Hi! Several months ago I and my team released our first shareware game - Xtreme Tankz Madness II. It's being published by Alawar. We've done our best during the development, but there are some flaws left in the game, because of lack of experience in developing the game that is commecially successful. So now sales are pretty poor. We're constantly adding and changing XTM2 features but we really need a professinal advice about what changes to implement. So feel free to post any suggestions to make XTM2 more saleable. Thanks in advance! XTM2 Official Site VSBgames [edited by - VaderSB on May 23, 2002 11:59:43 AM]

OK, well here are the first couple of things. First of all, on your web site it isnt really very obvious how to order. As far as I can tell, the only way to order is to click on that "Buy now!" button. There are 2 problems with that. The first is that it is not on the main menu, but below it. I dont know if it''s just me, but my brain has been trained that nothing below the main menu on the left is of importance. If something is very disctinctly below the menu, it is usually a copyright or a webmaster email link or something. My brain doesnt see it. The other problem is that the button is almost the exact same green as all the text, so it just blends into everything. That, and the real bright glare on the button distracts me from what the button says. All in all, I looked around the site for 2 or 3 minutes looking for an order button, all the while it was staring me in the face.

The other thing...is there a demo? Is that what that 13MB file is? You might want to emphasise that it is a free demo. Also, the fact that it is 13 MB might be a bit of a turn off (that''s gonna take a lot of people 30-90 minutes to download. Is there any way you can trim the fat and create a smaller demo? That might help.

Also, being that I didnt actually try out the game yet, I just wanted to say that you should make sure you provide plenty of in game reminders that they have not registered and make it very obvious (in several places) how to register. I know this is important. I did some research looking into several games to see what reminders they use, and I think the Dexterity games (Dweep and Fitznik) do a pretty good job...you might want to take a look at them as a sort-of-role-model for how to do this.

OK, the game seems pretty good. I played it for about an hour and I didnt find any bugs, so thats good. Although the one thing I did find just very slightly annoying was when you enter your name when starting a new game, if you hit the backspace button it will delete everything you typed unless you tap it REALLY fast. What you might want to do is delete one char every 0.2 seconds (I suspect right now you probably delete one char every frame). Anyway, enough of that...

One thing...in the unregistered version you really have to be a bit more of a nag about registering. So far the only time you get nagged is with a small one line of text on the very top level menu, when you chose an unsupported option, or when you quit the game. I dont recall the game reminding me I need to register at all while I was playing for that hour. Maybe you could put a message at the bottom of the "Loading" screen. Or a small reminder on the bottom of the in game status bar.

About the file size. Like I mentioned, it would help if you could shrink it. I see almost all of the space is taken up in the GFX folder. I am assuming these are image files. What bit depth are they in (I cant tell...I assume they are in your own proprietary format). If they are 24 bit or 32 bit color, see if you can scale them down. First try dithering it down to an 8 bit palleted texture. A lot of times you cant even notice the difference when you do this. If that doesnt give you acceptable quality, try dithering it to 16 bit. If you do this, you might be able to remove 50% to 75% of your file size. This might encourage more people to give your game a try.

Finally, on the order page there is a bit of text that says
"Full version includes:
- all later versions of the game free of charge"

You might want to clarify that to say updates, not versions. The last thing you want is to work hard to get a bunch of people interested in your game, then have them get mad when version 3 comes out and they dont get it for free.

A couple of things, I stumbled across your game a while ago while I was researching shareware games. I didn''t try the game because there wasn''t anything catchy enough to justify the 13mb download. My advice would be to make the selling points of your game clear on the front page, describe the fun scenarios that the user will be able to engage in if they try this game.

Unfortunately the larger the download the more of these catchy things you need to make the user want to download it.

Absolutely do not promise your customers free upgrades to future versions for life. That''s like slitting your own throat; you might as well go out of business now. The easiest people to sell new versions of your product to are existing customers. It is vastly easier to sell to existing customers then go drum up new ones. If you allow these people to upgrade for free you’re missing out on alot of profit that could potentially be yours.

That’s my feedback
Best of Luck!

quote: Original post by Ironside
The easiest people to sell new versions of your product to are existing customers. It is vastly easier to sell to existing customers then go drum up new ones.

Thanks, Ironside. That was exactly what I was trying to say but (after rereading my post) I guess didnt really come right out and say it like I meant to. VaderSB, this is the absolute truth. Take a look at almost any business out there, and you will see that they already know this to be true. Try cancelling a credit card...they will usually offer to lower the interest rate. Cancel your cable service, they will offer you a month or 2 for free. Take an item that you clearly broke back to Target. They will usually take it back anyway. I even once saw a lady take a half eaten turkey back to the grocery store on the day after Thanksgiving and say it wasnt any good...and they gladly took it back without asking a question. They all do this because they KNOW its cheaper to keep an existing customer happy than it is to find a new customer.