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[KniteBlargh]

Perhaps it has something to do with java on Valter's side in that case? I wouldn't really know; just guessing...

Edit: Trying IAB in quick play now.

Edit2: Worked perfectly for me.

[Valter]

Me too, music and all.

huh.

Well, when I press "quick play" a new window with a preloader ad comes up. It just didn't move past that for the 10 minutes I waited.

I'll give it another shot.

[Edmund]

this would be quite awesome if the site had good traffic... sadly 50% of a few hits = about nothing.

sad because this is one of few sites that has all kinds of games all in one little place.

[Alec S.]

Hopefully the site will develop an audience as time goes by.  It would be nice for this to be viable.

[andy wolff]

This is cool and I like it.

[CROS]

Hey, guys. This is CROS, the lead programmer at Game Jolt. I meant to chime in earlier, but I've been fairly busy. Hopefully better late than never.

I would say that the ad revenue sharing probably won't be making you anything to write home about, unless you have a very popular games with tens of thousands of downloads/views. Many freeware games don't generate any revenue though, so it's usually more than you would normally get.

I've heard some concern as to the traffic of the site. I guess what I would say is this: If developers don't use it, it won't amount to anything. If people start using it as their main download mirrors for their latest projects, it WILL start getting more and more traffic. It really depends on whether or not developers want something like this to work. Every site starts somewhere. We're starting "here." If you want to get "there," the game developers will have to take it "there."

We're giving you the tools and the foundation. The games and activity of the developers is what will drive this thing forward.

We've got MANY things planned, and the means to get there. Be sure to keep checking back as things develop, and we invite you to jump along for the ride!

[aeiowu]

agreed, that's why I put up a game. I think your sign-up incentive of 50% ad rev for life is a good idea, hopefully you guys can pick up some speed. I'd love to see it take off.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'd also like to see it take off -- have you (the owner of the site) considered how to promote it, besides hoping that developers will market it for you organically? i.e. what tactics are you using to promote it?

[agj]

I saw them in a MochiAd today.

[CROS]

Hey guys. Sorry for not responding sooner.

Kind of weird if you saw us in a MochiAd, since we never used them for advertising. Actually, we haven't done any ads.

As to how we're marketing it, there's a few things. The biggest is organically, though. If enough people linked to their game pages on the site, we'd get very good link weight across search engines. We would then be able to do some search engine marketing which we've been holding off on. The more traffic that comes to the site, the more traffic WILL come. If that makes sense.

When the closed beta starts, we'll be attacking news sites with press releases. It'd be nice if TIGSource covers the closed beta.

The start of the closed beta is really when we want to push our marketing efforts. We've been thus far working fairly hard on features and ironing out the site, but the closed beta is really the mark when we'll sit down to get a marketing plan.

If anyone's got any ideas, we're definitely open to listening to them. Also, the more coverage across the 'net that we can get, the better.

[NathanielEdwards]

Sounds pretty awesome. A portal of freeware downloadables, and the developers will make at least some money? What's there to hate?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

the low traffic

[NathanielEdwards]

the low traffic

Aw, c'mon, Paul. I knew someone would just have to come up with something.

It'll get better, anyway, so long as developers aren't getting screwed over, they'll start getting games, and therefore traffic. Eventually, maybe, hopefully, I guess.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that would be great, but it's doubtful; i've seen hundreds of promising sites that you'd think were great ideas and would soon gain traffic instead fizzle and fail. it takes a lot of work to achieve even minimal traffic.

[CROS]

Then I'll guess we'll have to work a lot. Seriously, I see no reason to be negative with this. The only reason I can find to say a site will never achieve enough traffic is to say, "See, I told you so!" later on. A site succeeds when there's a community around it that wants it to succeed.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't think it's negativity, because it leads to positivity. only through the realization of how hard it will be will you work hard enough to achieve it. of course i want it to succeed, i wouldn't have put a game there otherwise or told people about it with this thread and in other places -- i'm working to bring traffic to the site as well. i just don't think it'll automatically succeed, since i've seen so many similar projects fail.

[NathanielEdwards]

Well, I think we have some developers excited, but I wonder if there are any plans for user-side benefits. The chat is good for community, it's a start, but I think the site needs to be a bit more friendly on the player side. I can't find any game search mechanism, for one, and some cool user-side features would help the traffic get beyond just game developers playing other developers' games. For instance, Kongregate became successful, primarily I think because of their extensive achievement support. That specifically would be very difficult with this mass of freeware games, but something like that to keep users playing on Game Jolt is the next step I can see.

[CROS]

Ah, yeah, Paul. I didn't mean to make it sound easy, or like I think it will magically become a haven of Indie games. We're working hard. We're building plans on this moment. We have every intention to work HARD. It's the only way it will work. And thanks for the help!

As to Nathaniel. Search is in the works. Should have been built out LONG ago.
We do have MANY things in the works for gamers. Now that developers are being pleased we'll be switching our attention over to gamers. Achievements are in the works. They will be released probably when the ad sharing comes out of beta. Achievements will be done through a simple REST API, this way it will work with nearly all technologies and will not be locked in to a specific creation tool. This also means you will be able to test it with your browser, which is always fun.

That's not all we have planned, though. I'm hesitant to say much more at this time, but expect to see some nice features for gamers now. Now that we have more data to work from (ratings, comments, etc.), we can go ahead and implement some of our ideas.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

since we're talking about the site itself i've one suggestion: larger screenshot thumbnails. look at yoyogames.com for an example: you can actually see what's going on in the game from the screenshots there. on your site, they're so small that you often can't tell what's going on at all.

[pgil]

Either that, or tell us the maximum size of thumbnails on the upload screen. That way we can crop the image to show something interesting.