Pay people to try your game?

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8 comments, last by orizvi 11 years, 10 months ago
I just had this really weird idea.. Maybe some marketing expert could tell what he thinks of it?

I said in a other thread that if u do this and that then people are gonna want to get paid to try your game out as a semi-joke.

But that is actually a really good idea!!

If you believe you have a really good game that people will like then you can make them to try your game... and if they like it they can buy it afterwards so you get your money back + more.

Because just having a free trial or demo of the game doesn't mean people will try your game out.

I know that pokersites do this at least, I get postal and emails sent to me regularly with offers that if you start playing with us then we'll give you all this money!
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You should read the fine print in these emails. The bonus money they give you unlocks after you played some amount of hands or accumulated points based on rake. If you do the math, you'll find out the casino will take more in rake than your bonus when you fully unlock it.

Doing this without any safeguards will attract an army of bots overnight to drain whatever marketing money you had left.
Developer for Novus Dawn : a [s]Flash[/s] Unity Isometric Tactical RPG - Forums - Facebook - DevLog

You should read the fine print in these emails. The bonus money they give you unlocks after you played some amount of hands or accumulated points based on rake. If you do the math, you'll find out the casino will take more in rake than your bonus when you fully unlock it.

Doing this without any safeguards will attract an army of bots overnight to drain whatever marketing money you had left.


Ofcourse you need safeguards of some sort.
I was thinking they need to sign up with their credit card.. and maybe achieve somethign ingame.
Although this would attract people to your game, it is not recommended, especially if you're just indie.

You should read the fine print in these emails. The bonus money they give you unlocks after you played some amount of hands or accumulated points based on rake. If you do the math, you'll find out the casino will take more in rake than your bonus when you fully unlock it.
You will have to beat the other players sufficiently to at least compensate for the rake, yes, but that particular sort of bonus is still a free *chance* to win money.

[quote name='Tiblanc' timestamp='1338377191' post='4944627']
You should read the fine print in these emails. The bonus money they give you unlocks after you played some amount of hands or accumulated points based on rake. If you do the math, you'll find out the casino will take more in rake than your bonus when you fully unlock it.
You will have to beat the other players sufficiently to at least compensate for the rake, yes, but that particular sort of bonus is still a free *chance* to win money.
[/quote]

Yep u can even make it in ur game that players can get money from ur game if they win 5 outta 5 of whatever match modes when they give ur game a test.... and must be with a credit card sign up.
The incentive coming from things like genuine curiosity (rather than *free money*) will get you the kind of players who will stay. That money would bring more people if put to use towards advertisement, solid development videos, trailers, reviews with game raking sites... etc.

If you're really intent on paying people, be absolutely sure to set hard limit (5,000 paid trials or something) and hand them out on a first-come first-serve basis. Otherwise you could end up with way more than you were expecting, and have to gamble it all yourself. In the case of online casinos, it's not a gamble because statistically they can guarantee the return. In an MMO it's a gamble unless you have some hard numbers that prove 45% of trial players upgrade, or something... don't act on this without data.

Best of luck with your project though. Keep thinking of different ways to promote it!
While I commend you for trying to be creative, this sounds like a scam. I would proceed extremely cautiously

If you want to pay for players, I think you're much better off purchasing incentivized installs from big companies such as TapJoy. These are reputable companies with significant publisher networks that can push out your game, so while you may be paying a fair amount, you know they're legit. At that point, if you've made a good game, the people they drive to your game will play it
I work for Betable, a game monetization platform. I also write about startups, gaming, and marketing.
My opinion is that game developer should give the game out for free to try. That way if it's an addicting game, the player is going to want to unlock the full version.

My girl played the trial of feeding frenzy game for xbox arcade, then after the trial she wanted the full game because it was addicting.

It makes no sense and even counterproductive to pay people to play your game. That's my opinion.
Rather than paying people to play your game - you could do prizes. eg. Person at the top of the high score board at the end of every week for the first month wins X dollars. Top 5% each week maybe win a free copy of your game. The key thing would be the hordes of other players who tried your game for a chance to win. You have to convert a certain number of them to balance out...

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