Paying somebody to publish / promote your game - any advice?

Ninjadoodle

Hi guys

I'm in the process of rebooting my little game-making business. I've had a lot of downtime since Flash and Mochiads went downhill and recently decided how I'd like to proceed in the future.

Basically, I want to run a website for my own HTML5 games and monetise through sponsorships and advertising. I'm comfortable with this part of the business, and happy to be fully responsible for all the work that needs to be done.

I do however want to finally start putting some stuff on iOS and Android (a little late I know). I've made almost 40 games over the last few years, and I am looking at porting a bunch of them, as well as making new ones regularly.

To the point ...

I've been thinking, that it would be a good idea to find somebody with whom I could share the iOS and Android profits, if they were to do the distribution / promotion etc.

Obviously I would need to find a knowledgable, trustworthy person who can show me that they can in some way push the apps to make some sort of income.

Basically, I would make the games - they would do all the iOS and Android stuff, and we would split the profits.

At the peak of the Flash era, I've a pretty nice following, with good feedback and scores. I want to get back to having fun making games, but I don't have the time or knowledge, on how to market them on iOS and Android.

Here are a few links to some of my games (most made with Flash - looking to port some of them) ...

http://jayisgames.com/tag/clickplay
http://jayisgames.com/tag/binga
http://jayisgames.com/review/shurizzle.php
http://jayisgames.com/review/lightybulb.php
http://jayisgames.com/review/one-button-bob.php

Do you guys have any suggestions / thoughts on this?

Thank you for any feedback

Ninjadoodle

Hi guys

I had a look at http://fiverr.com, and it looks like people can promote / upload the game for you for an upfront payment.

Would you guys trust this service? Does anyone have any experience with it?

Thank again!

john26

Well there are several publishers out there, see here for a list

https://www.quora.com/I-have-an-awesome-iOS-game-which-game-publisher-should-I-work-with

I think Chillingo and GameLoft also publish games for others. These publishers will take a percentage of profits if they choose to publish your game(s). However, you may find it hard to get them to accept as they are likely to be very selective.

In the past some of us on the forum have been approached by LeTang Inc which is a Chinese publisher. I tried to get them to publish my game but they rejected it. As far as I can tell they are legit so worth a try.

http://www.letanginc.com/

With all these publishers you need to be careful not to get ripped off! You should never give them any money in advance and do your research. They should be paying you, normally as a share of sales.

Another good source of info is Touch Arcade forums where you will meet many game developers and they can tell you if a publisher is legit or not.

PM me if you want a Skype for a person who works at LeTang.

Ninjadoodle

Hi @john26

Thank you heaps for the detailed answer I really appreciate it!

I'm not really looking for a publisher, more like somebody to work with.

I really don't have the time to publish to different stores as well as doing decent promotion.

I would be happy to pay somebody upfront, if I knew they were experienced and willing to do a good job on the promotion / publishing process (they obviously cannot guarantee success).

There are a lot of individuals out there, that seem to have really good knowledge of how things work, best times to upload, which websites to contact etc.

I don't know any of this lol, and the more time I spend on this, the less time I have to make games

Paying somebody and still doing things under my own name would be my ideal situation