What is your favorite place to publish your games?

S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Hello everyone.

So what's your favorite and why? kongregate.com, gamejolt.com, itch.io, Steam, Desura, Facebook, Google Play, the Amazon App Store, the iOS App Store, etc. newgrounds.com is my new favorite place to publish my HTML5 game creations. For desktop games it is itch.io, and for mobile games, as an Android fan I'll go with Google Play.

Two days ago I uploaded my first game to newgrounds.com and it has already received over 1,000 views and over 100 ratings (3.1/5). While the rating isn't impressive, it could be worse. I have no complaints. This website gets major traffic. I've personally have never gotten such exposure before in so little time. Very encouraging!

Feel free to also discuss what sites you've had the most plays or purchases.

Samuel
 
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S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
As far as I know, yes. That shouldn't be a problem.
 
I

inkBot

Guest
Steam, GOG and itch.io would be the ones I would consider. But I am also personally only interested in the desktop markets and have no intention of developing for mobile.
 
Steam. There is no other. Zero promotion to Steam still gives my games 30 and 70 views per day six months after release.

Outside of Steam, I've been featured twice on GameJolt and the games still live on getting Let's Plays and downloads. Last I checked one game was at 6,500 downloads and the other was nearing 2,000. At the time of my first release I was put into a murder's row of Undertale fan games at the top of the charts. Since then they've divided the fan games away from the non fan games.

Meanwhile, pouring publicity into itch yields little beyond the first three days. The thing that seems to drive traffic far more is having a free art asset pack there. Despite being free, I made my first $1 on itch from the art pack and 40 downloads of said pack.

Here's a horror story for ya. I published on Google Play and I amassed five 5 star reviews out of a mere 18 downloads. From there I did an experiment where I did "pay per install advertising." Even then people would install the game and uninstall it without getting the first easy achievement. So there seems to be an exploit there where people or "friends" are clicking on every ad, installing the game for the money and then uninstalling the game. I appreciate Google Play Services for having such detailed stats that I can determine the exploit.

I have never published on Kongrigate, but 1,000 views sounds worth it.
 
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Congrats on having your game get that much exposure on Newgrounds!

Anyone have any experience with RMN?
I remember RMN. It was tough to get reviews or ratings and when I did they felt a bit harsh. Then again having to put up with home made RPGs that can take hours turns into an investment. It could also be comparatively as chances are games there will not be the next Final Fantasy 3 and should be graded as such. Luckily they have events where you find a game that's unreviewed and give it a review.
 
Q

Quailfail

Guest
Thank you, @sitebender for answering. Quite a few hobby games I enjoy come from there. And most of the things I create tend to be story/mood focused, which is very RMN's thing. Community/audience wise the place appears to be a logical place to share my games. But just because a site appears to be one way does not mean it actually is, thus the question.

Very understandable about struggling to get reviews with the time investment. I'm quite fine with harsh reviews, better than none! haha~
 
A

ajan-ko

Guest
Steam. There is no other. Zero promotion to Steam still gives my games 30 and 70 views per day six months after release.

Outside of Steam, I've been featured twice on GameJolt and the games still live on getting Let's Plays and downloads. Last I checked one game was at 6,500 downloads and the other was nearing 2,000. At the time of my first release I was put into a murder's row of Undertale fan games at the top of the charts. Since then they've divided the fan games away from the non fan games.

Meanwhile, pouring publicity into itch yields little beyond the first three days. The thing that seems to drive traffic far more is having a free art asset pack there. Despite being free, I made my first $1 on itch from the art pack and 40 downloads of said pack.

Here's a horror story for ya. I published on Google Play and I amassed five 5 star reviews out of a mere 18 downloads. From there I did an experiment where I did "pay per install advertising." Even then people would install the game and uninstall it without getting the first easy achievement. So there seems to be an exploit there where people or "friends" are clicking on every ad, installing the game for the money and then uninstalling the game. I appreciate Google Play Services for having such detailed stats that I can determine the exploit.

I have never published on Kongrigate, but 1,000 views sounds worth it.
I just can't understand about Google playstore, I saw so many bad games (like super bad) getting crazy download stats, and good game getting mediocre download.

I even thinking that the game name to Optimize the search engine more important than the game itself.
 

Bingdom

Googledom
I just can't understand about Google playstore, I saw so many bad games (like super bad) getting crazy download stats, and good game getting mediocre download.

I even thinking that the game name to Optimize the search engine more important than the game itself.
Likely because some of those bad apps are much older, and the Play store didn't have as many apps back then.
 
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I just can't understand about Google playstore, I saw so many bad games (like super bad) getting crazy download stats, and good game getting mediocre download.

I even thinking that the game name to Optimize the search engine more important than the game itself.
Well there are services that will spam good reviews. I suppose rather than paying for Google ads and "pay per install" I should have paid those services. It turns out they're quite cheap, but then again there could be backlash and I'm too paranoid to live with that taint. Plus they could just take the money and run. In a way that's what happened with paid advertising.

As for game names... I am late to the party so it was difficult to come up with names that fit games. Its a new trend to fit keywords into names. RPG Rogue Dungeon Crawler!
 
A

ajan-ko

Guest
Well there are services that will spam good reviews. I suppose rather than paying for Google ads and "pay per install" I should have paid those services. It turns out they're quite cheap, but then again there could be backlash and I'm too paranoid to live with that taint. Plus they could just take the money and run. In a way that's what happened with paid advertising.

As for game names... I am late to the party so it was difficult to come up with names that fit games. Its a new trend to fit keywords into names. RPG Rogue Dungeon Crawler!
Well this is why I have dilema in Google apps. Do I need to pay those "service" in order to give my game more visibility boost or not?

Because some sample game on top 200 clearly do those tricks,
and Google do nothing about it.

I think the only chance that can beat those "service" are mobile game YouTuber.

There is a myth that I heard from other devs, I don't know is this true?
Spam so many broken games to playstore to get more revenue. This is why there is almost no in-game print screen in Google playstore, they just don't care. Because download = win.

I'm so confused with Android.
 
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Well this is why I have dilema in Google apps. Do I need to pay those "service" in order to give my game more visibility boost or not?

Because some sample game on top 200 clearly do those tricks,
and Google do nothing about it.

I think the only chance that can beat those "service" are mobile game YouTuber.

There is a myth that I heard from other devs, I don't know is this true?
Spam so many broken games to playstore to get more revenue. This is why there is almost no in-game print screen in Google playstore, they just don't care. Because download = win.

I'm so confused with Android.
Here's the other thing... do 5 star reviews actually give you more visibility? I think it was as of 2015 someone took Google Play's admission of how many games it had per year and determined there were like 1,500 games per day released. Perhaps games blends in with apps, but when its a one time fee of $20 to get on the service, its cheap.

Plenty of games do incentives to rate their game. I hear on Steam people get angry if you incentivize getting reviews, but there are a few games that bluntly ask for reviews and promise nothing in return. It seems to be successful. The best thing is to ask them if they've played more than 30 minutes. They must have enjoyed something to play that long.

Supposedly PewDiePie makes millionaires if the games are free or $5 and under. Anything more than that and a game will still fail no matter how much publicity it gets. I assume that rather than PewDiePie you can just "insert random famous Youtuber with a few million subscribers." I never had publicity translate into money or even Greenlight visitors with a link in the game.

I have toughed it out in the PC market while others recommend I just do Google Play if I'm going to make free games because I can just "stick an ad in it." Make money if I'm putting out games for free. I usually stick an ad in after a person has played 10 minutes, then every 5 minutes after that. These ads happen when the player dies AND they incentivize viewing advertisementss. Give coins.... but never do microtransactions. I think you can only do 5 or so ads per hour. Something like that. Its been a while since I've checked. Oh and warn people there's an ad coming so they don't accidentally click on it.
 
A

ajan-ko

Guest
Here's the other thing... do 5 star reviews actually give you more visibility? I think it was as of 2015 someone took Google Play's admission of how many games it had per year and determined there were like 1,500 games per day released. Perhaps games blends in with apps, but when its a one time fee of $20 to get on the service, its cheap.

Plenty of games do incentives to rate their game. I hear on Steam people get angry if you incentivize getting reviews, but there are a few games that bluntly ask for reviews and promise nothing in return. It seems to be successful. The best thing is to ask them if they've played more than 30 minutes. They must have enjoyed something to play that long.

Supposedly PewDiePie makes millionaires if the games are free or $5 and under. Anything more than that and a game will still fail no matter how much publicity it gets. I assume that rather than PewDiePie you can just "insert random famous Youtuber with a few million subscribers." I never had publicity translate into money or even Greenlight visitors with a link in the game.

I have toughed it out in the PC market while others recommend I just do Google Play if I'm going to make free games because I can just "stick an ad in it." Make money if I'm putting out games for free. I usually stick an ad in after a person has played 10 minutes, then every 5 minutes after that. These ads happen when the player dies AND they incentivize viewing advertisementss. Give coins.... but never do microtransactions. I think you can only do 5 or so ads per hour. Something like that. Its been a while since I've checked. Oh and warn people there's an ad coming so they don't accidentally click on it.
Hmm... Interesting info. Thanks.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Compared to GameJolt, Itchio's system is much easier to use and offers you a lot of control over your game's page design. Just judging from which one I like to use the most, Itchio wins by miles.
 

YanBG

Member
If i want to sell my game, Itchio won't work, Gamejolt is probably weak too, but they added collaboration with Youtubers and might be better? But yeah, Steam is way ahead in actually cashing in.
 
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