Anyone selling games on their own websites?

edited in Questions and Answers
Hi!

I'm new here. I'm developing my own game with my own game engine (using 3rd party libs: Ogre3d, Bullet Physics and OpenAL)

I was just wondering if anyone here is selling games on their own websites via paypal, etc. It seems like it could be risky (someone could hack the website and get your user account information).

Should I even consider this or should I just use Steam? (after I eventually finish my game).

PS. I've still got quite a bit of work to do on my game. I'll be sure to show you all when i think it's ready for a demo :)

Comments

  • edited
    This is entirely the wrong question to be asking right now ;)

    If you're still working on your game and you're not even sure if it's fun yet, contemplating how you're going to sell it isn't just a waste of time, it's actually harmful to you finishing the game: Falling in love with the idea of being rich by selling your game is going to put extra pressure on what is an already extremely hard thing to do, that pressure will make you hate your game if you perceive it as "not being good enough".

    The sad truth is that many games are pretty crap. We all make loads of shitty games before we manage to find one that's good (and then we carry on making other shitty games while we're looking for the next good one). You want to focus on making as many mistakes and short games as possible so that you can find a game concept that's awesome and fun and amazing. Then people will start throwing money at you. Once you hit that point - where people you don't know are telling you this thing you've made is cool - then you can start thinking about selling it. And, as an added bonus, you'll be able to properly consider all the different ways to market and monetize your game properly, because you'll know it intimately by that point.

    ... But, just in case you're annoyed that I haven't answered your question: We sell Desktop Dungeons pre-orders via PayPal on DesktopDungeons.net. It's working great. No, we're not worried about being hacked (no private info to store, don't store text passwords and don't store credit card details, regular backups all over the place, pretty good at web security and know what NOT to do). Yes, we've got a deal with Steam to sell the game when it's finished. Getting a Steam deal is extremely hard - the best way to get one is to make such a good game that millions of people will want to play it and a significant fraction will tell Steam that via Greenlight, or your game is so good that you win an award and gain Valve's attention that way. Both methods mean you need to build an awesome game first, so that's the only thing you should be trying to achieve right now :)
  • Thanks for that awesome info :) That is good advice.

    I just asked my question while I was thinking about the future but you're right - I will just focus on making my awesome game. I have actually got network LAN working at the moment (no client-side prediction yet though) and my friends and I have been testing it. I would put a link for a demo of it here now but I first need to get the library licenses in order.

    I guess I could say that I am in the alpha development stage at the moment so it will take a while before it's done.

    I might as well just show you what I'm doing :)

    I call it Cars vs Cubes (The name might change).
    It is a car - obstacle - coarse game with lots of cubes flying around. The main idea is that you have a car and you have to get somewhere in a city by ramping across rooftops (using ramps) while big guns shoot cubes at you. It's all simulated by the Bullet Physics Engine. I found that when I started working on some multiplayer game modes, I had way more fun because i could test it with my friends and the only multiplayer game mode i have right now is tag!

    Anyway, here's a screenshot just to let you know this game exists :)

    image

    That's just the arena where we played tag. It's not detailed graphically yet. it's just the basic layout. I will be creating many more game modes and levels in the months to come and I hope lots of people will like it. Also it will support 4-player split screen on your pc. I find it sad how few pc games do this :)
    CarsVsCubes.jpg
    1166 x 822 - 102K
    Thanked by 1TheFuntastic
  • Any chance you could put up a video of the game in action?
  • Are you having issues with syncing physics states across the network? I don't remember Bullet being deterministic.
  • @kurtkz
    I'd like to put up a video but I don't have uncapped internet and not enough bandwidth right now for it, but when I visit a friend who does I'll use his :)

    @dislekcia
    I know bullet isn't deterministic but there are ways to make it so apparently. But right now I am just sending the clients' inputs to the server and the server is returning the positions. The clients are "dumb terminals". That's why you can only really play it over a normal LAN. Playing it over the internet is horrific.

    I have a huge amount of work ahead of me but I don't mind. It's my fun little hobby :)
  • Ooooh. I hope there's a little bit of "4D Stunts" in there. Ramping around silly difficult courses (and building one's own courses) can be super cool.

    Good luck with working with all those libraries. I know that can be really difficult, and although you've probably made up your mind already about them, I've got to suggest looking into something like Unity.
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Thanks :)

    I actually began work on this game about 6 years ago. Back then I had never heard about Unity, UDK didn't exist and I don't think the CryEngine existed either. I started out with GameMaker and made about 10 small short games. I then decided I was going to make a 3D game with the Irrlicht engine and started to learn C++ (I moved to OGRE a little later). I guess you could say I'm pretty determined because I've practically created a game engine with an editor 'n all. I'm already this far so I will continue to work on it this way. I also know that OGRE will be getting DirectX 11 support soon :D
  • Man that screenshot brought back some nostalgia. It looks like a shiny Stunts 4D or Revolt :) Looking forward to more!
  • There will be more...eventually. When I have it working with some actual fun game modes :)
  • Looks / sounds fun.

    I used to work with Ogre and various other middleware libraries as well (Newton, RakNET, FMOD, OpenAL, Bullet etc), but now work mainly with Unity3D for my game pet projects (though the only real benefit I've found is the easy multi-platform support). Getting multiplayer physics working is irksome, a friend of mine is busy trying to get it done.

    Why not upload a demo?
  • Just to answer your main question briefly, yes, we sell RooksKeep from our own site now. I'm not sure if it counts though, coz it's the Humble store widget ;)
  • Another reason I originally started this thread was because I was learning web programming and was interested to know how to create a shop type website and all that jazz :)

    Anyway, I'd love to get a demo out but I recently got what I was studying for - a new full time job as a web developer and I find that I now have no free time to work on the game. It's really sad. I will finish a demo at some point. Currently, it's unplayable after some recent changes with implementing a GUI - haven't had the time to fix it.

    It just means that everything is now going to go a LOT slower than before (when I was at college and had a bit more free time, especially holidays) to work on it. I only really work on it every 3rd Sunday or so now.

    So to sum up: it's going to take a long time...
  • That's sad to hear : (

    I hope you do manage to make progress, and even if things are a bit rough I'm sure it's worth posting here (we are a community of game developers, we understand when early stage production doesn't signify the quality of the final product).

    Although I do wish you luck, I am a bit concerned that you're doing game development on hard mode (using Ogre, Bullet Physics etc) and part time at that.

    Have a look at something like 7DFPS http://7dfps.com/ These are 3D games, many with multiplayer, all made in a week. Almost all the ones that got to the point of finished-ish products were in UDK or Unity. (Though there was a cool one I saw done in XNA)
    Thanked by 1hanli
  • edited
    I love that: "Hard mode" :D
    I seem to have a habit of doing things that way. I like that finer degree of control you have when doing things yourself.

    Anyway...

    GAMEPLAY VIDEO!!

    ...or rather "Engine Tech Demo".

    See here: http://makegamessa.com/discussion/1003/my-game-tech-temo
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