next »

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

The story behind this post is this: on the GMC (game maker community) there's a distribution forum which is flooded with 14 year old kids writing "guides" to make money with your games despite never having done it and despite the advice obviously being crazy. Like selling games to kids who trick or treat at your door, or putting a demo on a CD and leaving it in places people might discover, really crazy stuff. So in response I wrote a "real" guide to selling games with lots of exclamation marks and emoticons and stuff as a joke, except that the guide actually is how people (like myself) sell shareware games. Some of the people there asked for an elaboration (since my post was more of a joke than a real tutorial), so I wrote one. I thought I'd also post it here just in case there's anyone who doesn't quite know how selling games as shareware works and would like to learn.

Anyway, here's the tutorial: http://studioeres.com/games/content/tutorial-how-sell-games-shareware

[genericuser]

...like selling games to kids who trick or treat at your door, or putting a demo on a CD and leaving it in places people might discover, really crazy stuff...

 

You're right, that IS crazy stuff. The only thing crazier than that would be something like this.

On-topic: That was a pretty good tutorial. I don't really have much to say about it, though, since I haven't got any games to sell, but I hope that someone will find that guide useful. It's well written, and indepth enough.

[Moth]

selling games to kids who trick or treat at your door, or putting a demo on a CD and leaving it in places people might discover

that is so depressingly accurate of GMC behavior

[sergiocornaga]

I'm a bit worried. See, I and friends of mine have done that sort of thing: making games to put on floppy disks, giving them fancy labels and leaving them for people to find. Except not with the aim of getting any money out of it, just as a more interesting means of freeware distribution than the Internet.

Is it still lame in this context?

[Akhel]

I'm a bit worried. See, I and friends of mine have done that sort of thing: making games to put on floppy disks, giving them fancy labels and leaving them for people to find. Except not with the aim of getting any money out of it, just as a more interesting means of freeware distribution than the Internet.

Is it still lame in this context?

Actually I think it's pretty cool

[Lurk]

Excellent article Rinku

[Natso]

I'm a bit worried. See, I and friends of mine have done that sort of thing: making games to put on floppy disks, giving them fancy labels and leaving them for people to find. Except not with the aim of getting any money out of it, just as a more interesting means of freeware distribution than the Internet.

Is it still lame in this context?

I think it's rather unrelated, really.  I mean, if you get your kicks by putting games onto floppies & putting them wherever, that's cool... sounds like something I'd do when I'm bored ('cept I haven't had any floppies for a long time....)

 - Natso

[Chris Whitman]

I think weird ways of handing out freeware games would be kind of cool, if that's what you're doing.

It seems like the problem is more that it's clearly a terrible way of attempting to make money from a product, since it requires a huge time/effort investment to distribute a minimal number of copies that people may not even be getting, and if people are getting them they may not care or want them. It's like the exact opposite of what you want to sell something.

[JasonPickering]

I always thought it would be cool to give away indie games for free download, but also to sell like 20 copies of the game all with box and everything done as an artist print.

[Natso]

Megatokyo (and now Applegeeks too) does this, except that they just do webcomics.  They're selling the chapters in book form, but the entire comic is available to view online as well.

Sort of like releasing a special edition, but on a smaller scale.  I'd like to see examples of this in the indie scene...

 - Natso

[Matt Thorson]

When I finished An Untitled Story I made boxart and CD labels and sold a bunch to my friends.

I still have like 10 copies left actually, in storage somewhere, that I'll probably just end up throwing out.

[godsavant]

When I finished An Untitled Story I made boxart and CD labels and sold a bunch to my friends.

I still have like 10 copies left actually, in storage somewhere, that I'll probably just end up throwing out.

Actually, I think there'd be people here who would definitely buy those off you, autographed w/ a certificate of authenticity.

[Hideous]

Or you could ship one to me, for free

[policedanceclub]

I'd buy one.




unless you would want millionbillion moneys for one.

[GregWS]

When I finished An Untitled Story I made boxart and CD labels and sold a bunch to my friends.

I still have like 10 copies left actually, in storage somewhere, that I'll probably just end up throwing out.

Having just won that fantastic game, I'd much rather buy one off you than let it get thrown out; it would be such a sweet indie souvenir.  I'd even pay the usual commercial game price too, as I haven't hit the point of feeling broke yet (I think I can stave that off for another year; a year and a half at best), and I spent quite a bit of time on that game (and your other ones; damn Jumper!).