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Is releasing two games together a problem?

A topic by Neurowocky created Oct 14, 2023 Views: 376 Replies: 12

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I'm all set to release my paid Oregon Trail / Mad Max game (Apocalypse Run!) next week, and I'm thinking of releasing a PC version of a web game I did a while back (Tesla8:My Balls of Steel) as a means of promoting it.

I shudder to use the word in-game ad, but in Tesla8 I've got it set so if you look at screen shot from "Apocalypse Run!" (you can exit right back out), you get a 35% xp boost for the rest of the session.

Anyway, I'm wondering:

Will In-game ads (promotions for my other games) cause issues?
Will releasing two games at the same time lower the visibility of one or both of them?

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Afloof.devModerator204 days ago

Hey there,

Will releasing two games at the same time lower the visibility of one or both of them?

I don’t think so. If they are your first games on this account, they might both go for admin review, so it might take a bit longer for things to appear in the search engine and such areas, but that’s about it.

Will In-game ads (promotions for my other games) cause issues?

I remember admins mentioning in the past that, putting ads in games is discouraged, but not against the rules. If you have to add ads, they should not provide a poor user experience.

Although from what I understand, you just mention one of your other games. I guess technically that’s an ad, but I’m pretty confident that shouldn’t cause any issues. I feel like it’s pretty normal to have a section in your game for who you are and what other projects you’ve made.

Cheers

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Neurowocky204 days ago

Thanks for the info!

I'm thinking about releasing the promo game "Tesla8" a little before hand, and releasing the new game "Apocalypse Run!" after Tesla's been indexed. Hopefully, that will speed up the indexing on the new game a little bit.

I have it in Tesla8 where I can switch the promo on and off, and point it at other games, update the screen shot, link to new store pages etc... so it feels like an in-game as system. But it doesn't annoy me when I'm testing it, so hopefully it won't annoy players either.

(It can't link to arbitrary websites, just steam, itchio, gog, and epic, so even if my server is hacked, it can't harm the player)

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redonihunter203 days ago

See here.

https://itch.io/docs/creators/quality-guidelines#avoid-obtrusive-advertisements-...

Self promotion is not what is discouraged there. Self promotion is basically expected from indie devs, I am not even sure, if it can be called ads. But advertisment in games nowadays often is associated with data grabbing, adware and other kinds of dubious things. Especially on mobile platforms.

If you do have server connections for your self promotion though, that might give some backlash. Someone with a firewall might complain and give bad reviews.

As for visibility, my gut tells me, that releasing them one after the other would increase visibility. But if you do link to the second game inside the first game, while the second game is not accessible, that might lead to confusion.

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Neurowocky203 days ago (1 edit)

Thanks for the link!

It downloads a 1k file each time it opens. And then adds a "boost" to the upgrade screen if it gets that data. If it doesn't download the boost simply doesn't appear.

The file contains information on what platforms the promo game is available on and links (relative to my server) of screen shots for the promo game. If the promo key has changed since the last time you played, or you don't have the images, it downloads those images and stores them in the appdata path (around 700KB)

When it shows the ad, there is a big button on the bottom "back to game" so you don't need to look at it for anytime at all. It has a store buttons for steam, itchio, gog, and epic that show if the game if available on each service (or coming soon, early access, etc...) you can click on to go to the store pages.

The level of the boost can be adjusted by the downloaded file, I have it set to 35%. The boost lasts until the user exits the game. I can disable or enable the promo at will by altering the file.

Here's what's in the downloaded file:

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redonihunter203 days ago(+1)

Offline games connecting to the internet and even download stuff are suspect to me. I do not trust major game companies to do that and consider it unexpected behaviour. This goes double, more like triple for indie games that phone home. You might even trigger false positives from anti malware systems for the download activity.

It basically is a launcher this way.

Now, of course, this is me speaking, and I do not know how common that behaviour for games or indie games really is. But I am old fashioned. I expect an app only to connect to the net, if I tell it to. Like me clicking on a promotional link and the cursor changing to indicate a link.

Privacy enthusiasts might accuse you of collecting ip adresses. And you can't prove a negative by denying it.

If you do that for every time the game is opened, that is like those buttons where you agree to send anonymous data, but without the check box to opt out.

Now that I think about it, I am curious, how common that is. I am more sensitive to the topic in the wake of that Unity engine discussions, as Unity does seem to phone home.

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hechelion203 days ago

I' totally agreed with redonihunter

This type of add, quite common on mobile devices, is considered bad practice in PC games.

A PC game shows me an add window and not only do I uninstall it, I ask for a refund, and I never trust that developer again.

Before adding this type of behavior to your game, it would be best if you looked for information on how many people might be bothered by it, so that you don't get the opposite effect, that is, people deciding not to trust your content.

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Neurowocky202 days ago

Even with a free game?

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hechelion202 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

Even more so if it is free, it makes me think that the game is a lazy port of a mobile game or that it has malware.

On PC, unlike the mobile market, there is no concept that a free game must include adds, and if an offline game asks for an internet connection for advertising, it is usually considered something bad by many people.

I don't have data to tell you what percentage of people are going to pass on your game or give you a bad rating, but it is something that I have seen a lot in PC games and I understand that your idea is precisely to promote yourself and not get a bad reputation. .

Edit: Something that I have seen and that doesn't seem to bother people is the home page of the game, usually the menu. Include link to the developer's social networks.

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redonihunter202 days ago

It has little to do with the cost of the game. But there is this saying, if the product is free, you are the product. So in a way, this type of behaviour for a free game would be even more suspicious.

As I said, I am old fashioned. But it sounds to me like an overly complicated method of promoting your new game with your old game. If I understand correctly, you plan on releasing a previous web game as a download game and giving people playing the old game a bonus for the gameplay, if they click on your promotion link. Wich would leave a sour taste in my mouth as a player.

And o=

Since you specifically make a promotional release of the old game, why can't the advertisment be static? And why has it to give a boost. Wait a minute. If reread, the players do not even have to visit the link, they only have to view a screenshot?! I do not really understand why this has to be dynamically implemented.

Would it not be easier to just tell it outright, like, this is xyz - promotional release, with big letters in menu pointing to the new game with links and planned release and informing the players, that they can sweeten the waiting time by playing your time tested old game? What will happen with your promotional hard coded phoning home in a year, when someone starts the old game?

You could consider giving a permantent boost for playing the promo version, what with having it clustered with references of your new game. After all, this download version will get downloaded and assuming your new game still exists in three years, you might still benefit from promoting it with the old game. But you will probably not maintain your little self jury rigged phoning home and downloading files (I did mention, that I do not trust indie devs to do such things, did I ;-)

Oh, and all this obviously depends on people knowing and being interested in your old web game in the first place. Those people would probably be interested in your new game anyways. So maybe a simpler solution might do.

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Neurowocky202 days ago

It's a bit of a hit or miss, but last I checked Tesla8 had over 340,000 game plays on Kongregate alone. On Kong it was tied into the old ad system, which was annoying as (expletive), so when I designed this new add system, I designed it to be as unannoying as possible.

But if you want to try it out and tell me what you think, that would be helpful:

https://www.neurowockygames.com/files/Tesla8_PC.zip

I didn't see any rules against posting links to game files (unless they contain malware) in the community rules, but If I've made a mistake, and should take it down, please let me know!

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redonihunter201 days ago

Oh, you can put ads in your game, even annoying ones. My concern is only the homebrew phoning home aspect you mentioned. Just as with AI art, there are people that will take issues with that, including downvoting your game and leaving bad comments or reviews.

Unless you have compelling reasons, maybe consider if a static promotion build would achieve your promotion goal just as well. You have a title screen and a short period between levels, more than enough time and space to put the promotion.

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Neurowocky201 days ago(+1)

I get you. When I first put the game out, I did get a number of bad reviews both from the in-game ads, and from the fact that webgl is kind of... inconstant.

But I do want to be able to promote any of my games from any of my games. I guess some people will freak out.

Anyway, I put an option in the menu that let's you turn off promotions(downloading them too), and I inform the user that that option exists when they hover-over the "boost" icon. And I still give them a set 10% boost if they opt-out, as opposed to 35% for looking at it.

The scary thing about Kongregate was that there were people down-voting any new game that looked decent with about 10 accounts. I think the prize money for their monthly contests was bringing out the worst in people.

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