Game Design Secrets

Distributing, Promoting, and Licensing Your Game

Unlike Facebook and iOS, where games are accessible from the same source, web games are distributed far and wide, stretching out your potential audience and making them hard to find. Fortunately, there are some solutions, which are covered in the following sections.

Distribute on Multiple Platforms and Make More Distribution Even Easier

Like many successful developers, Nitrome’s Annal recommends distributing your game on multiple platforms. “You want to spread your game as far as possible, which is actually easier than you would think,” he says. He recommends sites like Newgrounds and Kongregate to start, which will lead to smaller sites that will also embed your game. You should do what you can to encourage this kind of distribution. You shouldn’t just use this as a way to attract players, but to also drive gamers to install it on their own sites. “[A]dd a link into the game directing sites to a place they can get the game for their site, as this will increase the number of sites that take it further.” Annal also recommends Mochimedia and Flashgamedistribution.com as good places to start this distribution wave.

“[P]ersonally I think you can’t do better than direct contact for building a relationship with a games site,” says Matthew Annal.

But don’t stop there. “When we started out, ... I contacted over 100 sites in the beginning to see if there was any interest [in distribution]... you should contact as many people as possible, ...