Website Presentation

Your pitch is your website. Whether you are looking for a publisher or a distributor, the first thing they’ll see is your website. When you release your game your website will be the first thing a player interacts with. You must at all costs make the presentation of your website as simple and professional as possible, while maintaining the game’s atmosphere.

If your game is a horror game, the website should be dark and graphically run-down. If you have a puzzle game, the website should be bright and colorful.

No matter what the layout looks like it doesn’t matter if the visitor can’t find what they are looking for. Any page besides News, Forum, Screenshots (Media/Downloads), Purchase, Contact could be pointless. You want to keep things organized and clutterless. If your visitor cannot find what they want in 5 seconds your website layout sucks.

Experimenting

A step that’s always needed throughout game development is experimenting. You’ll never reach your final product on your first try. It’s all about testing variables to see how you can improve the gameplay. 

Well that’s what I was doing to this blog- experiementing with ads. After some feedback I’ve moved the ads around so they aren’t as intrusive as before, but still effective.

So understand the metaphor here?

SWL Podcast Episode 12

Here’s my latest podcast:

http://www.stuffwelike.com/podcast/swl-podcast12.mp3
Originally Recorded: 07/16/06
File Size: 24.5 megabytes
Length: 26:50 minutes
Hosts: David Rodriguez and Jon Carver
Edited by: David Rodriguez
Covered Stories:
The Divine Official Announcement
Morning’s Wrath 50% Off
Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 (Preview)
Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays
Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest Box Office

My Seaman are dividing

Don’t be a fool, don’t forget your roots.

Games have graphically come a long way since their birth but their gameplay mechanics haven’t changed completely. The Evolution of Gameplay is something that game designers need to know in order to further the history of events.

(Sorry playing Seaman right now…it’s a game…on the Dreamcast…really…)

Why do you need a Publisher?

Publishers are important in many respects, but that was back in the 90s when the government started to crack down on the game industry and dealing with retailers became a nightmare, right?

There are 3 things that a Publisher can do for you:

1) Make tons of copies of your game
2) Distribute those copies at retail outlets
3) Make your game known to the world

These are all very important things but since the dawn of the internet and digital distribution, you have a fighting chance if you go on your own. You have to be willing to spend the time to contact hundreds of people telling them about your game. This means that you’ll lose possibly months of development time on your next project unless you hire a third party.

If you don’t want to worry about all of this hand your game over to a Publisher. There’s no shame in it. As long as your game is good and creative it is likely that your Publisher will actually push your title more so than its other projects. That’s the worst part about a Publisher is that they have at least 50 on going projects at once so your game might not get the spotlight that you think it deserves. Oh and of course you’ll probably get a 60/40 cut, in favor of the publisher…