Hey Guys, I am finishing up my first Shareware game ... an advanced version of a fairly popular freeware game I made last year AND I have some questions regarding handling online sales. First Off, I would like to find an eccommerce provider that would allow me to automate the whole operation ... since the full version of the game will only be 3-4 Megs I figure that the delivery method when purchasing the game should be by download. Anyone know of any providers that offer this option, but are reasonably priced for a small budget title. Also, I need to find a place(s) to host the Shareware files ... my current webhost gives me a whopping 4Gigs a month, which won''t cut it ... what I need is a stable place for the game from which I can have Download.com, Tucows, etc.... link to. Any suggestions? I''d appreciate any suggestions on where I should go to set up shop and where I should host my files. Thanks, Tim Yarosh www.lucidgames.net

Depending on how much cash you have to drop, the company I work for (LookAndFeel New Media) might be able to help. We have a unit of the company called NetSerious that specializes in designing, developing and hosting web sites for small businesses. They do Online Ecomm transactions and CC verification, plus a bunch of other cool stuff. If you''re interested send an email to info@netserious.com, and be sure and tell them Lonnie sent you.

http://www.netserious.com/
http://www.lookandfeel.com/

-WayfarerX

"If consquences dictate our course of action, it doesn''t matter what''s right, it''s only wrong if you get caught."
- Tool

Thanks for the suggestion WayfarerX ... but I am going to handle everything web-related other than the actual order processing ... and I need something cheap. I know and have used a series of merchant services such as 2CheckOut.com, but I would really like to find something more tailored for use in selling software online. DigitalRiver is there ... but out of my league at this point, I have a small $5-10 game and would like to find an Merchant service that can automatically direct customers once they have paid to a unique download site to get the game from. It seems I will probably end up just using a standard Merchant Service and manually direct customers as to where to get the full version ... though I still have the problem of finding somewhere to host the files......

Tim Yarosh
www.lucidgames.net

Reg.net
BMTmicro


Is that the kind of thing you''re looking for ?


Jonas Kyratzes - Progressive Design
Creator of Last Rose in a Desert Garden.
Now working on Horizon : Equal and Free.
"God is silent. Now if only man would shut up." - Woody Allen

There are a couple of ways to go about it.

Place to host the site.
* www.timehost.net
* Its $10 month, give you 50MB and unlimited traffic.

To sell the game
#1 Use ShareIt
http://www.shareit.com
* They handle the distribution of online full version software. They also handle the fiscal responsibilities.

Pros - Pretty much a turn key solution
Con - You pretty much have to cripple your software so that they are forced to download the fullversion from shareit.com

#2 Do it yourself
Use the following
* TrialMaster - http://www.geeworks.com/trialmaster/
This program is $100 and makes your software trialware and you have the ability to give out the code that unlocks it.
* IBill - http://www.ibill.com
Use this service to accept credit cards. They will mail you a check every month and they are willing to sell non-tangable products. So you could sell the code to unlock your software, or even sell a username and password to a protected directory on your website to download the full version. They include the code that you link to that checks the validity of the username and password.

Pros - Get to have control of the entire proccess.
Cons - More work

Give it some thought, they both have their pros and cons

I can host your game at my server. I can handle about 79GB of transfer per month. I''m currently using about 4% of that.

I''m working on an e-commerce solution for independant titles currently.

http://therabbithole.redback.inficad.com/teenpro/
soon to be www.teenproductions.com

I''m going with the burn and ship CDs solution where you want to just allow a download so it may not be for you. It''s also not going to be fully running until the middle of August.

Ben

How come you arent using Crystal interactive? I thought you worked for them?

http://www.positech.co.uk

Thanks,

You''ve given me some real good options to look over ...

Cliffski - I am a volunteer for Crystal Interactive, I designed and managed their website and handled the initial PR ... About using Crystal ... I think my game is more suited for Internet distribution (ie. I don''t think it''s retail worthy).

Tim Yarosh
www.lucidgames.net

I''ve had good luck working with DigiBuy:
http://www.digibuy.com

They''ll even handle download delivery, though they charge a minor amount for that. I don''t use that feature, so I don''t recall how much it costs.

Best of luck!


DavidRM
Samu Games