next »

[Xienen]

OnLive is a total proprietary API system.  You must get accepted(which I believe is relatively easy...easier than Steam, harder than Desura) and then fully integrate their API(custom loading/saving system, custom config file locations, game needs ability to sleep/resume like mobile platforms, etc.)

[Blademasterbobo]

One neat thing I saw with OnLive was the ability to do prerelease demos without fear of someone throwing the game out on a million filesharing websites. (FTL did this, not sure which other games have done this, if any)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Summary of portals available, please post if you know more and if something is incorrect.

Steam - probably the biggest one, rumoured to be the hardest to get into (get accepted)
Desura - a lot of free games, can run alphafunding campaigns, seems like a developer friendly portal
OnLive - ??
IndieVania - ??
direct2drive - ??
Impulse - ??
Gamersgate - ??
BigFishGames - targetted totally on casual players, all games have demo version which are always full games with 1 hour limit, all games have splashscreen with "BigFishGames" logo which seems like a requirement.

there seem to be a lot of "??" in there

[Chris Koźmik]

there seem to be a lot of "??" in there

Yes, because I gathered those from this topic and no one provided additional information on these. So these need more information, so I put "??" there, so people know which ones lack details and it would be nice if they provided it if they can. I thought my intention would be obvious

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

you may want to take a look at this thread (there are a lot of portals you missed): http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?2720-List-of-Portals

[Chris Koźmik]

you may want to take a look at this thread (there are a lot of portals you missed): http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?2720-List-of-Portals

Yes, that's a topic I wanted to look at too Thanks.

OK, it seems there is an abundance of portals... In order to reduce the numbers I excluded all below PageRank 6 (I know, it's a lame method, still it gives some indication of portal's popularity) and came up with this list:


http://store.steampowered.com - Steam - probably the biggest one, rumoured to be the hardest to get into (get accepted)

www.desura.com - Desura - a lot of free games, can run alphafunding campaigns, seems like a developer friendly portal

www.onlive.com - OnLive - OnLive is a total proprietary API system.  You must get accepted(which I believe is relatively easy...easier than Steam, harder than Desura) and then fully integrate their API(custom loading/saving system, custom config file locations, game needs ability to sleep/resume like mobile platforms, etc.)

www.bigfishgames.com - BigFishGames - targetted totally on casual players, all games have demo version which are always full games with 1 hour limit, all games have splashscreen with "BigFishGames" logo which seems like a requirement.

www.arcadetown.com - Arcade Town

www.pogo.com - Pogo

www.gamehouse.com - GameHouse

www.shockwave.com - Shockwave

http://zone.msn.com - MSN Gaming Zone

http://games.yahoo.com - Yahoo Games