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[eclectocrat]

Hey y'all!

I'm really close to releasing my game (in Beta) and I'm wondering what options I have to host the executable downloads.

Full disclosure:
-approx. 5mb download size.
-for Mac, Linux, Windows
-the game is closed source, and it's intended to help drive sales of the iOS version. It is free, will remain free but it's ultimately part of a commercial project.

So: Where to host? If I end up paying for hosting, does anyone have some recommendations, I have no experience with web hosts and I fear getting caught in a scam or really poor service.

If I've posted a FAQ, please direct me to relevant resources (I'm sorry my search-fu is pretty bad).

Thanks for your attention, and have a lovely day!

[AuthenticKaizen]

i recommend dropbox.
their free account offers 2 gb storage and 10 gb bandwidth per day.
so the daily max download count for your 5 mb game would be 2000.
oh and it's direct a download. so obviously no ads and stuff.
note: you don't have to download the dropbox software. just click login in the upper right corner and register a free account. done.

another alternative is box.net.
traffic is 10 gb per month and no ads, digit codes or forced wait time etc.

i've also written a little article about file hosters on pixelprospector.

[eclectocrat]

Great info! I'm ready to go now. Thanks!

[Christian Knudsen]

i recommend dropbox.
their free account offers 2 gb storage and 10 gb bandwidth per day.

Wow! I didn't realize Dropbox offers that much bandwidth for free!

[grapefrukt]

i would personally never dream of hosting something like that on free hosting, they can (and will) cut you off whenever they deem fit and there's almost nothing you can do about it. Should your game become very popular, say on reddit or something, that's exactly when you don't want to hit a bandwidth limit.

You can host something like this on say Amazon S3 for nearly no money and a rather small effort, and if it does blow up, you're ready for it. Spend a couple of dollars to be safe, it's worth it.

[Nix]

I agree completely with avoiding free hosts for this sort of thing, unless you don't expect more than your friends and a few TIGers to download it. An alternative to S3 is Rackspace's cloud files service.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

10gb for day sounds like it'd run out very quickly for even a remotely popular game. most of my games have had thousands of downloads on the first day of release, i'm sure others have much higher numbers. but if you don't expect more than 2000 downloads then dropbox could work -- i imagine you could even have multiple dropbox accounts as mirrors?

anyway, what i'd really recommend is buying your own hosting. it's only a few dollars a month and much superior to the free stuff

[cullinaire]

Pay-for-how-much-you-succeed

[eclectocrat]

IndieDB sounds like it might work, it's the only service where it's in it's own interests to keep the file available (traffic, ad revenues, reputation).

[Vino]

I have good experiences with both IndieDB and Amazon. I'd recommend the former until you outgrow it due to popularity, and then the latter. Dropbox is good too if you just want to show a few friends.

[knight]

Dropbox is my recommendation if you want free stuff. It doesn't have the adds that mediafire/box,net have whick makes it look less shady. I recently say a comment about how someone chose not to download a game because it was hosted on mediafire.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah unless i really really want a game, i'd never dl it from mediafire, it's just terrible to use: full of ads, you have to wait like 100 seconds for a countdown before you can begin downloading, and then when it does download it's at a snail's pace

the only reason i should need go to mediafire is to go to their 'report abuse' section to tell them to take down immortal defense full versions that pirates host there

[tergem]

Anything wrong with hosting it on your own?

[cullinaire]

yeah unless i really really want a game, i'd never dl it from mediafire, it's just terrible to use: full of ads, you have to wait like 100 seconds for a countdown before you can begin downloading, and then when it does download it's at a snail's pace

the only reason i should need go to mediafire is to go to their 'report abuse' section to tell them to take down immortal defense full versions that pirates host there

Eh? I've never had to wait to download from MF (true as of a couple days ago) - as far as free download hosts go they are one of the better ones. True that the site looks a bit eh, but free is free and you can do a lot worse.

[Rob Lach]

This thread got me thinking. I'm looking into creating an indie game distribution service (cdn) thing since I've been researching it for non game related project.

I think I might be able to match NFS for storage costs and undercut their bandwidth costs to less than $0.35/gb.

[sublinimal]

yeah unless i really really want a game, i'd never dl it from mediafire, it's just terrible to use: full of ads, you have to wait like 100 seconds for a countdown before you can begin downloading, and then when it does download it's at a snail's pace

the only reason i should need go to mediafire is to go to their 'report abuse' section to tell them to take down immortal defense full versions that pirates host there

Now you're confusing Mediafire with Rapidshare, there's no countdown nor ads nor 5 kb/s download caps for free users.

[cullinaire]

They sometimes have one pop-up ad but if you're adblock'd you'd never know. But still, whining about some ads for free hosting is... ?

[copernicus]

Besides using free file hosting sites you might be able to ask someone around here if they could host the file on their website.  I'm hosting a game primarily developed by another company, for example.