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Socoder -> On Topic -> This sucks....

Thu, 03 Jul 2008, 18:51
Orion Pax
I submitted my Astro Attack game to big fish games and here was the reply....

Hello Norm,

My name is Jonathan and I am a Partner Relations Manager for Big Fish
Games. Thank you very much for taking the time to submit Astro Attack
for review. While playing the game, it was very apparent that a great
deal of hard work went into its creation. Unfortunately, we do not feel
that this game is the correct fit for our site and may not appeal to our
target audience. As a leader in the Casual Games industry we have a
very strong understanding of what our customers are looking for and this
type of game is generally something that does not resonate well with our
audience.

To give you some background, our audience is almost entirely female with
most over the age of 35. As such the most popular genres on our site
are Hidden Object, Time-Management, Sims, and Adventure games. Action
and Arcade games, like 1st and 3rd person shooters tend to perform very
poorly on our site.

If you have any other titles that you might be working or if you would
be interested in reworking this title to better suit our audience, send
it my way and I'll be happy to have a look at it.

Regards,

Jonathan Weekly
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 03:30
Afr0
Condolances.
Though it's apparent that he's played it, and he gave a very specific reasoning for why he wouldn't accept it.
Try making a game that will appeal to females next time!

-=-=-
Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 04:50
Jayenkai
Yeah, it's a shame they didn't accept it, but it's definitely good to hear that some of these sites actually bother to try games out, rather than just flinging everything into a huge database, and claim "We R gets Teh Mostests!!"

-=-=-
''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 06:32
steve_ancell
Our audience is almost entirely female


It just shows how hard it is to please a woman .
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 07:26
JL235
Completely true. Their audience is made entirely of office women with no photocopying to do and housewives who are bored of sitting on the washing machine. Female gamers also typically appeal more to games which do not require constant fixed attention, games that they can easily turn away from and not have to care about or at least slower paced then the more standard action-oriented genres. Like word and puzzle games.

It might be harsh, but if there is no market then there is simply no market. Guys just generally don't bother with internet games.
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 08:46
Scherererer
JL put it in a nutshell. I've read a few articles about the kinds of games that females play. Whenever i think of female games, I think of bejeweled. bejeweled is the epitome of female game: Its got shiny things, bright colors, happy sound effects, and you can go in and out of playing it with no fuss. Most of all, i think its safe to say that almost all women who play computer games play bejeweled.

I'm not saying make a bejeweled clone, as there are waaayyyy too many of those -- but just keep those ideas in mind, and you'll do great .

Try submitting your game to a site that has more fps/action oriented games and see if they'll take it there; he said it was an issue with the audience, not with the actual quality of the game.

-=-=-
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Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 10:44
flying_cucco
Hmm. Be careful not to generalise. My sister's favourite game is Age Of Empires 2; she bought her own copy to play online. True, she's not a big FPS fan, but she did really like Portal.
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 13:30
Scherererer
Hmm. Be careful not to generalise. My sister's favourite game is Age Of Empires 2; she bought her own copy to play online. True, she's not a big FPS fan, but she did really like Portal.


Well, technically, portal is a puzzle game (and besides, who could not like portal? ) I'm not saying that all girls only like puzzle games, its that generally the games girls play are puzzle games. I think just playing any online game reveals that the women make up a minority, and its always a *shock* when one joins a game. I know 1 girl (irl) that plays counter-strike. The rest of the girls I know don't admit to playing any games, save one other that plays WoW.

-=-=-
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Computer Science Series: Logic (pt1) (part 2) (part 3) 2's Complement Mathematics: Basic Differential Calculus
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 14:03
Orion Pax
Its funny tho because I ravaged their site for small quick FPS games similar to my Astro Attack. I had a 1 year subscription to bigfishgames.com and checked it every month when I got a new credit to buy a game. I always looked for FPS games. My youngest son did the same. I think they just want to taylor to those genres because they know that is what women will buy. I think FPS games would do good if they tried. I have never seen FPS games on their site. And I have been going there for quite some time now.

At any rate do ya'll know of any sites similar to bigfishgames.com that DO FPS games that would buy it?
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 16:33
steve_ancell
Ere !, O-Pax...

Make a game that involves a free bar of chocolate upon completion !. Women like chocolate, you will be a billionare overnight .

|edit| Better still... Try to get a sponsorship from Cadbury's. |edit|
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 17:32
Orion Pax
Never mind...I am going to liven my game up....some more....and sell it on download.com.....

I need to add other elements to my game....

I will add more asthetic elements like planets in the backbround or a nebula.

Maybe slow down the asteroids and make it so when you shoot 1 it splits into 3 smaller pieces. that should be easy to implement...and fairly fast.

And great idea steve. I would be a billionaire over night...

Would it be 1 free bar upon every completion or just the first one? If more than one allowed is there a limit?

Not that I am seriously going to do it...but just wondering....
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 17:59
steve_ancell
Good luck with trying to sell it on download.com Bud .

On the chocolate idea... It would definitely have to be just a one-off win, or you would be out of pocket.
Fri, 04 Jul 2008, 18:26
Orion Pax
Then it would have to be those big 1 lb bars of chocolate then..... those small 55 cent bars in the store cashout isles wouldnt do!
Sat, 05 Jul 2008, 13:26
steve_ancell
LOL
Sat, 05 Jul 2008, 16:54
Orion Pax
I'm serious. Every time my wife wants a chocolate bar its either the six packs of hershey bars or the big 1lb bar. Noooo...cant just eat that 1 55 cent hershey bar. Gotta have a SHIT load of chocolate.
Sat, 05 Jul 2008, 18:34
steve_ancell
To be able to eat that amount of chocolate, you would need a Titanium gut lining. It gives me gut ache, just thinking about it .