I've been asked a lot recently to provide website promotion. As I've worked with various agencies who have been involved with this, I've picked up a lot of tips as well as being involved in providing the required resources. As a thought, I was wondering if there would be a need for the type of service to provide online branding, technical resources and promotion of Blitz developed games?
Games promotion service
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Games promotion service What kind of online branding, what kind of technical resources, and how would you promote the games?
With my skills in web design and development, I can work with game developers to create a professional brand for their game and advanced resources such as online user accounts and social networking (such as via Facebook) integration features that can be used to empower promotion of games. This would be combined with the usual activities to submit details of the game to different websites to gain exposure.
Games that suit the casual market are what I'm most likely be able to help with. I would also be able to help polish any 2D graphics should this be needed.
Games that suit the casual market are what I'm most likely be able to help with. I would also be able to help polish any 2D graphics should this be needed.
That all sounds well and good, but (correct me if I'm wrong here) your own website looks like a template, and isn't that well made to start with... with a few areas that could seriously use some polish.
The last guy I had write up a press release had over 800 contacts in the industry. How do you compare? I'm not picking... I'm just curious ;)
This would be combined with the usual activities to submit details of the game to different websites to gain exposure.
The last guy I had write up a press release had over 800 contacts in the industry. How do you compare? I'm not picking... I'm just curious ;)
The last guy I had write up a press release had over 800 contacts in the industry. How do you compare? I'm not picking... I'm just curious ;)
A lot of people claim that - exactly that in fact. But all they do is use Promosoft to submit to shareware sites. I believe this guy was the real deal. The only guys he didn't have access to were Gamepot and Ign, and that's because pretty much nobody did at that time. More than just shareware sites were reached.
That all sounds well and good, but (correct me if I'm wrong here) your own website looks like a template, and isn't that well made to start with... with a few areas that could seriously use some polish.
What makes you think I've used a template for my website and why do you think it's not made well? Yes, I'm still adding content and will be altering some of the content that is on there such as the case studies page, but I don't really know what you mean by it not being made well? As for example:
* It's been tested across all major browsers.
* The design looks fine - your personal opinion may differ, but the facts that I've had business from the website and good feedback from independent sources speak for themself.
* The design is created using pure CSS for layout - no tables, making the design more efficient and maintainable.
* SEO and online marketing activities have been taken into consideration with the design. Again, I'm still adding a few features for this, but if was really that unprofessional, I'd have cluttered the code with plenty of in file Javascript, created the the design in tables or even worse just created the whole site in Flash.
I would be happy to learn what in your opinion would allow me to improve the site though. Some other site designs that I have created are as follows:
As for my contacts, I'm not claiming to be a specialist in the games industry - nor am I claiming to be a games publisher. What I do for a living is provide businesses with online solutions - whether this is to generate business leads, sell products, improve customer support or to improve business processes such as project management.
Also, just the record, I'm not looking to become a publisher of games. I'm looking to identify whether games developers such as yourself require help in distributing games. I'm not looking to have people sign exclusive contracts with me - essentially, I still want any developers I work with to be responsible for selling their own games, but also working with me to sell their games through channels that I can provide.
Of special interest, I'm interested in speaking to people who develop:
* Games for the casual market
* E-learning games
Sorry, when I said it didn't look that well made, I actually meant it in terms of a few areas that were quite rough. It's cool you've made a css site without going nuts with Flash ;) I've certainly seen worse webpage designs... so, it's nowhere near bad. The rough parts I was referring to were parts like the three, large pixelated titles on the front page. They just look ugly... as if they were something you'd added to a template site. If you have everything smoothly anti-aliased on a page, you really need to render your titles with AA as well. Putting a big chunky font in the middle of a smooth looking page just looks out of place.
The highlighting method on the top menu also looks downright ugly as well. You've got your top bar all curved at the corners, but not the red highlight that appears when you mouse over the buttons (at the edges). On some pages, the hard-edged highlight hangs over the page edge and looks nasty. You have the same kind of issue with your Crushed Apple site- mixing hard edged elements with organic buttons. It reminds me of when people follow tutorials on how to create nice looking buttons in Photoshop, but don't know how to build the page around them. I'm not saying that's your page in a nutshell... but there are a few times when it looks as if the design work has been done by two different people.
When you mouse over the sidebar links (left side of the page) under IE7 (but oddly not Opera) the buttons shift size and the lines outlining the links break. Plus, the design of the titles in the 'banner images' for each page (the large ones) just looks completely amateurishly designed compared to the rest of your site. It's things like that which make it appear at first glance as though you've started with a template site and simply tacked on bits and pieces, and edited in titles and other things to what you've started with.
I hope the above makes sense!
That sounds interesting (although I'm fine right now, thanks :) but a bit like the information on your site, the exact details of what developers would be in for while working with you sound mysteriously ambiguious...
The highlighting method on the top menu also looks downright ugly as well. You've got your top bar all curved at the corners, but not the red highlight that appears when you mouse over the buttons (at the edges). On some pages, the hard-edged highlight hangs over the page edge and looks nasty. You have the same kind of issue with your Crushed Apple site- mixing hard edged elements with organic buttons. It reminds me of when people follow tutorials on how to create nice looking buttons in Photoshop, but don't know how to build the page around them. I'm not saying that's your page in a nutshell... but there are a few times when it looks as if the design work has been done by two different people.
When you mouse over the sidebar links (left side of the page) under IE7 (but oddly not Opera) the buttons shift size and the lines outlining the links break. Plus, the design of the titles in the 'banner images' for each page (the large ones) just looks completely amateurishly designed compared to the rest of your site. It's things like that which make it appear at first glance as though you've started with a template site and simply tacked on bits and pieces, and edited in titles and other things to what you've started with.
I hope the above makes sense!
I still want any developers I work with to be responsible for selling their own games, but also working with me to sell their games through channels that I can provide.
That sounds interesting (although I'm fine right now, thanks :) but a bit like the information on your site, the exact details of what developers would be in for while working with you sound mysteriously ambiguious...
how much are ye gonnae charge laddie
Thanks for the feedback Rector. The titles you mention on the front page of my website are in HTML text, which depending on which computer you are looking at may be anti-aliased or not. This text will be anti-aliased on Macs and Vista PCs, but not on XP. The only way to have this smooth in XP would be to have the titles as images, but this wouldn't be good for SEO as I would lose points with Google, hence this isn't something that is worth changing.
I guess that specific styling issues are down to personal preference as everyone has their own idea of what is good design. I will have a look at the IE7 issue you mention though when I have access to an IE7 PC on Monday.
A cut of whatever I sell which I'm also interested to hear what people think is a fair deal. As mentioned previously, I'm not looking to be a publisher, just to promote games - or maybe consider it as me being a re-seller that will work with developers to provide branding, online technical resources and strategy advice.
I guess that specific styling issues are down to personal preference as everyone has their own idea of what is good design. I will have a look at the IE7 issue you mention though when I have access to an IE7 PC on Monday.
how much are ye gonnae charge laddie
A cut of whatever I sell which I'm also interested to hear what people think is a fair deal. As mentioned previously, I'm not looking to be a publisher, just to promote games - or maybe consider it as me being a re-seller that will work with developers to provide branding, online technical resources and strategy advice.
you mean a cut of the profits of games that you are helping to sell?
well it doesnt need a huge primary investment so that might be tempting.
well it doesnt need a huge primary investment so that might be tempting.
Anyone interested in speak further should feel free to contact me at contact@.... I am happy to discuss ideas from there - nothing is set in stone, so there is plenty of scope to evolve ideas.
Of special interest, I'm interested in speaking to people who develop:
* Games for the casual market
* E-learning games
By E-learning are you talking about educational games? If so, I'm currently refining my recently finished 'Calculus: The Game' (if I get more feedback, that is.) I could probably make a decent website in HTML, but my problem is I don't know the first thing about promoting it.
Is this the kind of thing you want to do, or are you strictly just making websites for people?
Hi Sauer - yes, I'm also talking about promotion too. I have a special project for e-learning educational games and would be interested in hearing more about your game. Feel free to tell me more at contact@....
Hi, just thought I'd mention that the Blitz forum software obscures email addresses unless you're logged in, so there's no need to encode it. Doing so increases the risk that a smart spam bot will pick it up.
Ahh... Thanks a lot for that :-). Just updated the e-mail addresses.
If you want to use image titles and remain google friendly, you could add those links to each page's footer, as required.
If you want to use image titles and remain google friendly, you could add those links to each page's footer, as required.
True, but I would still lose on points because the headers would be further down the page and wouldn't be able to H1 or H2 tags.
Why is that such a big deal? As long as you have your metatag information (etc) and a way for google to search through from page to page via links, I would have thought that'd be good enough.
Nope, you get points for having information in H1, H2, H3, strong and list tags because it helps search engines identify the importance of information. As an example, Google will know that keywords highlighted in H1 tags are of high relevance and more important than say H2 or strong. It will also know that words highlighted using strong will be of key importance to the subject. Keywords defined in a list will be known to be associated in some way to each other.
Meta tags alone aren't enough to get good page rankings. It's common knowledge amongst SEO specialists that Google doesn't take into account meta tag keywords anymore.
Meta tags alone aren't enough to get good page rankings. It's common knowledge amongst SEO specialists that Google doesn't take into account meta tag keywords anymore.
Game Boy, my game is in the Blitz Showcase: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=78144
Problem is, I haven't received what I believe to be sufficient feedback, and I have no way of knowing whether its even good enough to try to sell.
But if there is a chance I could sell it (or when I upgrade it to a point where it is) I'd be definitely interested in using your services, granted the percentage you take from sales is acceptable.
My e-mail is in my profile.
Problem is, I haven't received what I believe to be sufficient feedback, and I have no way of knowing whether its even good enough to try to sell.
But if there is a chance I could sell it (or when I upgrade it to a point where it is) I'd be definitely interested in using your services, granted the percentage you take from sales is acceptable.
My e-mail is in my profile.
What type of game is Calculus? I have a Mac and so can't use a Windows .exe, but could check it out on Monday or Tuesday. I may be able to help you out with graphics and music.
Its a point and click game. It has a lot of RPG elements (inventory, combat, etc.) as it was created using the same game frame as an RPG I'm working on. The sound is fine I think, but I've had mixed responses to the graphics.
The best part about it is that it reads the questions from a text file that you can edit, so the questions can always be altered. This makes it more useful to educators and students.
I think its great, but that is because I put a lot of time and effort into it. Obviously, its hard to look past your personal bias ;) The problem is it doesn't strike a lot of interest in the community because its a game about calculus. For that same reason I doubt the portals will take it.
So right now I'm in a stalemate waiting for more feedback so I can improve the game to a marketable quality.
The best part about it is that it reads the questions from a text file that you can edit, so the questions can always be altered. This makes it more useful to educators and students.
I think its great, but that is because I put a lot of time and effort into it. Obviously, its hard to look past your personal bias ;) The problem is it doesn't strike a lot of interest in the community because its a game about calculus. For that same reason I doubt the portals will take it.
So right now I'm in a stalemate waiting for more feedback so I can improve the game to a marketable quality.
Are you able to alter the them of the game based on the external files you mention? I have an education based project in which I might be able to make use of your game. Obviously, I would work with you to get the quality of gameplay, graphics and music to top quality should it turn out that the game has potential.
if I send 15 pomegranites to you through the mail will you design a website for me?
I'm assuming you meant 'are you able to alter the theme'.
Right now, the theme is calculus because you talk to Newton, Archimedes, Riemann and such, and the enemies are all calculus monsters. However, I could easily convert the game to any subject by switching out a few images and entering different text for the story/dialogue.
But, as I've said before, currently I'm waiting to determine its potential ;)
Right now, the theme is calculus because you talk to Newton, Archimedes, Riemann and such, and the enemies are all calculus monsters. However, I could easily convert the game to any subject by switching out a few images and entering different text for the story/dialogue.
But, as I've said before, currently I'm waiting to determine its potential ;)