On Developers Submitting Games to TouchArcade

[arn]

Hi All,

The standard procedure for developers to submit their games to TouchArcade is simply emailing tips@toucharcade.com

We probably won't get back to you right away if at all, and I apologize for that. It's just that we're busy and we try to look at all games, but sometimes the queue is put on hold when things are busy (like major other announcements) since we can only review so many apps in a given time.

- Screenshots and videos are always helpful.
- We don't accept gift certificates for the games at this time.
- We don't accept ad-hoc distribution for games that are in the app store, but may for pre-release titles for review purposes.

Thanks,
arn

[Little White Bear Studios]

Hey Arn,

The tips@toucharcade.com address has had issues the two times I've tried to use it. Once several weeks ago, and once last week. Both times I used it, a few hours later, I'd get this sent back:

Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours
Connection refused by blakespot.com

I tried emailing with my business address, and from my personal address, each of which use entirely different mail servers. No idea if you ever got any of the messages. If you'd like the full text of the failure message, let me know. Thanks.

[arn]

yeah, the bouncing should be corrected. It was a problem with one of the email addresses that were in he distribution list. I should have gotten them all despite the bounces.

arn

[Little White Bear Studios]

Good to know. Thanks, arn.

[moopf]

arn, I just want to say a big thank you for providing touchArcade.com, reviewing games and generally doing a whole heap to help devs spread the word about their games.

I think we all really appreciate all the hard work you're putting in.

[anadin]

I completely agree - I have watched toucharcade since before the store was here and it has been invaluable and a fantastic example of this type of site, great focus, impartial, good community, we find it very useful and I for one am looking forward to participating more in the future. Can I suggest you make this thread or at least the first post a sticky?

[dudehuge]

I agree with what they're saying. :P

[mjjw]

Do you have any criteria for which apps you feature / review or is it just based on which Apps you guys enjoy playing the most?

[arn]

Do you have any criteria for which apps you feature / review or is it just based on which Apps you guys enjoy playing the most?

There's no hard and fast rule.

Here's how it goes.

- Big name apps, like Spore or Star Wars will obviously get reviewed due to the interest surrounding it. These will probably push off other reviews or games.
- We likely consider reviewing the more expensive games, even less well known because good or bad, the review can be helpful due to the cost.
- We tend to also get a lot of the smaller/cheaper unknown games, but unless we actually like them, are unlikely to write up a review for it. It's usually not worth pointing out a cheap/unknown app just to say we didn't like it.
- We also try to mix up genres. A puzzle game is going to be harder to get our attention because of the sheer number of them. Apps that are relatively new or alone in their genres tend to draw attention.
- Apps that have looked interesting in preview and we've covered we'll generally review.
- Developer submissions help narrow down apps a lot, and of course screenshots/videos help catch our eye too.
- Of course, we tend to notice those that participate in the forums. :)
- I really feel like we're a bit behind, in that it's been a busy week or two, so I'm very behind in the emailed submissions.


And Blake has a retro fetish in case you haven't noticed, so those will get covered. :)

arn

[Zincous]

Not listed, but I'm assuming standard procedure in that email would be to send the promo code for the game too?

[arn]

Not listed, but I'm assuming standard procedure in that email would be to send the promo code for the game too?

Sure, promo code helps. I put an effort to try every game we get a promo code for, but in practice, I get behind.

arn

[schooze]

Not listed, but I'm assuming standard procedure in that email would be to send the promo code for the game too?

Not to go off topic but is your game anything like Trism, when does it come out?

[brewstermax]

And Blake has a retro fetish in case you haven't noticed, so those will get covered. :)


Don't mess with the retro fetish. I love retro games. Best kind. Which is why emulators pwn 99% of the games on the App Store.

;)

[le'deuche123]

Don't mess with the retro fetish. I love retro games. Best kind. Which is why emulators pwn 99% of the games on the App Store.

;)

I've noticed this about blake myself:) but I also know that if Blake chimes in on a game, it's usually pretty good. I would have never found vector blaster were it not for him:D

[InsolentDreams]

I just got a bounce/error when sending in our tip... it is summarized as follows... please take a look at what's wrong, maybe this was only temporary or maybe you haven't received mail for awhile? :)

Let me know when its fixed, so I can send in our tip! ;)

----------------

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

pipe to |/usr/bin/php /home/toucharc/emailtoforum.php
generated by test@toucharcade.com
(ultimately generated from tips@toucharcade.com)

The following text was generated during the delivery attempt:

------ pipe to |/usr/bin/php /home/toucharc/emailtoforum.php
generated by test@toucharcade.com
(ultimately generated from tips@toucharcade.com) ------

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/apc.so' - /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/apc.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.9
Content-type: text/html

(then my message was omitted from here...)

[arn]

The error should be fixed, and it shouldn't have affected delivery for emails (which are sent to a few email addresses). But I didn't see one from "InsolentDreams" so feel free to re-email.

sorry
arn

[InsolentDreams]

The error should be fixed, and it shouldn't have affected delivery for emails (which are sent to a few email addresses). But I didn't see one from "InsolentDreams" so feel free to re-email.

sorry
arn

Just tried to re-send this "tip" in, our game comes out tomorrow... got this bounce...

----------

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

pipe to |/usr/bin/php /home/toucharc/emailtoforum.php
generated by test@toucharcade.com
(ultimately generated from tips@toucharcade.com)

The following text was generated during the delivery attempt:

------ pipe to |/usr/bin/php /home/toucharc/emailtoforum.php
generated by test@toucharcade.com
(ultimately generated from tips@toucharcade.com) ------

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/apc.so' - /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/apc.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.9
Content-type: text/html

INSERT INTO vb_thread
(title, lastpost, forumid, open, replycount, postusername, postuserid, lastposter, dateline, iconid, visible,
attach, similar)
VALUES
('Tips: Regarding our new iPhone app, iTrade...', 1241091835, 14, 1, 0, 'TouchArcade.com', 10868,
'TouchArcade.com', 1241091835, 0, 1, 0, ''): 1<P>
INSERT INTO vb_post
(threadid, parentid, title, username, userid, dateline, pagetext, allowsmilie, showsignature, ipaddress, iconid,
visible, attach)
VALUES
(10785, 0, 'Tips: Regarding our new iPhone app, iTrade...', 'TouchArcade.com', 10868, 1241091835, '--Apple-Mail-271-791616297
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed;
delsp=yes
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

And yes, this is about our new iPhone app iTrade (link in sig) and the pr brief is at http://nerdtrade.com/pr/

I am linking here because well, email clearly isn't working.

Cheers

[InsolentDreams]

If you want help testing and debugging this, I'd be glad to re-mail you anytime... email me at andrew [at] neonsurge [dot] com.

Cheers!

[arn]

If you want help testing and debugging this, I'd be glad to re-mail you anytime... email me at andrew [at] neonsurge [dot] com.

Cheers!

hah.... I was debugging it this afternoon. Last time, I'm pretty sure it's fixed. Please try again and let me know if not.

arn

[InsolentDreams]

hah.... I was debugging it this afternoon. Last time, I'm pretty sure it's fixed. Please try again and let me know if not.

arn

Great, seems I didn't get a bounce this time. I'll send in my tip now!

Thanks!

[deadweight]

May already know this, but if not it looks like the email may be bouncing again.

<x3822975@randymail-mx2.g.dreamhost.com> (expanded from <tips@a-13.net>): can't
create user output file. Command output: procmail: Quota exceeded while
writing
...etc...

[Hodapp]

May already know this, but if not it looks like the email may be bouncing again.

<x3822975@randymail-mx2.g.dreamhost.com> (expanded from <tips@a-13.net>): can't
create user output file. Command output: procmail: Quota exceeded while
writing
...etc...

Oops, that's my fault. Should be fixed.

[Gooncuct73]

Hey, on the message on the front page, It says, "Its Sunday and people are working on the brickfilms site." Its Monday now, so do you think you could edit that part out or something?

[pharmx]

Hey, on the message on the front page, It says, "Its Sunday and people are working on the brickfilms site." Its Monday now, so do you think you could edit that part out or something?

Actually it depends on which time zone you're in :p

As of this post it's 8:37 pm Sunday night here on the east coast.

[eripmav]

Hi Arn/TA Staff:)

I've tried emailing you a few times over the last month, but I've had no reply at all. Totally understand that you guys are busy as anything but I wondered if it'd speed up the process by asking directly on here?

Would you like to review Spooky Spirits: Puzzle Drop!! ? I'm more than happy to supply a code for review and a couple for a giveaway?

[Raven]

There's no hard and fast rule.
arn

Hi Arne you mentioned that for Puzzle games in particular there would be almost no way to get your attention, but I have a game thats a totally new concept of Music Puzzle and yes it's cheap but it's a totally new Genre where you work with your own music library. You actually work with your songs...

How do I get you to notice it?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/audio-puzzle/id341210579?mt=8

We spent a great deal of time looking for a relevant concept for the iphone and found some new stuff in the 3.0 options. We are the first to do stuff like this and even though we start small we have big ideas about how to grow from this concept. There have been some nice discussions about our app on the threads and the pointers we have gotten are all in development so I think if your a music lover like us you might enjoy the little cleverness in the app.

Would there be anyone special who cover music apps, that we might contact?

Any pointers on how to get noticed in the sea of apps?

[Deewin]

TouchArcade seems to be the the most, if not only notable iphone gaming preview website and there's none that I know out there that compare. How can you keep up with gaming previews if developers are exponentially increasing everyday and try to get in touch with you for exposure?

[HFoG]

Sending from my yahoo email account generated the following message:
Remote host said: 554 5.7.1 Filter Rule 16 - Global REJECT Filter Macro 11252

[arn]

Sending from my yahoo email account generated the following message:
Remote host said: 554 5.7.1 Filter Rule 16 - Global REJECT Filter Macro 11252

Can you forward the complete bounce message to arn@normalkid.com

thanks
arn

[xenonii]

I have tried from different email addresses for the last week. It's still rejected

"The error that the other server returned was: 554 554 5.7.1 Filter Rule 16 - Global REJECT Filter Macro 11252 (state 18)."

[Vetasoft]

I've try several time to contact TA about our games but we didn't have any feedback.

[NemoidStudio]

Hey,

We just tried to send an e-mail to tips@toucharcade.com but got an error message


Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

tips@toucharcade.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Message rejected. Please visit http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=168383 to review our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines.

----- Original message -----
[...]



Seems like a spamming issue, but it used to work so it may not only be a problem on my side.

The help from the Google link does not seem very relevant as I am not a Google Apps user (are you?) but from the bounce error message details I can read there may be something wrong with the SPF record of my domain name:


Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning xxxx@nemoid.net does not designate 174.37.161.41 as permitted sender) client-ip=174.37.161.41;


I'll try to make some adjustments on my DNS and try again but please let me know if you have any info on this problem and if you finally get our e-mail.

Thanks.


UPDATE
What I did is to add spamh.com as a ptr mechanism in my SPF record. Although I'm not sure I have to do such a thing it did the trick:

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of xxxx@nemoid.net designates 38.105.35.83 as permitted sender) client-ip=38.105.35.83;


BUT that did not help having our mail delivered. We still got the same error message. I don't know where to search now...

[som technology]

All right we'll send an email :)

[davidchris]

Hello all,

I am new to toucharcade but I must say that I am enjoying the community. Hope to learn new things here.

[layzerboy]

Hello all,

I am new to toucharcade but I must say that I am enjoying the community. Hope to learn new things here.

welcome :)

[TheGreatWhiteApe]

Thanks for the criteria, really interesting to read. I hadn't considered that price was considered but it makes sense. So many apps out there don't know how you guys keep up at all. Love to know how many submissions you guys get a day, is is dozens or hundreds?