ok, the previous thread was "i finished my game now what" - howeever, I thought the topic I'm starting is sufficiently different. The general agreement about setting up a pc game download web site is that it's hard to market and sell stuff. So I did a little check on google(uk) for the following: "pc game download" (something similar) and was expecting to find zillions of matches from all these web sites competing with each other to sell games online. There was none !!! Not a single site !!! Now I'm thinking to myself - hmmm - it seems that someone could very quickly kickstart a site like this - I'm now going to give my business plan away but I'm not a businessman and woudn't be too good at web site design - so here goes: web site contains for each independent game - 1. a free shortened demo for the game (ie half a level or a level with a lot cut out). This way the user can get it going on his pc and if he likes it then download the full level - at this point the user knows what he's getting, know what the game is like and importantly - know it works on his pc. 2. Then he can download the full level - say at $2-99 3. subsequent levels should also be at $2-99 (or so). Probably reduction if he buys 3 or more levels. 4. Ensure that each level's download has approximtely the same size and ease to set up - ie maximum of about 3mb or so ie QUICK - and to install/run just click the exe. No one enjoys 200MB downloads that need loads of tweaking. 5. Also ensure each level can be run on it's own and without downloading anything else. 6. each level has a taster pic from the game, a title and a brief description. 7. Like ebay provide a feedback form for each level if ppl want to leave a msg: "awesome first level - forget the 2nd as its too easy - but go for the 4th level for mximum insanity" !! You know the type of thing. 8. The easy thing about it is that you don't have to be a huge organisation to do it - just a couple of guys could knock out a level about the size of a FPS level on the pc in a few months (if they're up to speed on the technology) - actually they could probably do it quicker - I mean once you've written the AI - designed the models - done the art - the only thing that needs much re-writing is the world and objectives for the next level (not saying that's always the case tho). 9. I mean if I donwloaded a game - played about for an hour - quite enjoyed it - then I'd definitely download it if it was less than 5mb and less than $3 (I'm a Brit so I was thinking about £1-99 would be good). So, the creators have got a few bucks, maybe times that by a thousand or so if they get good reviews - in the meantime they've knocked out another level - probably by the time I've finished the first level - then I get the next level ! If the coders were good/efficient you could probably get a few thousand dollars a month reasonably easily. Well, is that a plan or what ?!! There's a big gap for this ! Now tell me it's already been done - but hey if I couldn't find it on google (uk) they can't be too good at making it findable. Adrian

Basically what you're saying is selling individual levels of a game instead of the entire game, in short the familiar add-on packs but divided into many segments, per level. I can give you some reasons why this isn't a good idea:

Purchasing individual levels for a game is too cumbersome and the costs are too high.

3 bucks per level would run at 30 USD for 10 levels. Unless you're selling commercial quality games and each level lasts an hour or more, very few people will be interested since in the end you are charging close to what people pay in stores, even if you discount a bit. Remember most commercial games have 10-20 levels of much higher quality, immersion, etc. and at a possibly even lower cost.

Also, does an end user want to get their credit card out 5-? times for the same game?

And how are you charging these people? By credit card? If so, you need a company which does that for you. Many, if not all companies will charge you a minimum fee of maybe 1.5 USD + a percentage. That leaves you with almost nothing, unless you up the price and the whole thing becomes really expensive for your customers.

Finally, you should try to remain realistic. Is your game really up to shareware levels? There are a lot of free games on the net which could be similar in quality. Like explained on this board, selling shareware in any reasonable numbers isn't easy. The game doesn't need to be original, but if it isn't, it has to look great.

google(us) results for what you described: 16,100,000. And don't expect the 1000s of people buying especially on your first game. Maybe 200 and thats if its good.

I think you must be using a different Google UK than me because your search term generated 11,200,000 hits. There are already thousands of indie developers out there already doing downloadable games.

What your talking about is Micropayments...and if your search terms included that well, that could explain the few results. Micropayments have failed almost every single time because people don't like paying 100 times for a product when they can pay 10% more and pay once. But that could because they don't make it easy as well.

I would charge for larger than single level packs (maybe packs of 10?). Anyway that's my two cents, doing a google.com search you get about 11,400,000 results for those terms btw.

you're all right !
I did the search again and got tens of thousands of matches !!

I must have added a strange word the first time.

Oh well, back to square one - anyone want to buy my game ?!!

It's so hard making an honest living !

cheers

One problems with doing single levels at a low price is that almost all the successful indies agree that if you set your price below $19.99 your sales actually decrease. It seems that when it comes to entertainment too low a price is considered to be a sign of poor quality.