Ease game buying to customer

[Conan]

[Dan East]

[David Horn]

[Jinks]

[Peter Balogh]

Dan, you sound a bit harsh, but you're partly right about us not seeing the complete picture. It'd be very interesting to hear from eSoft, Scalene, others and You how much % of your Handango sales are coming from Basic and Premier channels? That's pretty easy to tell from the sales stats and could help decide this argument.

Even though I mainly see our stats, I have a lot of data from some of the successful devs too, that underline my theories. A good example is selling your software only through PocketGear and directing everyone there would land you with less than a third of sales than doing the same with Handango - even if you're nowhere near the top lists.

"You also have exclusive 'showcase' deals": You mean the paid advertisements we run on Handango? They're not at all exclusive to us, they offer the same for everyone. You can also get SOME free advertising from them when you release a new product, and that's all documented in the devs section there. But for the bigger part, we pay for the advertising. It's not cheap, but it's almost worth it

I'm not saying everyone will sell thousands of copies through Handango. It's a small market and you have to make good products and do good marketing. Handango won't do all your marketing for you, but they can take a big part in it.

Cheers,
Peter of PDAmill

[StephC]

[j.edwards]

[Birdiestyle]

Yes, Unfortunately for most developers, even ones that are making them considerable amounts of money, the Handango developer support is horrible to non-existant. Ive always gotten the impression that they cater exclusively to a select few of the "Power" developers, and ignore the rest of us. Even when we want to spend some money on advertising with them, they dont feel the need to have someone spend five minutes on email to explain what we want to know or dont understand from their generic PDF documents... This in turn makes it nearly impossible for others to climb up the ladder to actually get big enough to get help...

I also was told once upon a time, that some of the "power developers" get under the table breaks on commision rates and Ads, though I dont know if this is true or not anymore... I would guess it still is. (This might be similar information to what Dan is referring to).

Though Handango needs major improvement , their almost "monopoly" status and the fact that they are doing some things right and appear professional and trustworthy, does generate a TON of sales..

And YES, making it on the top ten lists helps a lot too!!

So, whether or not you like it, you pretty much have to list on Handango for your product to reach its potential sales (just don't direct your own sales to them, which then unfortunately wont help move you up the "lists", catch 22) ...

Now beyond that, I will not do any advertising thru them, or pay for any of the higher "we give you so much free advertising in return for your soul" programs... There are much better cost effective advertising solutions out there... Dont give up another 10%!!

So, Ill just sit and wait for the call directly from Handango that says, "You've made it! Come on down, you are now a 'power developer', welcome to the real game..."



Yeah, I pay for Tucows and Download.com!! What Gives??

[mlepage]

Handango ad is $15CPM. Let's say your game costs $10, so you make $7. You need 2 sales to almost break even.

Let's say 1% of people click on your ad, and of those interested people, 10% complete a purchase. That's one sale. You still don't break even.

Of course these numbers are sensitive to assumptions. If 2% click, you do break even. And so on.

Has anyone small tried these ads?

[Birdiestyle]

Weird, the same day I write this, I get an invite from Handango for the Gold program.. Of course for 10% more... Can't do it.... Thought this was my real "power developer" invitation coming.... guess not....

[mlepage]

You know, those Handango ads on the left, once you get into Pocket PC Games, when that category explodes, then quick links, then newsletter, then the ad...

I have a pretty big screen but I don't even see the newsletter let alone the ad, without scrolling.

You'd think if you're paying for an ad they could put it up a bit.

[Jinks]

[Peter Balogh]

[Conan]

[StephC]