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| What A Portal Wants |
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TheOther Member since: 7/7/2005 From: Calgary, Canada |
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 Posted - 2/22/2007 1:34:13 AM |
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| Great piece Joe! It's a crying shame that more information of this type isn't communicated as often from the various portals and/or online publishers... Game Programming in C++: Start to Finish | Learn C++ By Making Games |
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superpig GDNet Technical Lead Member since: 5/26/2001 From: Oxford, United Kingdom |
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 Posted - 2/22/2007 8:32:33 AM |
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| Indeed; great info. The one thing that I think would be a really nice addition - Joe, hope you read this  - is a couple of case studies of games that got rejected, perhaps for reasons that aren't obvious. We can go to ArcadeTown and take a look at the kind of things that make the cut, but it would be good to see some of the things that are just on the unacceptable side of the line. |
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Gaiiden GDNet Content Lead Member since: 8/30/2000 From: Lincroft, NJ, United States |
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 Posted - 2/22/2007 8:46:49 PM |
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| Indeed, sounds like a good Part 2 to me Joe :) You know how to get in touch... ________________ Drew Sikora President, Programmer - Blade Edge Software Executive Producer, Newsletter Editor - GameDev.net Community Relations, Live Events Mngr - Game Institute IGDA Chapter Advisor - New Jersey |
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think_different Member since: 2/8/2005 From: State College, PA, United States |
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 Posted - 2/22/2007 9:04:13 PM |
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| Well written and informative. I was wondering, what does a typical contract look like? .... Brent Gunning | My Journal | My Facebook | My Twitter |
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vgsmart Member since: 7/5/2004 From: Gainesville, FL, United States |
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Posted - 2/23/2007 1:56:50 PM |
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| Hi guys, Sorry for my delayed reply, they posted this while I have the flu! 102.5 degree fever! I appreciate the idea on case studies of rejects, but that would be out of the question. Writing an article like that would too easy be misconstrued as an insult to the authors of the game. I stress a great deal that games developers who are rejected very often make a second game that does not get rejected. You can call it politics or ethics, but at the end of the day I can't write about specific games that got bounced. I'll leave that for the developer postmortems. I'll see about the 'typical contract' item. That is possibly a subject I can handle; but the big boss will have to approve posting an actual contract to the public (even if it is blank of names and figures). -Joe |
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Gaiiden GDNet Content Lead Member since: 8/30/2000 From: Lincroft, NJ, United States |
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Posted - 2/23/2007 3:30:41 PM |
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| Woah! Feel better Joe And I'm sure Richard wasn't asking you to name names, although people could figure things out through inference as well, so I understand your position. |
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Spintz Member since: 2/18/2005 From: USA |
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 Posted - 3/3/2007 7:24:21 AM |
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| Never really expected to have a game I did uploaded to a "portal" site. Figured I'd just do my own advertising through gaming communities and forums. However, after reading this, I definitely would never use a portal. I especially disliked the part about branding. It's like the portal wants all the credit, and all they're doing is hosting a file. It's the same reason I don't like how publishers of games get and take more credit than the developers( and publishers are usually the ones to ruin games in one way or another ). Good article I guess, but just makes me not want to use portals....damn the man! |
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Qitsune Member since: 2/15/2007 From: Montreal, Canada |
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Posted - 3/6/2007 9:48:29 PM |
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| I found this very informative, I'm wondering about the 'shelf life' of a game in a portal. I know classics (like Bejeweled) pretty much last forever, but what about the average game? Do games get retired from one portal then go to another? Thank you Chantal Fournier www.chantalfournier.com Indie & Art Blog |
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vgsmart Member since: 7/5/2004 From: Gainesville, FL, United States |
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Posted - 3/13/2007 2:42:22 AM |
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| Qitsune - Shelf life of a game varies incredibly. Some portals give a game only few days to make it or break it. Should you "make it" you can expect anywhere from a couple weeks to years of featured placement. We give people about two weeks to "make it" However, even if a game misses whatever mark the portal sets for 'front page' or some kind of grand promotion, it is not uncommon to see it create low numbers of sales for years after release. Sure it may be something small, like 1 unit a day, but if you were on 5 portals @ 1 unit/day/portal for 1 year (again, not overly incredible) you'd be looking at almost 2,000 sales despite never hitting it big. HOWEVER - the game still has to be above average to reach that mark. Figure if your game is average it's a complete failure (from the standpoint of sales). If the game is exceptional you'll get front page feature. Anything between those two marks is pretty touch and go... you never know what will sink and what will float for those long periods. Totally didn't answer your question, other than you get between a few days and a few weeks of feature before judgment is cast. Spintz - I understand how you feel :) I won't stop you from making it big on your own, haha. More power to you! Your however is as follows: See how "easy" it is to get a lot of traffic. You'll then see why we protect our traffic so much. Not saying you are wrong or right, but always remember this: Traffic is an asset more valuable than any single game. Ponder that statement good and hard, anyone who's reading this, it has a LOT of meanings and they are all true. I hope it helps someone out there, because really that's what I am all about! -Joe |
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Trapper Zoid GDNet+ Member since: 5/20/2005 From: Melbourne, Australia |
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 Posted - 3/13/2007 5:25:42 AM |
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| Very interesting article - I hadn't noticed this one before. I'm presently reviewing the business side of things as I work towards being an indie developer, and I hadn't yet got to considering the potential of portals. I'm still a bit uncertain as to what level of branding you deem unacceptable. I was under the impression that branding could be a real boon to an indie game maker, especially if they want to use familiarity of a previous game to sell new ones. For example: would it be deemed excessive to have an "about us" menu option describing the game makers? Also, how strict is the restriction against placing the URL of game developer's website? Does this also apply to links to forums or email addresses for customer support? It seems hard to both use a portal and attempt to build a community of fans of the game if you cannot specify an on-line web address for them. Thanks for the article! Edit: An additional question: what would you say is the largest market segment that buys games from your portal, i.e. if you had to describe the median customer at ArcadeTown, who would they be and what sorts of games would they be interested in? Thanks again! [Edited by - Trapper Zoid on March 13, 2007 5:25:26 AM] David Shaw, a.k.a. "Trapper Zoid" | trazoi.net - visit my website and try my games! | Inkscape Adventures - a tutorial on Inkscape and art |
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Emmanuel Deloget GDNet News Lead Member since: 8/27/2003 From: France |
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Posted - 3/13/2007 6:41:36 AM |
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Quote: I'm pretty sure that displaying the company logo isn't a crime. After all, having this kind of deal MUST be a win-win situation. Anyway, effective branding is not about displaying 'I maek this game, ya can buy it on me intarweb lolololol clIck h3r3' about 30 times per second. It's about making your company known from the public. This is where portal sites can help a lot - if your game is good, then a portal site will help the sales, and this tiny company logo at the beginning of the game will produce its effect in the long run. When your brand will be better known, you'll be able to sell your games on your own web site (or negotiate a better deal from the portal site). This is nearly the same with the international distributors anyway. Even if you sell your game to EA, EA will require you to place your company logo after his one. Same for MS games, and so on. -- Emmanuel D. [blog, in French] [blog, very bad googlized translation] [NEW: English version of teh blog! (WIP)] |
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superpig GDNet Technical Lead Member since: 5/26/2001 From: Oxford, United Kingdom |
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 Posted - 3/15/2007 1:00:53 AM |
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Quote: Ah, I getcha. Hmm... perhaps if it were games that were unacceptable when initially submitted, but then the developer went and integrated your feedback and then you picked them up? That way you'd also get a nice 'before and after' effect. As a developer I wouldn't mind someone using my work as an example of a "positive change..." Just an idea. I'm grateful for any information I get in this field, so even if it never happens I thank you muchly for the article as it stands. |
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vgsmart Member since: 7/5/2004 From: Gainesville, FL, United States |
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Posted - 3/20/2007 9:53:18 PM |
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| Trapper - You can certainly place copyright info into the game, though if it is deemed excessive (by whoever is looking at it) they will ask you to reduce it. You can't place a URL into a game EVER - but you can suggest they "go online" or similar things. If you do a good job they will go online and find your site rather than ours. You won't get bonus points from the portals for doing that, but they won't stop you either. Display a URL = bad, suggest they go online = ok (usually). As far as customer types go, in the online portals the largest segment of buyers is that "older woman" - or what most of you guys would refer to as a casual game player. So, Bejewelled, Diner Dash, Virtual Villagers, or Mystery Case Files players. ArcadeTown, thanks to the way we grew our portal, has an inordinate number of "other" gamers as well (For better or worse, we're still not sure). We sell a great number of shooters, "Casual" RPGs, and Casual/Mid level Strategy Games. However, these numbers are still lower than our normal "house wife" age group. Further, I find the quality on a shooter has to be spectacular for it to sell - while other genres appear more forgiving. Superpig - If a developer submits their game twice we definately reconsider it... assuming changes have been made (and they clearly let us know they have been made, otherwise we think they just have short term memory problems and throw the e-mail away). It's happened a few times where a developer has submitted a game and we rejected it, only to have them put a lot of work into the game and improve it enough that we try it out. It also happens sometimes we'll launch a game and it wont do very well, so the developer makes some changes in hopes of improving performance. This is ok and we will upload the new version.... BUT the problem is we won't relaunch the game like it is new (How could we?) - So you may not ever get the "full" impact of your work. Soft launch your game first, that is my advice, so you can work out any potential problems when you go live on a portal. Next article is almost ready for editing. I hope you enjoy it. -Joe |
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Trapper Zoid GDNet+ Member since: 5/20/2005 From: Melbourne, Australia |
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Posted - 3/21/2007 3:25:46 PM |
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Quote: Thanks for the clarification. I guess it is all very subjective depending on the presentation of the game. The restriction on URLs is a bit of a bummer if I were to go with a community forums and extra online goodies, but if I were allowed to mention they can be found online then it should not be much of an issue. Quote: Thanks again - I'm in the middle of choosing which type of gamer to aim for so any demographic information is incredibly useful. That backs up the impression I get from looking at which games do well in portals, however I was interested with the slightly more hardcore focus of ArcadeTown whether it was different. It is useful to know that the casual core demographic still out-trumps the slightly more hardcore games. I'm looking forward to your next article. |
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Gaiiden GDNet Content Lead Member since: 8/30/2000 From: Lincroft, NJ, United States |
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Posted - 3/22/2007 1:46:33 AM |
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Quote: Yea, Russell Carroll said as much as well in his lecture at GDC. Quote: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!  |
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CRACK123 Member since: 2/26/2003 |
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Posted - 4/6/2007 12:32:45 AM |
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| Hey there, Great stuff. I have been working on a couple of casual games for almost a a month now and having to make changes for a publisher who works with portals. The change itself is not a problem but the code is a mess(hence the problem). I would love to write(I will write) an article on how a developer should actually approach game development for this kind of distribution. Its common terminology that a game design or many parts of the game can change in the last moment in this kind of distribution but you will be amazed how many people(so called very experienced ones) in the development process don't cater to such changes and do everything the hard way. |
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smr GDNet+ Member since: 7/16/2004 From: Pekin, IL, United States |
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 Posted - 4/27/2007 11:39:50 AM |
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| vgsmart: This is a great article. Thanks! I've a question: you said that web-based games seem to be the most effective. That makes total sense. Would you say that games created for Flash do better than those that are on the Java platform? I know that the end-user probably doesn't give a damn, but I wonder if a lot of potential customers lack a Java VM and whether the work of installing one prevents them from playing a Java-based game. Flash is so ubiquitous that I doubt anyone lacks a working install of it. |
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