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[SolarLune]

Hey. Just wanted to get some opinions here. I was wondering if you, as game developers, are aiming for releasing your games (when / if you release them).

The advantage of OnLive is that it's cross-platform, but it works on a single computer server-side, which means that you would only have to maintain one to have it work on Windows and Mac, for example.

Desura's the easiest to publish your game to, I think, and is a bit more cross-platform than Steam.

Steam has, obviously, a huge amount of customers that could see your game, but I don't think they're very 'indie-friendly' with their game-selection.

Would you go for Desura, Steam, OnLive, a website like IndieVania, or selling the games yourselves?

[nico]

I would personally go for all three.

Let the customer make the choice, why make it for them?

[ANtY]

You can't really "go for Steam", you can try ofc, but it'd be bad choice to depend on this.

Initially I wanted to go for both, Desura and my own website, but I ended up only with Desura. Consider Indievania too.

[SolarLune]

@ANtY - Yeah, I've heard stuff about that. Desura seems really easy to publish your game to.

Updated the first post with a bit more information.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it's weird that you didn't mention direct2drive or impulse or gamersgate -- those are the major ones besides steam, not desura or onlive

[Theophilus]

They must not be *that* major. I've never heard of them.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

they're pretty major. steam is still the biggest by far, but they're up there. direct2drive is owned by ign (the gaming news site), impulse is owned by stardock (which made sins of a solar empire)

[SolarLune]

Forgot about Gamersgate. Never knew how easy it was to get games on Impulse, and direct2drive I've seen around but never really looked at.

I'd push Desura up next to Steam before those websites, though, mainly because it's a distribution service like Steam. Impulse, Direct2Drive, and Gamersgate are game selling sites, right? I mean, they have no support for things that Desura and Steam offer, like connecting games to accounts or automatic updating, right?

[Oddball]

Direct2Drive doesn't exist anymore. It has been integrated into GameFly. I don't know if it has any new policies regarding indies because of that though.

Regarding the OP I'd go for every platform you can. Sure it can be a pain managing updates, but you really do reach more people that way. My game is currently on Desura, GamersGate, Indivania, direct from my site, and soon to be the Mac App Store. It's also lined up to be on a couple of other services to. Other than the logistics of updates I don't see any downside.

[TeeGee]

The downside is simple - loosing your direct traffic and building someone else's business instead of yours. I'm not saying you shouldn't publish on portals, but it's something to keep in mind. If the game is very niche and may not sell well on the mainstream distribution channels, it may be better it to keep it to your website and build a dedicated fanbase.

[PompiPompi]

It's something I am pondering about as well...
I don't like the idea of supporting some of the portals. Of course for certain games it would be most beneficial to get into as much good portals as possible. But even if I do try to get into certain portals, I will do it because I "must" not because I like it.

I think at first I will try to sell my game directly, and maybe Indievania, because they seem less greedy. Also my game will possibly have an Android version, so I will put it into the Android market as well(and maybe cross direct it to the PC version).
If all this fail, I will probably try my luck with the portals as well.

We shall see....

[Poya]

That's a very interesting point which I've heard others express. But I don't quite understand it and maybe you can help me with that.

If people are coming to your site and you are pointing them to one of these services for purchase, is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean they are coming to your site for its content and so I'd think they'll continue to do that for news, posts, etc. On the other hand there will be people who find out about your game on those distribution platforms, a percentage of whom will probably seek your website in order to find out more. That should be increasing traffic.

I guess I'm trying to understand if it's really worth selling the game direct on your website. Of course one issue is the additional percentage which you'll get from each purchase.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

haha -- that people are even wondering that means indies are doomed

and no, those others site are not just game-selling; they do connect games to your accounts, have download clients, and so on

[PompiPompi]

I said selling in portals is likely beneficial financially in most cases. And even if I don't like portals, I can sell my first game via portals, and after having more fans, sell the next game directly. That is also an option.
However, I don't like to sell in certain portals because I don't like to "help out" the portals with selling my game.
Portals are both a blessing and a curse. They are a blessing because they can bring you many sales, they are also a curse because they are gate keepers and since people are used to buying from portals they also "control" your market.
Also, about what you said. How many of the games you bought in steam you also went to the game developer's website and participated in their community?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

none, but the purpose of selling from your website isn't to have a "community" to participate in. that's fun but it's a side thing. the purpose of selling from your website is so that when you release a new game you can contact the people who bought from you in the past, tell them about it, and some of those will buy your new game. with portals you can't do that at all, if i bought eversion on steam there's no way for zaratustra to contact me and inform me that eversion 2 is out

people in general are too short-term. they plan how to get money for the next few months or next year at most. but the ones who succeed are the ones who plan 10 or 20 years ahead

[eclectocrat]

Another thing to consider is the contracts that portals will "lock" you into. I was going to go with Desura for selling my game, but I'm not comfortable with some of the terms. In particular, most portals will prevent you from selling at a price lower than the price they sell for, and while not a big problem for conventional sales models, it might cause a bit of conflict if you've got multiple platforms and/or "pay what you want" sales.

[TeeGee]

I said selling in portals is likely beneficial financially in most cases. And even if I don't like portals, I can sell my first game via portals, and after having more fans, sell the next game directly.

You won't have more fans, the portal will. They will be portal customers, used to using that portal's client. If your next game isn't on their favorite service, it may as well don't exist for the majority of them. Damn, even me -- I don't think I ever visited a website of any of the indie games I got on Steam. I don't even know who created them in some cases. I just got them, because they looked nice and were in a sale.

That's a very interesting point which I've heard others express. But I don't quite understand it and maybe you can help me with that.

If people are coming to your site and you are pointing them to one of these services for purchase, is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean they are coming to your site for its content and so I'd think they'll continue to do that for news, posts, etc. On the other hand there will be people who find out about your game on those distribution platforms, a percentage of whom will probably seek your website in order to find out more. That should be increasing traffic.

Okay, let me try to explain:

- People don't come to your website and then buy the game through - say - Steam. Some do, but the vast majority only finds about the game on Steam, likely through a sale. They don't know or care who made it.

- Most portals disallow any links to your website, so the amount of traffic "leaked" is very small.

- Portal customers are used to their client and like to keep all their games in the same place. Even if they learn about you, they are unlikely to buy your next game unless it's also on their service of choice. This pretty much means you are not independent anymore. You are at the mercy of this particular service.

- Portals undercut you in price, convenience and integrity. They don't care for your profit in particular, only their general volume of sales and new customers. They can offer sales, bundles and promotions that you couldn't. Why would I buy the game from you for $15, when I can get it from Steam's sale for $5.99?

- Majority of portal sales come from discounts, sales and bundles. Portals also generally tend to feature a lower price than what you could ask directly. Then there's the percentage you give them. This means that you need more sales to get the same amount of money as you would get from a single copy sold directly. Which means that your game needs to have mass market appeal, otherwise you just won't drive enough volume.

- If you sell directly, and only directly, all the money goes to you, every single customer has to know about you, and you build a dedicated fanbase. It means less money initially, but sometimes it's better to have 1000 dedicated people that will buy your next game, place pre-orders, or support you if you decide to use Kickstarter. And with each consecutive game, that fanbase grows. At a certain point, you can even go portals and still retain your brand (like Ed McMillen or Cliff Harris).

- Portals are top-10 driven. The most popular games sell shitloads of copies, less popular ones are buried quickly and may end up earning less than if you sold directly.

If you want to see the dangers of over-relying on portals in action, it's good to look at what happened in casual games. At first it was: "Sell directly, then maybe also publish on the portals". Then, the portals started growing, introduced sales and download clients, and it became: "Publish on the portals, and maybe sell directly". Then, BigFish Games started offering crazy discounts, the most accessible client, and the biggest customer base, so it became: "Get on BigFish, and then maybe other portals". Now it's: "Get on the BigFish's top-10 or die". And BFG is able to offer royalties as low as 30% to developers, as they get enough content anyway. Similar process happens in hardcore games right now, only you have to replace BFG with Steam.

That said, portals are a necessary evil, have their benefits and can make for a viable business or even be a better choice in some cases. It's just important to understand what exactly you are getting into and weight it against the benefits. A simple rule of thumb: if you are making a mainstream game with mass-market appeal, like Super Meat Boy or Defense Grid, portals can make you a lot of money. They have a ton of customers, and you are likely to appear in the top-10s, get best promotions, and such. If your game is something really niche, like a visual novel, Dwarf Fortress or Spiderweb Software's RPGs, go direct, ask for a more reasonable price, and build a fanbase. Your game won't get into the top-10s, and you won't get enough sales to balance out the portal's lower price/percentage anyway.

Hope it helps.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah, the casual game thing is the perfect analogy here. steam is following the same path big fish games did in a lot of ways -- for instance daily sales, a new game a day, really low prices, coupons and special systems where you can basically get games for free, and so on

steam hasn't yet raised their royalty rate to 70%, and started charging the developers hosting fees and other fees, but i expect that sort of thing in the next few years

[Oddball]

The downside is simple - loosing your direct traffic and building someone else's business instead of yours. I'm not saying you shouldn't publish on portals, but it's something to keep in mind. If the game is very niche and may not sell well on the mainstream distribution channels, it may be better it to keep it to your website and build a dedicated fanbase.

Then you need to drive the customers who bought from the portal to your website. It's not that hard to do from within your game. You just need something within the game that will drive them to visit the site. It could be as simple as having extra content downloadable from your site with an option in your game to 'download more levels'. Now the portal is working to drive traffic towards your site instead of acting as a barrier to it. Besides, how many of these portal users would have found your site on their own anyway. It's not like they made a conscious decision to go to the portal instead of your site.

[Moczan]

Dungeon Defenders manage to drive players from Steam to their site, at least a bit. Even for such things as patch notes you need to visit their forums, they also have a marketplace system on their site.