Max free traffic : Promote through trade script...?

[Gwink]

Hi,

I'm wondering if some game owners would be interested in building an efficient trade system, nothing like crap banner exchange but a real new way to circle the players... The idea would be to use a trade script based on "CPA" scheme with actions not only limited to classic registration but more something matching 10-15 minutes of play. To be efficient each action would trigger a reward for player. (Read the example at the bottom)

Some important points :

- It would be free of charge, it's just traffic sharing

- The script would be free and open source

- Fairness would be directly enforced by players themselves as they will complain if not beeing rewarded.

Yes many will say "I don't want to send my players to other browser games, that's stupid" but IMHO most of your players already play 2-3 games or will do so through upcoming months so why not trying to open the gates and flood your site with new players? Such traffic exchange might send HUGE amounts of fresh traffic as the reward will make it a buzz on your site.

Technically a basic version coded in php would be really easy to build but I won't bother if no one interested 8)

And of course the script would be smart enough to send hits only to sites triggering back players too.

A live example :

Site A action = Signup with no email and reach level 2, approximately 10 minutes of play

Site B action = Signup with email, confirm it and enter shop, approximately 3 minutes

After discussion both owners agree it's about same value with a bit more weight for site A...

Let's say Site A trade points per action would be 1000 and Site B 800

(When a player is sent from site A to site B and complete action then Site A would score 800 trade points)

Everything would be controlled through balance and script would temporary block sites below a certain limit until the needed trade points are scored back.

Summary : It's like a reward tool where players are paid for signups and/or actions behind but it's a trade script! Compared to banner exchange or link exchange it would be 100 times more efficient.

Now it's perhaps a bit complex to understand or too exotic idea? 8|

[mdshare]

The idea and concept is good but I doubt that it would work.

There is extreme jealousy amongst game owners, cross promoting eachother is something I don't see happening fast.

[Gwink]

yes I understand it won't be an easy to promote idea... I think it would need 5-6 RPGs to test it and show efficiency or not but if no one at all would like to try it's not worth the coding :)

[mdshare]

The cheapest way is actually through voting sites.

But only if you can manage to get in the top 10 at a voting site.

[p_T_s]

Personally I like the idea :P

I can't see a problem with traffic sharing, as Gwink said it WILL flood your site with new players.

If your scared of losing your players then your game needs more work. If you keep your players happy they will stick around and play your game and most times play the new game form the link as well. That means both parties benefit :thumbup:

This has the potential to turn your game community into 1000's of new players.

I think maybe when considering what games you allow to share, you look at them and maybe make sure they're not the same type of game...IE: If you own a Mobsters game, don't allow to share with another Mobsters game. Just a thought.

I would use this trade script no worries :thumbsup:

[mdshare]

If you own a Mobsters game, don't allow to share with another Mobsters game.

And that's where it goes wrong ... like said the jealousy part... why promoting a competitive game that might be even better than yours...

[gurpreet]

Maybe accept 1 game from each genre? Like 1 mob, 1 crime, 1 space etc.

[p_T_s]

from "gurpreet"

Maybe accept 1 game from each genre? Like 1 mob, 1 crime, 1 space etc.

Yeh that could work..

 

from "mdshare"

And that's where it goes wrong ... like said the jealousy part... why promoting a competitive game that might be even better than yours...

I can understand some owners being jealous, but if they don't want to do it, then they simple don't use the script :P

[a_bertrand]

Any reward system (voting or others) have a HUGE chance to be cheated either by the players and/or by the owners. So if you tell to your player, go play a bit on that game and I will reward you in game money, they may do it, but will do it only for the money, and nothing else. Even worse, they could even try to create multiple account or other tricks to yet get more money.

It will be extremely hard also to find an agreement of the value of action A against action B, so hard in fact that it should be judge by an external party in my mind.

Beside this issue, I see how many (or how few) web sites want to share even newsletter to invite players to go visit another friendly web game, so I doubt such system will really work beside in a very closed network of games.

For the open source of the system, I don't mind. Honestly you will have anyhow an hard time to make it copy proof as people will be able to recode it in case your network starts to work well.

[Gwink]

Thanks for your point, we'll see soon if it could work a bit anyway as I've started the coding :)

I understand the diffilculties about finding a fair balance for the points per actions and the fact people want to keep their players but I don't think cheat will be such an issue as toplists are working fine and reward tools (surveys...) too : Sure players will hunt for money but they will need to discover a game anyway and not only pass through register page, I've been trapped myself and played some games for a few days just after checking tutorial to compare with mine, this is the idea :D

[a_bertrand]

Voting sites do NOT work in reality, and I can prove it any time you want ;) however I would prefer not to do it in the open forum.

[Gwink]

If you mean vote traffic itself isn't the way they feed their traffic sure it's not magic... But those are building backlinks for google rankings (indirect ones as urls usually include variables but numerous). Same story for all the articles written by game owners.

In addition players passing through vote pages are seeing at least 2 pages a day = Lot of banner impressions and a boost for alexa rank too.

If you were talking about something else send it through PM yes, I'm really interested, thanks :)

[a_bertrand]

No I mean that a lot of the traffic on those vote sites are not actually human...

[Gwink]

ohh ok, I would say it's not that hard to cheat but on the long run it's easy to catch cheater... Have you got proof or clues many of those big toplists are cheated a lot?

Not that I don't believe you but as I'm sending real traffic I would feel cheated myself :(

[mdshare]

easy to catch

example: explain such voting behaviour http://www.cetopwebgames.com/index.php?stats=2427

However voting sites do help, if you manage to get in the top 10 as you have a first page listing then. It's free advertising afterall.

This is normal voting behaviour for those not seeing what is wrong

example: http://www.cetopwebgames.com/index.php?stats=1724

This is also more rewarded, looking at what we give back Total visitors received from CETWG 2087 assume that it is a ad campaign at 10 cent/click that's $208.7 saved for the above game.

[Gwink]

I don't see why it would mean cheat, I have my own rotating program for votes (not using it for now but could perfectly chose to send huge one day and not another one) and I know some big sites doing so and not sending stable volume per day.

Now I don't mean that site is fair, that's something else, I don't know :)

By the way I've forgot to register on your toplist hehe, I'll fix that soon ^^

[Zero-Affect]

I'm planning on putting about 500 into advertising within the first month of my game opening i wouldn't want someone's game on my game that only spent 10 bucks on advertising. Doesn't seem fair to me.

[Gwink]

If you plan to spend $500 I bet you will try to track your cost per signup then per active player... If you do so and define an "action" for the trade script like "reaching level 2" you can monetize it too and know such action would cost you $1 through advertising (for example).

Using the trade script will be then a math between the players you would lost by sending them elsewhere and those scored actions which would cost you $1 each time through advert way :) (as those players are hunting reward at first the right math would be to check for level 3 generated from trade if you really want to compare, just explaining the idea...)

I don't understand in which term the $ spent on advertising on both end would join the math... We've spent much more than $500 and will be pleased to list any site which could send at least 50 "actions", no matter the way they've got their players (as soon as they are english speaking and not focused on philipines traffic only).

[a_bertrand]

Well for the voting sites, I can tell from my own experience that very few users do vote if there isn't any incentive to do so. Even with some reward for the voters, there isn't that many voting. And... finally, if you check the top of certain voting sites (if not all) you will see who is on top, and then check what kind of game those are. If you are smart enough you will quickly find that those top ranked are certainly not the best games of the sites. I have more proofs if you want to know them but then contact me by PM.

[Gwink]

Released beta version and tested it here, working fine... I would need at least 1-2 beta tester to confirm installation process and system working fine for other games too.

Please write to me here through PM or at [email protected]

Thanks!