Program ads

[deekpyro]

I'm working on an online game and I've always choose to do freeware but now I've decided to try and make a tad bit of profit. Do you know where I can get deals to advertise on my application?

Thanks

[Jeff Binder]

If you're talking about a program that people download to play, you can try here:
http://www.versiontraker.com/
http://www.download.com/
http://www.macdownload.com/
http://www.macosxapps.com/
http://www.macgamefiles.com/

Listings are free at most sites like this, and this is where most people go when they're looking for games. If it's a game that's actually played in a web browser, I really can't help you, though.

[deekpyro]

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about actually putting ads in my application to make money. IE ads for websites or whatever I can find that pays good.

[Jeff Binder]

Ah, I see. IMHO shareware would be a better alternative. A lot of people would be happy to pay $10-$30 for a good shareware game, but at least I certainly wouldn't play a game with ads in it for long. Besides, they generally only pay you when users click on the ads, and I would imagine few people will stop playing a game to visit one of the cheap sites that advertise in that way.

[DaFalcon]

I agree with Jeff completely, not only are banner ads bothersome to many people (and ignored completely by most everyone else), the days of making actual money with banner advertising are pretty far past. Shareware is a better way to go.

[Chris Burkhardt]

I agree that it will be hard to make money off of banner ads... but I play chess at yahoo all the time regardless of the banners and pop-ups, so I wouldn't say people won't play because of ads. If it is a good enough game people will forgive them... but I wouldn't expect anyone to click on them either so it does seem rather pointless.

[Pazolli]

Conversely I despise shareware (don't really download it much now), love freeware, rarely register shareware and wouldn't mind ads (I might even click on them if I liked the game). I can't even bring myself to play EV Nova (despite being an EV fanatic a few years back) because I'm not sure when EV is going to cut out and demand payment. Which at $60 AUS I'd be pretty hestitant to give. So I just simply don't play it.

Nothing disappoints me more than to see someone asking for money for something that really should be free (not to imply EV should be free just it doesn't seem worth $60 AUS). IMHO, open source projects, offer a way to really challenge low quality shareware because they allow a merging of skills and greater quality projects that the individual would be challenged to provide. You can even ask for money from Open Source projects (like this one (http://sourceforge.net/projects/x-asm/) last time I checked). Which I feel is acceptable because if the request is unreasonable you can always just remove the request.

So in summary, I'm glad to see someone bring a different perspective to revenue raising. Because programmers deserve payment for their work (just not as much as we are blackmailed for by some of them right now).

I hope you are able to successfully release some adware, or if not at least consider the freeware/open source/donationware solution.

Just my thoughts,
Mark

[deekpyro]

Thank you, finally someone understands my point of view. If I were to do ads it would be freeware and I know many more people will play it then if it were shareware. Now I just need to figure out where to get an ad deal...