What do you all think the idea of a central website for selling adventure games?

Started by bx83, Mon 01/06/2020 13:35:41

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bx83

Space for images to use in these forums? You get some.
Page to display your game and lead to a sales domain or PayPal? You get these.
One central place for buying and selling upcoming and produced adventure games? All here.
Walk through? All the walk throughs.

Your thoughts?

Click'd

One word: Steam.

More words: Running such a site costs loadsamonies, and again, tons of people throw a fit if you suggest they go anywhere besides Steam.

bx83

True, but this would be for AGS games, and the small players who currently sell for $3 on itch.io

Joseph DiPerla

I had thought about doing this years ago.. But the costs and work to maintain such a site would be high. Such a site would require a lot of collaboration and a lot of money. A general hosting site would not work for this and there are tax and other legal considerations involved. I think Itch and Steam are the best way to go.
Joseph DiPerla--- http://www.adventurestockpile.com
Play my Star Wars MMORPG: http://sw-bfs.com
See my Fiverr page for translation and other services: https://www.fiverr.com/josephdiperla
Google Plus Adventure Community: https://plus.google.com/communities/116504865864458899575

Ali

Adventuregamers tried this: https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/28256 but it's not around any more. There also used to be an Adventure Shop, which is gone too. It's lovely to think of ways to support the adventure dev community, but I can't see what a niche site like this would offer that itch.io doesn't.

bx83

Okay, but the 'one stop selling site' isn't what I was thinking of (despite my poor choice of description); of course everyone goes to Steam, *my* adventure game will be on Steam.

But what if there was a way, outside AGS, to play demos, make comments, have games and developers profiles, etc with selling as an afterthought? Come have a look at my game xyz, check out screenshots and video, meet developers and read their profiles and what they've been up to, oh and also if you want it you can go to Steam or whatever.

The main drive of this idea is that:
1) people don't have webspace (and aren't web designers);
2) they need this to put their game on something, and space for images they'll use in the forum; so...
3) this site is that place.

And also it has links to Steam, PayPal, Itch, etc. if you so desire.

Money's not a concern; work's not a concern; tax isn't, because 'we' don't sell anything, PayPal etc. does; it's just a way to put your game somewhere and discuss/advertise/show it to others.
I mean, basically its the 'Games In Production' forum but an entire free website with no ads or subscription. (or, idk, $1/year for webspace)

Would anyone be interested in *this?* 'We' (basically me) could do what those sites Ali was talking about, minus the selling.

Danvzare

I like the idea. But I'm not sure if it would work, for the reasons others have listed.
For the record though, I'd be interested.

VampireWombat

The newer/better explained version of the idea definitely does sound better. I'd even say I'd be interested. Except that if/when I do actually try to sell games, they'll most likely be made in Unity and not be point and click adventure games. (Traitor, I know.) Maybe it could be for indie game makers in general? But still with a primary focus on Adventure games and AGS.


VampireWombat

Well, there should be some kind of expansion beyond just point and click adventure games made using AGS. Otherwise, what good would it do that these forums already do?

Joseph DiPerla

Part of the reason I originally created adventurestockpile.com and then scrapped it was for that very same reason you outlined in your revised description. AGS Archives even tried this to a less elaborate extent. The fact of the matter is that there is a lot involved to make it worth it.

For one thing, it may need to be more than just AGS based games. It would need to be adventure games related in general. The reason for this is because many developers are trying different engines to develop adventure games such as Wintermute, Visionaire, Bladecoder, Adventure Creator, AGE, Etc. Some even try creating their own variants using Unity, Godot, etc.. Then there are upcoming engines such as XAGE. AGS is still the engine of choice I think to make Adventure games. But Visionaire for some reason is not to far behind. Adventure Creator is probably the closest in regards to games developed now and may soon surpass AGS as far as games being actively developed at one time. I think the reason for this is not so much that AGS is outdated or lacking in features. Not at all. Crimson Wizard and team have done a tremendous job to enhance AGS. However, some people like the ability to make 2.5D or 3D games. Others prefer the easy portability of these other engines so that they can create games for mobile and console.

The other thing is hosting. This can become costly and time consuming which is what lead AGS archives to abandon it's great site. A site like this most likely will require a lot of bandwidth and a database hosting. Most hosts nowadays provide "unlimited" storage, bandwidth and database data. But I noticed that many have a fine print to these details. In other words, unlimited is not really unlimited. And while the databases may allow for unlimited data storage... they have restrictions too. For example, almost all hosts have a MySQL database restriction allowing for 20 connections at a time max. Once that max is reached, your website will throw an error. Then there are hosts that truly do offer "unlimited" such as hostdepartment.com, but after a while, if a site is too large and has too many visitors.. performance is greatly affected. What you would need is a VPS or dedicated server host to properly run a site like this. However, even if you find an inexpensive host, you will face restrictions in bandwidth and storage. In addition, if you would like cpanel and additional support, it gets even more costly. With a VPS or dedicated server you also need to do a lot of maintenance and need to have a lot of technical knowledge regarding using said servers unless you opt to pay an additional $20 for cpanel every month. You can also host reseller services, but that is also expensive and will not meet your requirements most likely. Any way you are looking at it... to host the site you are looking to host, you are looking at spending $150 to $300 minimum every month.

If you want my suggestion... start simple. Grab hosting from hostdepartment.com. The only reason I say this is because for $7 a month, you can get unlimited everything with very little to no fine print. You also get unlimited concurrent database connections which believe me is very important. You can start by being a simple AGS news and review site. Maybe have simple community based features. Host a Discord chat, etc.. Slowly move into non-AGS adventure stuff. All the while you can run adsense ads on your site to gain some revenue and when you get a decent user base you can even start using patreaon for subscription based payments to help fund better hosting. I would even do Youtube videos and gain some recognition that way.

All in all, it would take time and patience. But if you start off with less ambitious goals, eventually you can reach the big goal.
Joseph DiPerla--- http://www.adventurestockpile.com
Play my Star Wars MMORPG: http://sw-bfs.com
See my Fiverr page for translation and other services: https://www.fiverr.com/josephdiperla
Google Plus Adventure Community: https://plus.google.com/communities/116504865864458899575

Danvzare

Quote from: Click'd on Tue 02/06/2020 14:42:07
"Indie" is covered by itch, gamejolt, and the like.
Ok, so it's only going to have adventure games, no indie games in general. Brilliant. But... define adventure game.
You see, what VampireWombat said got me thinking about a recent discussion on this forum, which in turn brought me to this question. How will you ensure only adventure games go on, and what if your definition of an adventure game clashes with someone elses?


For example, Zork is definitely an adventure game, so is Monkey Island and Myst. But what about Dizzy? Dizzy seems like an adventure game to me, but others might just call it a platformer.
And that's just old games, what if we look to more modern games. A lot of hidden object games on Big Fish Games are very similar to Myst, but they're classified as hidden object games.
What about Telltale's The Walking Dead? Most people would call that an adventure game, and even I would call it that. But Telltale's The Walking Dead has a lot in common with visual novels, so are visual novels allowed? I can definitely see visual novels being put into the same group as adventure games, but others might disagree.

But what about the fact that Action Adventure has become the miscellaneous category for video games. Spider Man for the PS4 is an action adventure game, but I would never in my life consider it an adventure game. It's got more in common with platformers and beat-em-ups than the adventure genre.

Do you see the problem?
You're going to need a strict definition with some examples to back it up. And that won't be easy.  :-\

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