PocketMatrix

I'm in the middle of discussions with PocketGear now to determine what the issue is. With our Warlords titles due for release in Q3 I don't want to throw advertising dollars in the direction of PocketGear if the only sales seen are going to come out of Handango.

PocketGear's only reasoning thus far is that Handango requires personal info to do a demo download. My argument is that if the customer is going to purchase from Handango anyways, they will likely already have a Handango login and the entering of personal info is a moot point. Further, why download from a significantly slower source (PocketGear) only to inevitably purchase from Handango in the end.

It's the 'shady' issue that bothers me the most. Have any of you had any support calls from customers that purchased products from PocketGear (or any other retail channel for that matter) that was never reported as a sale?

Well, for me personally, I read some posts on here about how developers were having problems with PocketGear and so I decided that I wouldn't buy anything from them.

Before that though, and I guess still today, I go to look at "new releases" on pocketgear because they are right there and easy to see. If there is something interesting, I will download the demo from them because I am already there, and the download time seems fine... they are just a couple of mb at the most. If I want to purchase the game, then I will go to Handango and do a search on it in the pocketpc section. Handango just sux to find things in.

Also, does handango count trial downloads in the number downloaded like pocketgamer does?

Just my 2.5 cents.

I've never experienced support calls from anyone I couldn't verify was a valid purchaser (I ask for the purchase # when they eMail for support).

I'm not sure what "shady" issue you refer to. Could you elaborate?

Jeremie: Handango download totals include demo downloads as well as purchases. I do agree that searching for anything on Handango is painful - especially trying to find games with the billions of 'today screen' packs that on there.

Fzammetti: Please note that I'm not making any accusations here what-so-ever, its merely a concern. I expected some consistancy in the sales ratios between Handango and PocketGear - at least within a few percent of each other. When the diference becomes large it sends up a red flag in my mind - we're talking a nearly 20x difference (ie nearly 2000%).

To me that means one of two things. Either 1) PocketGear's sales reporting system is inaccurate, or 2) potential customers don't trust PocketGear with their payment information.

If #2 is the case, I have no issues with that - customers download demos from PocketGear and purchase elsewhere. Advertising dollars would be well spent on PocketGear in that case. If #1 were the case, which I highly doubt, well, I obviously wouldn't be happy.

At this point I'm guessing that people just 'trust' Handango more than PocketGear and make the bulk of their purchases there. With multiple Warlords titles due over the next 2 years I just want to feel comfortable with the retail channels we're using. I've had my share of less than reputable publishers in the desktop arena so I'm quite a bit more watchful of whats going on these days.

I had some support questions by email from people I couldn't verify, and they wouldn't verify. But I expect its just a random pirate, the really annoying kind that doesn't buy the software, but then still takes up your time looking for support.

Now if I had someone with an order number and all, and I couldn't find it I would certainly find what has happened, but none of this has happened to me. Anyone else?