Voting Sites

One of the things a game owner has to think a lot about is user numbers. PBBG games are usually low financed so advertising isn't exactly the best way to promote the sites. Then there is the fact that if you are using advertising, are the people seeing the ad actually interested in playing a PBBG anyway.

So the best thing you can do is get listed on voting sites, this has its own problems.

Other game owners can get jealous if you overtake them, reporting you for using proxy addresses. Some sites give more votes for plugging or advertising on their sites, which can be an expensive thing to do on a regular basis, and to be honest, gives very little real return for you cash. Some have few visitors to pass your way, some don't care about proxies and get ridiculous amounts of votes for games with 2-3 people online at a time, some being lucky to get that in a day.

Game voting sites though, are the cheapest way to advertise, but you need to get onto the first page or they don't do you any good at all. Most users, me included do not get past the first page. This means you really need to catch these sites early in their development, keeping an eye on the fact that they need users for you to advertise to in the first place.

I've tried lots of things over the last 2 years, but have not really found a good way to promote the games. What we need is a one stop place for all PBBG game players to accumulate. We also need game owners to lighten up about other games advertising on their games. I for instance added a forum for this. We do not allow URL's posted in mails or in any other topic, sig etc but if they use the "other games" forum and do not include a reference link, they can post news about another game. I think this works well, also most players play more than one game anyway so your not losing anything.

There are also far to many PBBG's on the market, many that are just stagnant and need removing from voting sites etc. We shall see what the next year brings us.