) had a notice from AWeber that his mailing list got hacked and someone sold all his links to 3rd party(which means all the people on his mailing list got spam).
It wasn't his fault, it was purely AWeber's fault.
So it's kind of scary.
I would really love to hear which mailing list provider is the most secure. I guess AWeber isn't one of them. :/

Wow, that IS scary. I'm about to use one but after I read this post, I wonder if it's worth it... Do fans response to your newsletter? Or do most of them mark your newsletter as spam? Is there a way to know whether they've read it or not?