Will Greystripe only deal with 'Publishers'?

[Adam Schmelzle]

I PM'd ya a direct contact at Gresytripe. Make sure to mention the problems with registration, as I'm sure he'd like to know.

[chrisl]

BTW Adam, did you set up a company for your game business, or are you dealing with Greystripe and other portals as an author? Could not having a proper company be a serious issue when dealing with them? (for contracts, payments, etc.)

[Adam Schmelzle]

So far I have no problems with just being myself. I keep debating registering a company, but I haven't had any trouble yet. I think if I cared more about getting large publishers to notice me, than I'd have to use a company name. As it is, I am approved for the Apple App store, and Greystripe has no troubles with sending me money

[chrisl]

Good to hear!

[sonique]

I was wondering if anyone found an aggregate through which to publish games. Referring to the speculative instance, discussed earlier in this thread, which would submit games from many indie publishers to all the adsites..

[Adam Schmelzle]

I still don't know of any. So far my experience is that the only adsite worth our time is Greystripe though. When there is reasonable competition, I think we may see this type of service offered by somebody.

[chrisl]

Hi,
Your games are everywhere in the latest Greystripe report!
mobilegames.blogs.com/mobile_games_blog/2008/10/greystripe-octo.html
Well done!
(I don't know if you automatically receive these reports as a Greystripe partner and if you find them useful)

[chrisl]

Also I was surprised to see specific hansets with such a big market share amongst Greystripe customers, like the Samsung SGH-E250, which is not that far behind the iPhone.
And no Nokia in the Top 5, probably because the cheaper ones don't run games very well?

[Adam Schmelzle]

You'd think they'd forward stuff like that to us. They don't however send me anything about these reports, even though I've got 7 of the top 20 earning games in their system.

I hunt around their 'Media Center' page: www.vscconsulting.com/dev/mediacenter.php?clientid=27, and found the report last week. It was cool to see that 'Origami Rose' was in their top-3 for the iPhone. Sucks that there's no money coming in right now though I've had over 1,000,000 games played of 'Origami Rose' on the iPhone, but only made roughly $700.00 . That report actually incorrectly lists 'Origami Daisy' instead of 'Rose' for the iPhone.

Right now, I can't even cover living expenses

[chrisl]

There must be something fundamentally flawed in their current business if a Top 3 game doesn't bring more cash: what is their answer to this (big!) issue?
What is the point of expanding the audience if advertising revenue doesn't grow at the same time?
Do you currently earn more with your Java games?

[Adam Schmelzle]

My java games bring in slightly more money, but only because they show more ads per play. On the iPhone I was only showing 1 ad per play, but have now switched it to 2. On java, people will see 3 at start, and 2 on exit.

Yeah, it really sucks. In June/July/August I was making 10X as much money as I am now, and I've DOUBLED my inventory since then. If somebody had asked me in July how much money I'd be making in October, I'd have said 'enough to retire'. Now it's more like 'enough for a tire'

[Adam Schmelzle]

As things are now, each day I check my revenue reports and worry more that I'll have to get a 'real job'. That scares me. I'm not built for cubicle hell...

[chrisl]

I could not agree more: at the moment, I'm desperate to escape cubicle hell!

Hopefully this is just a temporary situation, a strange conjectural distortion between the mobile audience explosion and the excessive caution of companies with advertising budget to spend.
Maybe the situation will improve during the weeks before Xmas?

[Adam Schmelzle]

I hope so... Making 1/20th the amount of money per impression is scary. 2.5 years worth of work is suddenly worth nothing.

[chrisl]

Are Greystripe silent on the issue, or do they talk to you about it?
Mobile advertising is supposed to be booming after all.
I guess they must have developers and publishers, big and small, banging at their door for explanations and insights into future perspectives...

[Adam Schmelzle]

I've talked with them a few times about the issue. They keep reassuring me that things will get better, but not by how much. I guess in November there'll be a new update to the software that will enable new features that they think will be helpful, as well as hopefully some of their regular advertisers putting more money in around the same time.

I am holding out hope for this update, but if there isn't a big enough increase in revenue by the end of November, I'll start to seriously look for a better source of income

[Adam Schmelzle]

Lately I get the feeling that they are understaffed and overwhelmed. Problems can take a long time to be fixed, and they often don't acknowledge/follow up on issues. For example, 'Origami Daisy' has been out for over a week now, but I still can't check it in the reporting system.

[xdan]

Jun 23, 2008 15:51:57 GMT -5 chrisl said:

vlad, xdan and other readers:
What is you own experience with Greystripe or other aggregators?
Adam really is a star author for them so it would be also interesting to learn from indies who initiated contacts more recently...

Sorry I'm bit late replying - I've given up on mobile games for now.

My experience has been uniformly bad.

However, that is probably just a reflection of the quality of the *single* game I had to show them.

Grey Stripe - No reply, despite emailing several times.
Mobilerated/kalador - as above.

Hovr - these initially seemed promising, they actually contacted *me* after I posted a rant about Grey Stripe on my webblog (they must check their referers, ha). I sent them a copy of the game, they got me to sign a contract etc... And only after all that did they reject me with the comment "Our game review team has gone over the game and unfortunately decided to pass on the game in its current state. However, with improved graphics and gameplay we will be happy to reconsider it for inclusion in the Hovr catalog."

So ya. Certainly Hovr were the only ones that even bothered to communicate with me; I don't know if the other ones just thought my game was rubbish too, or simply ignored the email.

I might at some point try AdMob - it seems you can use them in a java app. Signing up for their system was no problem. But of course, they're not a portal. (maybe there's a place for some sort of free-for-all indie portal, using admob?? it's something I might look into if I ever have the time!)

So, meh and commiserations on your decreased revenue Adam

[Adam Schmelzle]

That sucks.

My friend Darryl that did most of the grunt work on 'Water Stealers' and 'Water Stealers 2' as well as half the work on 'Attack Brain' can't get any replies out of Greystripe either. He's been trying to sign up as a publisher with them for a while now.

Not passing Hovr's QA guys doesn't surprise me. They failed both 'Origami Rose' AND 'Attack Breaker Pro', which are of course d**n near 100% compatible. It turned out that their guys were doing something wrong, and after much e-mailing back and forth, those games finally got released. I tried sending another game to them, but can't even get replies anymore. I also doubt I'll ever be paid what they owe me.

There was a point last year when I completely gave up on mobilerated / Kalador, 'cause I couldn't get them to reply to my emails for 6+months. Strangely things got better early this year, but I don't know why as it's still the same guy that I am dealing with.

I can't really understand why any of the above companies would reject a game though, unless it's terribly incompatible. All of those guys have some total crap in their catalogs, but it doesn't really hurt them 'cause they always settle at the bottom of the heap anyway. You got a demo of your game you're willing to share? I wouldn't mind trying it out on an emulator or device.

Getjar.com is a site that will put anything and everything up for download. They don't have any kind of advertising system, but I've uploaded my AdWrapp'd games there in the past without much hassle. If you just want exposure, getjar.com can be a good start. The first place I had '3D Attack Chopper' available was on getjar.

[xdan]

I'll have a look at GetJar sometime. Cheers.

You can get my game here. It is very simple and silly, so I wasn't expecting any great success. But it's still annoying not even to get a chance.

[Adam Schmelzle]

I like it!

If you had a 'quit' button and an option to exit from the start screen it would likely not be rejected by Greystripe. Also, you could always integrate some online high-scores to get people challenging for the lead. This type of game screams to be 'gimme an online score board'.

I really like the play mechanics. I also find this much more enjoyable than the 3D behind-the-rabbit version I played on the PC. I don't see why anybody would accept 'Paper Airplane' over this, as they both are a quick play, with minimalistic graphics. I like this even better, and 'Paper Airplane' does quite well through Greystripe.

Maybe we should team up and release this through my account in Greystripe's system. there's virtually no money in it at the moment, but it'll give you a good idea of how much people like the game play. Maybe we could integrate my online scoring system (wouldn't be too hard).

[Adam Schmelzle]

Also, I tried to post a comment on the download site, but don't see a captcha image. So I couldn't enter the code in the 'human test' box.

I scored a 434 on my first try!

[xdan]

Is a quit button as simple as adding a Command.EXIT and calling notifyDestroyed() ?

I've tried to download some games from gamejump to see how it's normally done, but none of them seem to work on my old phone (even ones that are claimed to be compatible fail with some sort of "file size too big" message...). And the Java ME emulator seems unable to fetch the ads, so they won't play there either.

So ya, I would indeed be interested in giving it a go on grey stripe! Perhaps with high scores too, although they would have to be yours, I don't feel up for writing my own for potentially only one game...

I don't know what's up with that captcha, it seems to be working now.

[Adam Schmelzle]

I'll provide you with some source code, it shouldn't be too hard to integrate the scoring system with your game. I can provide some example code to send/receive the scores. It's s 3 step process...

1) retrieve a unique userId from the server
2) create the proper CRC for your score
3) send the score to the server with the CRC. This also retrieves the scores as a result.

I've got a class for making the CRC, so that's easy. Retrieving the ID and scores uses just a simple http request. You'll need to decide how you want the scores displayed, which will likely be more work than retrieving them.

Send me an e-mail if you want the code, and I'll reply with everything you need. I can't imagine it taking more than a few hours to add high scores.

[xdan]

That would be great! Your email is hidden, so could you mail me? (removed)

Thanks

[Adam Schmelzle]

I've e-mailed you some code, as well as removed your e-mail from that post so you don't get bot-spammed.

[mieciok]

First of all, I'd like to say hello, as it is my first post in this forum.

After reading all posts here about all this problems in even making a contact with a company like Greystripe or Hovr I must say that I am terrified. I recently decided to make some mobile games and thought that ad-supported distribution model would be great to earn some money with them. But now, I really don't know...

However, I will try, and here comes my question to You Adam, or anybody else on this forum.
I have already finished my first serious game, and made a little website with informations about it:
rubbercube.pl/en
Now I am wandering whether it is good enough to show it to greystripe. Or maybe I should make another one or two, and then contact with them ?

I am quite lost... please, help.

[Adam Schmelzle]

That game looks really cool! Have you tested it on any devices, and if so which do you expect it to be compatible with? I can't imagine anyone turning that down, as long as it runs on real devices.

It shouldn't take much effort on your part to get the game out through sites Hovr, Greystripe, Mobilerated... As long as they actually respond to your inquiries. I'm sure the ad revenue will pick up again eventually with Greystripe, so I say you should at least give it a try.

[mieciok]

I have tested it on some, I am sure that it will work on any sony ericsson, nokia, siemens device that supports midp2.0 (have tested it on many of them) and have at least 100 points in JBenchmark 2.0.

In theory it should work on every midp2.0 device with at least that score, beacause it is resolution independent, and implements proper behavior in some cases when a device doesn't follow exactly midp 2.0 specification(I was suprised how many devices "midp 2.0 compatible" are really "almost compatible"). But it is still theory, because I was able to find only few motorola phones.

I think that I will give it a try, as You advised. Maybe somebody will respond, who knows ?

Oh, by the way : while I was looking at a sing up form for graystripe I found some fields like company name, or my title. Hm... what should I write there while I am only a freelance programmer ? Any advice ?

[Adam Schmelzle]

I'd just fill in your name for the company. Back when I signed up, they didn't even have a form, but that's what I'd do. Every company I've ever dealt with has been fine with me using my name in place of the 'company'. This is also legal in most countries as far as I know, because an individual automatically counts as a sole proprietorship if you use your legal name. It is in Canada at least.