Hi all, I wanted some feeback from other indie devs out there. Assuming you have a software library of at least 2 titles, I was wondering about the viability of releasing the weakest software for free, and placing adverts for your company and stronger title/s within that free release. If the free release is still very high-quality, I assume the download count could get into very high numbers? I figure that kind of coverage could drive much larger amounts of traffic to a website then simply releasing demos. I hear that free stuff spreads pretty damn quick, even compared to the cheapest products. Could this method work, for boosting awareness & sales, or am I dreaming ( again! ). Any thoughts are welcome. PomPom games UK www.pompom.org.uk

How good the free game really has very little to do with it. If it''s a decent game, you should charge for it. How well a game does in regards to downloads is 99% based on marketing. Sales on the other hand are based mainly on how well you put the customer in a position to purchase the game and if you leave him wanting more, then you stand a good chance of landing a sale. Separate the two events. Downloads do not equate to sales and a good game does not reap tens of thousands of downloads.

Good marketing gets the downloads. Good games get the sales, but you can''t get sales without lots of downloads. My advice is to send press releases to no less than 500 websites. Exceed 1000 if at all possible and develop some partnerships. That will help drive downloads.

You''ll sure get a lot of freeloader traffic, but probably not much in sales, and you''ll eat a bundle in bandwidth costs if the game is anything larger than a floppy''s worth of code & content.

Hi!

If you sell it as shareware, you have the downloads/views AND perhaps some money.

McMc

The hardest part of indie dev is getting people to download your games. Once they have done that the % that pay is fairly standard across the board.

So, if lots of people have found your first game (enough for the adverts to be worth including) then just put the second game in the same place. Free demo download and pay to register. A demo is the best form of advertising and provided your games are good (and have a clear link to your website) people will look for other titles.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant