Sell More Games

Banner ads are very popular. There is a lot of ad networks that let you advertise using banners. The problem is that banners are generaly not very effective (like almost all advertising). Depending on a banner and audience CTR may be as low as 0% and as high as few percent.

The good news is that you can maximize your advertising returns by testing your banner effectivess. All you need to do is to create 2-3 variations of your banner and check which one is the best. The problem is that most networks doesn’t let you test it and even if you run 2-3 ad campaigns one by one to check CTR you may get wrong results because conditions change. Your ad may get different response rate on weekdays, weekends, durign work hours and off hours.

That’s where Google AdWords come to play. Create 3 versions of same banner ad. Then create ad campaign targeted on sites. This is important, because when your ads are targetted on sites you pay per mille, not per click. You will get results faster and you will be able to check what audience has the site you advertise on. Pick 3-4 high volume traffic sites and set CPM to get high probability of displaying ad. Go to campaign settings and set:

• accelerated delivery method -> Show ads as quickly as possible - you want to get results as fast as possible,
• ad serving -> rotate: Show ads more evenly - this will let you pick up a winner sooner.

Invest $20 to $50 to receive about 30k impressions per veriation. You need a lot of impressions to make sure that your results are not accidentall. After you get requested amount of impressions go to Ad Variations tab and select a winner. You don’t need to advertise on Google AdWords any more (but you can). Take your best banner and put it to work in your favourite advertising network.

Try to make good banners, because sometimes it takes a lot of time for Google to approve your banners. I had to wait over 7 days to get my banners approved for one of my experiments.

Remember - all your banner ads should feature a call to action and offer a clear benefit to end users. Any web site that has a clear benefit to end users and actually delivers on that benefit will get positive advertising results.

Here’s another great study from EEDAR:

After examining 4,615 achievements incorporated in 124 retail and 63 downloadable game titles available for the Xbox 360 during the period November 1, 2005 through June 1, 2007, EEDAR found that in general that titles that have a higher volume of Accomplishments (EEDAR’s platform agnostic term) correlate with both a higher Metacritic Metascore and higher gross sales in the U.S.

The study, Accomplishments Unlocked 2007, also discovered that a number of developers aren’t necessarily making the best use of the achievements system. 29 percent of all Accomplishments were Completion Accomplishments, which is naturally the easiest type to develop and integrate into a game. Having a variety of Accomplishments is key, the research firm noted. “The results showed a strong connection between a game title’s diversity of Accomplishment types with that game’s profitability – pointing to the idea that the more diverse the Accomplishments available to the user, the more enjoyable the game, higher review scores, more units sold,” explained EEDAR.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every day StampOutPiracy reports hundreds of links to illegal pirated games that are hosted on file sharing accounts. StampOutPiracy also try and take down full warez sites/blogs and Ebay listings.

The idea behind the awareness week is not just to remove links but to educate people and inform them about game piracy.

Stop saying that you can’t fight piracy. Educate yourself. Educate others. Or just don’t approve it. That makes a difference.

The Facts

• By using pirate games you are basically stealing from the actual developer of the game. This is how they make their living. If you don’t pay for the game, then they don’t make any money.
• Game development takes time (sometimes years) and money. It is only right that developers get paid for their hard work.
• By using a pirated game you are not entitled to any technical support or updates for that product.
• Pirated games can often expose your computer to viruses, spyware and adware, to name a few. If your computer is infected then you only have yourself to blame.
• The bottom line is that pirating games is illegal and people do get caught!

Piracy: Why is it wrong? - An article by ELSPA to make consumers aware of the issues with piracy.

I will just quote one argument from that article:

By knowingly purchasing or downloading a counterfeit computer game you are running the risk of children having access to unsuitable material.

Does your game have downloadable content? Can your customers make new content for your game?

Games with downloadable content sell 114% more, says EEDAR. Research firm Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) have found that publishers have the potential to nearly double their profit on any given game through revenue generated by both purchasable and sponsored downloadable content. “…console storefronts represent a major opportunity to offset growing development costs and stabilize revenue momentum between major releases,” EEDAR stated.

After examining 180 downloadable games and 2,100 pieces of downloadable content for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, EEDAR found that Xbox 360 games offering downloadable content sell 129 percent more and PS3 games sell 16 percent more (Wii offers no extra downloadable content currently).

You can read the whole story here.

While EEDAR examined console games I am sure this can be applied to indie/casual games. My games don’t have downloadable content yet, but releasing a level pack for Runes of Avalon at least doubled my monthly income. Prof. Fizzwizzle has a lot of downloadable content and it is one of the best selling affiliate games on my site. Make sure your next game can have downloadable content. It’s one of the easiest ways to increase your revenues.

Cross-selling is one of the easiest way to maximize your revenue per order. Cross-selling is not only the easiest, it’s also effective technique. I started using this technique in August 2007 and I wish I have started using it earlier. Here are stats from www.ANAWIKI.com from August till mid November.

I created 7 cross-selling groups. I’ve selected suplementary games that are similar to primary item (the first one that visitor puts into the shopping cart). Here is the list of groups and their effectiveness:

Maggie X - 13.6% effectiveness.
Runes X - 0% effectiveness!
Maggie X - 14.3% effectiveness.
Runes and Path of Magic - Windows - 50% effectiveness.
Path of Magic and Runes of Avalon - Windows - 13.8% effectiveness.
Runes and Path of Magic - Linux - 90% effectiveness.
Path of Magic and Runes of Avalon - Mac - 14.81% effectiveness.

Thanks to this technique I made $577.92 more than I would without using it (before I started cross-selling I had only 1 or 2 orders with multiple products). The best thing about it is that I didn’t have to pay a penny for it to get this extra revunue.

Effectivenes depends on suplementary game. It is a great way to sell sequels or level packs. It doesn’t work if you sell game for kids with puzzle game (that’s why Rune X had 0% efficiency). It works better if primary game is more expensive than supplementary game (50% of Runes of Avalon ($19.99) customers ordered Path of Magic, but only 14% of Path of Magic ($9.99) customers ordered Runes of Avalon).

Now, while I was writing this article I found out that Runes of Avalon for Mac was set up with wrong cross-sell group (Runes X). That mistake probably cost me around $200. Remember, always test your sales machine. If it is not set the way you want it to be set you will most probably lose money.

If you live in one of EU countries you can double your game development budget. You need to send an application to MEDIA EACEA/17/07 program. First deadline passed on November 15th 2007, though there is second deadline on April 15th 2008. There’s plenty of time to prepare.

How does it work?

You need to send an application and if it wins, you get 50% of development budget refunded. 75% upfront and 25% after project completion. So you can either double your development budget or increase ROI.

I sent my application 2 days ago. It was one of the easiest applications that I’ve seen to gain EU funds. It has 26 pages, but most of them is filled with instructions on what to do or just an honorable declarations that you need to sign. But don’t be fouled. When I filled up and printed it all it weighted 730g! That’s because you need to send your project description in 3 copies and you need to attach proof of distribution of one of your games. In my case it was a publishing deal (13 pages).

The hardest part about it was creating a design documentation for upcoming game. You don’t want to spend to much time on it, because you don’t know if you win and you need to make it as great as possible, so you’re chances of winning are as high as possible. The problem is that you need to think about the game that you will want (and be able) to start developing in 6 months (that’s when you’re going to find out if you won). You don’t want to start unless you know that you received funding. Another problem is that you should include a lot of elements such as GUI concept, visuals or interaction description (and it takes time to create it good looking).

Each country has it’s own consulting agency and all papers localized. The agency was pretty helpful, though I was the first one that was applying for game development so in many cases they didn’t know what proofs or documents should I supply.

The whole thing looks very indie friendly. While you can’t be an individual (you need to be a registered company), there is a lot of restriction that don’t let big companies take part in this program.

You can have Google Analytics anabled and working great, but if your e-commerce service is located on 3rd party domain, then you lose a lot of important informations, such as referral site, visits to purchase, days to purchase, etc. If you use the trick described below you will be able to track all this useful informations. I made it to work with eSellerate, but I am sure it can be done with Plimus, BMT and other e-commerce providers.

First of all, all your buy now links have to call a script that will save Google Analytics cookies to database. To match visitors with cookies we will use visitor IP. The script that will set the cookies on e-commerce domain will delete database entry right after retrieving it. It is not a perfect solution, but it will work in 99.999% (how many orders do you expect placed within few seconds from the same IP?). So instaed of calling:

store.esellerate.net/s.asp?s=STR4587075495&Cmd=BUY&SKURefnum=SKU41198308198

you call

www.yourdamain.com/buy/mygame.php

Mygame.php has to include save_GA_cookies.php script and then redirect to real e-commerce address. save_GA_cookies.php script looks like this:

<?
// this script should be called before you redirect to e-commerce shopping cart
// it saves Google Analytics cookies to database along with User IP

// include your database engine
include(”db.php”)

$dbga = new clsDBAnawiki();$IP = $_ENV['REMOTE_ADDR'];

$utma = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utma']);
$utmb = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utmb']);
$utmc = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utmc']);
$utmx = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utmx']);
$utmz = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utmz']);
$utmv = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utmv']);
$utmk = mysql_escape_string($_COOKIE['__utmk']);

$dbga->query(”INSERT INTO an_ga_cookies(ga_ip, ga_utma, ga_utmb, ga_utmc, ga_utmx, ga_utmz, ga_utmv, ga_utmk) VALUES(’$IP’, ‘$utma’, ‘$utmb’, ‘$utmc’, ‘$utmx’, ‘$utmz’, ‘$utmv’, ‘$utmk’)”);
$dbga->close();

?>

Then you need to insert into your e-commerce html template following line:

<script TYPE=”text/javascript” src=”https://www.yourSSLdomain.com/buy/set_GA_cookies.php” mce_src=”https://www.yourSSLdomain.com/buy/set_GA_cookies.php”>
</script>

set_GA_cookies.php reads GA cookies from database and sets them on e-commerce domain via JavaScript. The problem is that you need a SSL domain address otherwise your shopping cart will show unsecure site message. The good news is that this domain doesn’t have to be on your server or your own domain, though you will need to tweak my code to make it work on 3rd party server.

Here is the code for set_GA_cookies.php:

<?
// script generates JavaScript code that sets Google Analytic cookies on eSellerate.net

// include your own database library
include(”db.php”);

$IP = $_ENV['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$db = new DB();

$db->query(”SELECT * FROM an_ga_cookies WHERE ga_ip=’$IP’ LIMIT 0, 1″);

$jscode = ”;
while ($db->next_record()) {
$utma = $db->f(’ga_utma’);
$utmb = $db->f(’ga_utmb’);
$utmc = $db->f(’ga_utmc’);
$utmx = $db->f(’ga_utmx’);
$utmz = $db->f(’ga_utmz’);
$utmv = $db->f(’ga_utmv’);
$utmk = $db->f(’ga_utmk’);
$id = $db->f(’ga_id’);

$jscode = “setCookie(’__utma’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utma).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;
$jscode .= “setCookie(’__utmb’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utmb).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;
$jscode .= “setCookie(’__utmc’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utmc).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;
$jscode .= “setCookie(’__utmx’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utmx).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;
$jscode .= “setCookie(’__utmz’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utmz).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;
$jscode .= “setCookie(’__utmv’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utmv).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;
$jscode .= “setCookie(’__utmk’, ‘”.htmlspecialchars($utmk).”‘, 30, ‘/’, ‘.esellerate.net’, false) \n”;

}

if (!empty($id)) $db->query(”DELETE FROM an_ga_cookies WHERE ga_id=$id”);

?>

function setCookie(name, value, expires, path, domain, secure){
document.cookie=name+’='+unescape(value||”)+
(expires?’;expires=’+new Date(+new Date()+expires*864e5).toGMTString():”)+
(path?’;path=’+path:”)+
(domain?’;domain=’+domain:”)+
(secure?’;secure’:”);
}
<? echo $jscode; ?>

That’s it. I used PHP, but you can use any other web language to do that. Commands are self-explanatory, so I am sure you’ll be fine. Just in case you don’t want to copy the code from this page you can download zipped scripts.

Last week I featured Tom’s Hen House and Maggie the Gardener 2 on MacZOT (Nov 3rd). I made it a bundle with retail price at $22.94 and the discounted price at $13.65. My bundle was featured for 24 hours and it managed to get 12 orders. Not much, but that 12 orders I didn’t have to pay to get them.

Besides 12 orderers I received 89 visitors from MacZOT (yes, you can link to your website) with 27% convertion to download ratio (though most of people downloaded the game directly via MacZOT download links).

MacZOT is a website that offers great Mac apps at great prices. We work with independent Mac developers to bring you special ZOT discounts on some of the best Mac applications available today. We have a new offer just about every day. The offer period is for 24 hours only (or as indicated on the time clock on the main page), during which time you can download and demo the featured product by clicking on the TRY button. If you decide to go for it, you simply return to the main page and click the BUY button. We use PayPal to process our payments, and it is very simple and quick. You do not need a PayPal account to purchase using PayPal.

MacZOT takes a fair share of the price (40-60%), but you can get all custumer emails if you need/want to (you need to send them serials or links to full version somehow). On most portals you earn much less than that.

I’ve spoken with Lisa Biskup from MacZOT to find out more about their service:

Probably only sold that many because the games are not well known already and because of that, not that many people downloaded them to try. Also, game bundles are good, if the games are well known, but maybe not so much if not.

The games that do the best are like Monopoly, Scrabble, Bejeweled 2, etc. when they are discounted down to about $10.95 or $11.95.

Anything that is $9.95 sells way more than $13.95. Our customers are definitely looking for a great deal. And they will buy it even if they don’t have a chance to try it because what’s $10.

Also, our audience likes games but we sell a lot more of productivity type apps, so apps that help people make more money or make their job easier. We only do games on the weekends for that reason.

I’d love it if you’d share your experience with macZOT. For some developers 12 in one day is a lot and for others it is nothing. We have had several 1000s sell in one day of bundles and of single apps over 1000 as well. It just really depends on how great the deal is and what the app is.

It is a good way to promote your app and we obviously like to make some too in order to keep our business alive. We can’t just run apps that will make us $50 per day.

Do you have a great Mac game? If so, contact me and contact MacZOT :)

Have you ever wondered how much time average customer needs to buy your game since downloading it? I wonder all the time, but now I have some statistics to show.

Days to purchase statistic:

Visits to purchase statistic:

As you can see most of purchases occur on day 0 (same day visitor entered my website) and within one visit on my website. It’s reasonable that people buy on day 0. They download, play, trial ends and if they like it they make impulse buy.

The problem is that they should need mostly 2 visits, not 1. First visit to download the game, second visit to purchase it. So what happend? There are 5 possible explanations:

• people downloaded your game elsewhere and visited your site only to purchase the game (game downloaded from portal, download sites, etc.)
• people downloaded the game from your site using different browser than the one they used to purchase the game (buy now button opens default browser, which may be different than the one your customer uses mostly)
• Google Analytics counts it as one visit because it happend within short time frame - by default GA is sets sessions to 30 minutes, if your trial is short or player buys before trial expires, then it might be true. Some of my games (Maggie, Path of Magic) have trials shorter than 30 minutes.
• your sales copy (game description) is so great, that people buy your game without downloading it :)
• cookies are off or deleted regularly

If you want to get more complete image about your website you need to know how well your site is converting. It was designed with a specific goal in mind, be it game download, game purchase or filling up newsletter form. Google Analytics can help you track goal conversion rate.

For a website dedicated to games I advise to setup two goals: game download and game purchase. Those two are the most important goals your site should be aimed for. You need to maximize number of downloads per visitor and your games should maximize number of purchases.

If your Google Analytics account is set up and working you can proceed to setup goals. Click Edit link in Settings column. In the second table you will be able to setup up to 4 goals. Click edit on G1.

You will need to enter goal information: Goal URL and Goal Name. URL is important. Google uses it to determine whether the goal was achieved or not. If you enter wrong URL, your goal will not be tracked. Goal name is not that important, but keep it meaningful.

If you want G1 to track downloads you can skip funnel section completely. If you track purchases you can enter URL of all steps that are necessairy to complete order, like enter billing informations, credit card data, etc. You will be able to check where people abondon purchase process.

In additional settings you can set 3 important parameters:
- case sensitive - check it if your URL is case sensitive
- match type - there are 3 options: exact match, head match and regular expression match
- goal value - if you know average CR for games on your site you can enter ie. $0.2 (1% CR and $20 games). You can set it to 0 if you plan to track orders in G2

Match type is the trickiest one. First of all, to make it work, you need a page your game is downloading that will redirect to a certain binary file. On this page you need to put Google Analytics code. And last but not least, if you want to track all downloads, you better put that page in subfolder download and choose regular expression match. Enter /download/ as Goal URL. Otherwise if you enter URL without or with www. one of this URL’s will not be tracked.

As I mentioned in one of my previous articles, tracking orders is not so easy. First of all, you need to put Google Analytics code on your invoice page. If you are using eSellerate, you are lucky. eSellerate is kind enough to setup this on request. I don’t know if other e-commerce providers can assist you with it, but their help would let you not only track number of transactions, but also order value and quantity of purchased products (and even more, like average order value, site conversion rate, revenue per medium, etc.).

If you want to track revenue per medium (referrals), then you need to do one more thing. You need to pass Google Analytics cookies to third-party domain, which is your e-commerce providers domain. Due to security restrictions, you cannot do it from your own domain. I use set of php scripts that redirect visitors to eSellerate shopping cart. If you don’t use such scripts, you better start using them. I modified those scripts to fetch Google Analytics cookies and save them into database along with visitor IP. Then, when shopping cart loads into browser, it calls another php script on my page that writes JavaScript code to setup cookies on eSellerate domain. It sound complicated, but it’s not that hard. In next article I’ll post PHP code that does it all.

Once you get some orders you’ll be able to see a lot of great informations about your website. But having information is just the beggining, what you do with it is the key to your success.