A lot of review sites offer a sped up review process if you pay a small fee. Since getting sites to review our games has been like pulling teeth, I'm wondering if anyone on here has used the paid review process. If so, which sites are the best ones to do this with? Thanks!
Don't pay for a review, you may as well buy an ad. Chances are that you won't make your money back either way. Your money would be put to better use by buying a gift card and using it as a prize to promote your game. A $15 card is all you need. Furthermore, WHY ISN'T YOUR GAME IN YOUR SIG?
Don't pay for reviews. Don't offer to pay for reviews. Seriously. An illustrative story: http://theportablegamer.com/2009/12/editorial-app-reviewed/
Thanks for the feedback guys. I was just curious because several sites I contacted with a free promo code wrote back (several weeks after the code expired) saying they were sorry to take so long but they'd review the game for $35. Seems kind of lame to me, but you gotta do what you gotta do! I assumed it was a bad idea, and this kind of confirms it. P.S. I've been thinking of getting my game in my sig. I should definitely do that!
$35? You'd go broke, I promise. Don't send promo codes blindly- if they respond then send the promo code. I don't give a rat's ass what any single sites policy is, DO NOT send a promo code blindly. You'd be better off using it in a promotion.
Agreed with the other posters. There's no true profit to be found in most reviews. Your "payment" should be none other than a promo code, and only when they ask you for it. Just to do quick math: let's say you spend $35 for a site to review a $1 game. And let's assume the review is good. How many folks, who otherwise would not buy the game, would buy it thanks to the review? 70 cents income per sale = 50 copies sold to break even %1 buy-thru rate means 5000 review readers %5 but-thru rate means 1000 review readers And those numbers are, honestly, super idealistic. The best scenario I have had happen was when I paid $20 for a Xeno Sola ad on a popular board game news site. While the ad didn't pay for itself, it did catch the attention of one of their reviewers. He asked for a promo and his kind review netted me probably $50 new income.... nice, but obviously not impressive and not likely to happen often.
But $300 seemed like a reasonable offer. Just kidding! I agree with the sentiment that paying for an "expedite review" fee isn't worth it. It seems that there are really only a few sites that really have enough traffic anyways, so many of those sites asking for fees won't even reach a lot of people.
I'd have to aggree. My new game was approved last week and I sent out ~30 promo codes to review sites on Friday - so far only 9 have been redeemed I also got a half-dozen or so requests for review copies and out of those a few strongly recommended that paying for a review was best, and one only offered paid "reviews" (WTF?). That lead me to write this (timely) tweet earlier today: http://twitter.com/ChaoticBox/status/6501853629 I'm not against review sites making money, and I don't mind if they point out their advertising rates when replying to my review request, but asking to be paid to to write a review or for "priority" is just sleazy.
I agree with this. It seems like a true review site should review the games their customers would like the most, not those of developers willing to pay. I just have had such little interest from sites reviewing my games that I was willing to try, but I think I'll just keep on trying without paying for reviews. Thanks guys!
Sounds like a scam to me. I've just been reading about the shenanigans that zynga has admitted to. And now they're estimated to be worth $1 billion.
Actually that's not a bad way to promote yourself at this point. I don't think we have a review through Touchaholics, do we? WHY IS THAT? I actually have a nice short list of reviewers that I like. I don't like them because they gave us glorifying perfect reviews (some were 4/5), I like them because they are honest and hard working. And from that, I was able to improve Flickitty. I can't promise that they will review all games that come their way, but they are great people and they do their work for free (well, a promo code). In fact, enuhski just released a newsletter for Under the Radar. http://enuhskigamesiphone.blogspot.com/. That site is great for games that you may not have heard of.
Being a reviewer and member of GotOATS I know well enough what goes on and why these sites are getting willing developers. We get heaps and heaps of review requests daily and with a team of 4-5 on each site I write for we find it impossible to review or look at everything that comes our way. The thing is that we in the end will look at what our readers want to see the most, the bigger more popular games. This is bad news for Indie devs who will very rarely get anything out of a bigger site. Now there are three paths I see that they can go down. 1. Advertising with these sites or by yourself and hope to get noticed by consumers and sites alike. 2. Contact smaller sites and YouTube channels who don't get that many games and will actually review your title. 3. Contact these supposed big sites but be forced to pay money to get a review out or expressed. This last one is what many people resort to trying to get their game known by as many people as possible. The OATS members look down on these sites because they are really just taking advantage of struggling devs and it is unethical. If you want people to know about your game a combination of 1 & 2 may work, but you will find plenty of small sites happy to look at your game if you provide them with a promo code.
It is bad news for indies... I got the "thanks but no thanks" email from a couple sites that spontaneously reviewed my previous game. Now they're too good for me (at least they took the time to reply). Honestly I can't agree with the "bigger more popular" approach. I'm not saying you or your affiliated sites do this, but there are plenty of sites that just regurgitate praise for top 100 apps in hopes of cashing in with affiliate links. Endless Gameloft/EA reviews are an instant red flag. As a reader of several review sites I am far more likely to click on articles about relatively unknown games - if I want to know what's popular I can just load up the App Store.
But how can you not cover the big releases on the App Store? We post about almost every big game because people want to read about them. It just so happens that every EA and Gameloft game falls well within those bounds, with every release thread instantly spawning pages upon pages of responses. How could we responsibly ignore a release like HAWX?
Granted, you guys (especially) can't. But even you guys manage to squeeze in mentions of other lesser known games, even if it's an aggregate post. TA is more of a news site though - the occasional brief reviews are nice but that's not why I subscribe to your RSS feeds... I'm sure gonna dig myself a deeper hole with this but only posting about games that "seem to be getting traction" is just reactionary - oh look this game is popular! we can talk about it now! It'd be nice to see more sites posting news/reviews about the games they like, and not just about games other people seem to like. (Ya I realize those are often the same games, but I'm trying to make a point here).
Would your dick suddenly fall off if you DID ignore HAWX? Do you really get a boner over every single EA and Gameloft game that comes about? That must be exhausting. I don't respect TA nor its reviewers because I don't think they review nor post about apps that THEY care about. I really, seriously and honestly want to know what TA likes. I don't think they like most of the apps they promote, and that is unfortunate. In the last 2 days, do you know what excited me? Dragons Lair. I've wanted that game for 25+ years and now I have it. Yeah, it happens to be popular, it happens to be in the Top 100. HAWX can go screw itelf, it isn't shit compared the legacy that is Dragons Lair.
Would your dick suddenly fall off if you DID ignore HAWX? Do you really get a boner over every single EA and Gameloft game that comes about? That must be exhausting. I don't respect TA nor its reviewers because I don't think they review nor post about apps that THEY care about. I really, seriously and honestly want to know what TA likes. I don't think they like most of the apps they promote, and that is unfortunate. In the last 2 days, do you know what excited me? Dragons Lair. I've wanted that game for 25+ years and now I have it. Yeah, it happens to be popular, it happens to be in the Top 100, and it happened to be on the TA front page. HAWX can go screw itelf, it isn't shit compared the legacy that is Dragons Lair. And I agree with this post. So basically TA is nothing but a regurgitation mastubatory machine. Is it really that hard to find the POPULAR things and comment about them? No. Are you showing us anything new? No. Is it okay to talk about popular games? Yes, but it isn't a requirement. Esentially TA is no better than a site that requests payment for reviews. The big names ARE paying you, in hits, in ads, and in forum posts.
In my opinion, TA covers what they feel are important releases. If its a an unknown app but its awesome (like hoggy for instance) then its worth covering. Big name apps are worth covering because people want to know about them. TA could have switched over to a "majors only" site probably awhile ago, but they are still covering many indie apps if they think they are good. I think they've done a nice job with balancing, and aren't afraid to say if they don't like something. (Even if its Gameloft)
Probably not, but I'd have come here earlier today, gone "WTF where's HAWX?", and then shot off to a competing website.
Firstly, I don't see why the conversation needs to be taken to the gutter. But I'll just take it as face value as you wanting to express yourself that much more, and not take offence. BUT, I do take offence at the implications you make in your second sentence. I play through an exhausting amount of games before selecting which to review-- and when I play one that I DO care about I will wholeheartedly recommended it. I am selective about what I review, and I know TA is as well. Yes, sometimes there are games so hyped up, and so eagerly anticipated by the TA community (which we monitor and participate in round the clock), that it would be GROSSLY irresponsible of us to ignore. What is our mandate at the end of the day? We offer an opinion on games which our members can then base their own purchasing decisions. If we ignored games like HAWX, we'd be leaving interested TA readers in the dark, with a potentially substantial outlay to risk on a game that MAY well be of questionable quality. This is especially the case where there are multiple competing titles, and readers want to be informed as to what the differences are between them. I find it highly curious as to why I'm explaining this to a developer of games however. You would think you would be intimately familiar with your target demographic, their purchasing habits, and your competition. With the thousands of apps to sort through and recommend to our readers, how in the heck can we NOT only write about those which we love ourselves, and those which we think people want our opinions on? You have only to look around these forums for a minute to see what our readers are interested in. Yes, it doesn't leave much middle ground for those indie developers who produce a reasonable product, but which we aren't fully confident in recommending to our readers. But for those indie developers whose games we DO really enjoy, TA makes CERTAIN to champion their games, even where they aren't immediately popular amongst our own readers. I myself have done so on a few occasions already, and I haven't even been here that long. I'm sorry Flickitty, but we cannot apologise for reviewing what we believe needs reviewing and nothing else-- that is our responsibility to our readers. That won't soothe the evident chip on your shoulder, no, but we cannot apologise for that either. I think you need to think long and hard about taking a break from TA, because your posts are getting increasingly vulgar and irrational. It's really not good for your own wellbeing, nor is it conducive to productive discussion.
