Selling games

[Locke]

I know that I have been posting a lot of topics in the past few days and I am sorry if it is causing any trouble for anybody, but I have a lot of questions.
In a few weeks you will probably hear less of me and most of my comments will be help to other people, not questions.

Now on to my question.

I have my own website and I am interested in selling some of my best games off of my website. If anybody knows how to do this or knows of any copyright that I might need, please let me know.

Thanks a lot,

Locke

[Kodo]

I have my own website but leave the selling to the pro's, at least for now. I sell through...

http://www.clickgamer.com
http://www.handango.com
http://www.pocketgear.com

These sites are very professional and handle the whole payment process, they send you a cheque when you've reached a certain number of sales or a certain length of time has passed. Each of them has a Developer section that you can sign up to from their respective homepages. They do charge a commission per transaction and once your software is submitted there is no guarantee that they will agree to sell it, if they do you can log in anytime to check your sales and update your games’ details and pricing. They take alot of the headache out of selling, allowing me to spend more time on making new games

[Kodo]

You can also find answers to all kinds of Indie related questions (including the business side of things) at:

http://www.indiegamer.com

- It’s a very useful site full of good info

[Locke]

Thanks for the input.

I may try using some of the sites that you recommended, but I am also interested in becoming my own company soon. It will be small and I won't make too much money off of it (I don't think) but being in college is expensive and any money I can get would be great.

The problem I noticed with the sites that you use is that they charge you to put the games online. If I don't make any money off of the games, then I am basically waisting my money.

If you don't mind telling me, about how much money do you make off each of your games and what is your surplus amount. (or deficit.)

[Kodo]

They don’t charge you to put your games up, they only charge a percentage of each sale so you don’t actually part with even 1 penny. They dont own your game and you arnt working for them, you remain your own man/woman and can run your company as you like.

As an example if you are selling your game for $10 you upload it and get it listed for NOTHING, you pay NOTHING. Then say 1 person buys your game and the site you are selling through are going to keep %10 of your total sales, you get $9 and they get $1. Setting up your own online shop is more likely to be expensive, you'll need a host that can handle (SSL) Secure Sockets Layer which adds to the cost as well as a company to handle your payment processing (which costs).

The alternative is processing the cards manually yourself (though you’ll still need a host that can handle SSL), and you'll need to register your business legally and get a business bank account (which charges you for just abut everything), in the UK manual card processing involves rental of a credit card swipe machine and paying your bank monthly for using it as well as paying a separate % for each transaction. My wife and I used to run a high street shop here in the UK, we also used to sell online so have some experience of these things; we rented a card machine from a company called Streamline (which is a division of Natwest Bank). Believe me when I say that using the sites listed above is your best way of getting games sold with out investing potentially large amounts of cash.

Another plus from using these sites is that they already have millions of visitors monthly, that’s massive exposure for your game; if you were to sell it on your own site your game might not get noticed and it might take years to get noticed at all!

Every penny I get from these sites goes in my bank, I have no overheads (only the time I invest, and the cost of having my website hosted), though I will have to pay Income Tax on the money received which is a legal requirement on any income over a certain amount here in the UK.

[Locke]

Thank you so much for all your help. I was just wondering if these sites were just for PPC games or for just regular computer games as well? I don't own a PPC and I am not interested in making games for them, but I would really like to start selling games.

Just out of curiosity, what kinds of games do you sell on these websites? and does it make you any really profit, like enough to live off of, or just some extra cash? (which is really all I am going for).

Last question: about how much time do you spend working on the games that you sell? I tend to work a few months on the games that I have made, then I give them to my friends, but none of my games are really all that complex yet, I was just wondering if you could give me a synopsis of some of your best selling games.

[Kodo]

I spent a year working on my first game, but that was while working full time in my real job. I probably spent about 8 to 10 hours a week working on it, but I did all the art myself as well. I plan to get a bunch of games out this year so I’m concentrating on some slightly different projects that will hopefully be quicker to complete.

I only have the one game out right now, Fire top Mountain (a platform game) and that was only released last October. Being my first indie game to go commercial I wasn’t expecting much but it’s made a modest sum, no where near enough to live off, but encouraging none the less. I’ve read many articles about selling games and it seems that most people are of the opinion that even the better games can take time to reach their full potential sales-wise. Though the game was released last October I’m still promoting it and sales are continuing at a rate of a couple a week, my next game will only help to give both my company and my last game even more exposure (and hopefully increased sales) so as far as I’m concerned it’s a case of just not giving up and plugging away at it. I have two games that are very different from my first in development right now and a load of ideas that I just don’t have time to work on right now. My goal is to earn enough from my games that I can become a full time indie developer, it’s a long way off but at least getting there will be fun

Also, to answer your question about PPC/PC sites; I’m concentrating on PPC but I do know that there are many sites similar to the ones I use to sell that deal in PC games, though as they aren’t my target platform I haven’t paid them much attention. You might find info on these sorts of site at http://www.indiegamer.com . I’m sure if you register and ask where you might be able to sell your games they’d be most helpful

[Locke]

Thank you a lot, and I really mean that. You people here at GE have been so helpful to me and I am forever in your debt.

Thanks,

Locke

[Caaz Games]

with all the answers you're getting you'll have a BIG GIANT SUPPER GAME!!!!

[Locke]

LOL, that's the plan!!