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Many people still buy into the idea of actual "Viral Marketing" when it comes to their branded game. The fact is campaigns rarely go truly viral. Don't think you can put your game on your website, tell a few people and then wait for the whole world to find out about your game via word of mouth.
It's becoming more and more difficult to get your branded online game noticed. The internet is saturated with new virals on a daily basis. While it's essential to make your game stand out, both in terms of originality and quality, it's not enough to rely on factors out of your control to make the game a success.
It's essential to take responsibility for the success or failure of your campaign. Whenever executing a viral campaign, always assume the worst case scenario. If no one passes on your viral, you need to generate all the traffic yourself, otherwise you'll get little to no return on your investment. If you make this assumption even a few pass-ons will mean you always exceed your campaign goals.
Instead of waiting for people to come to your game, taking your game to the people is the answer. The main ways you will accomplish this are:
Any specialist online community forums that you may be an active member of can be a great place to tell people about your game.
Social Networking Sites
Sites such as Facebook and Myspace can be great places to tell your friends and contacts about your game. You could even get your developer to include a Facebook application for your game, so that people can add it to their profiles.
Online Games Portals
This is where the bulk of your game traffic will come from. There are hundreds of games portals that are always on the look out for quality free-to-use games for their site. This does require building a substantial database and submitting your game to as many sites as possible. Because the majority of these sites will host your game file themselves you don't even have to worry about bandwidth costs for most of the game traffic these generate.
Your Mailing List
This is another important part of the distribution process. The bigger your list the better. There are also a couple of good free public mailing lists that allow subscribers to post details of their viral releases.
When distributing your game always proceed with caution. It's important to be open and honest about what you are doing and always avoid spam. People don't like being tricked and there are a few well documented cases of viral marketing campaigns backfiring due to underhand execution. Apart from this, the time needed to build the database of contacts needed to successfully distribute a branded game mean it's probably more cost effective to hire a professional. Many branded online game developers offer a distribution service after completion, it's always worth asking about this before choosing a developer, otherwise you may end up with an expensive game gathering dust on your website and providing little return on your investment.
I've talked to many artists and programmers who have said they would like to produce free online games. Many of these individuals are talented, but lack the college degree, connections, or capital necessary to design their own games. In this article I will explain a growing trend, and how you can produce quality online games for a low cost.
The console game industry has continued to increase the price for their products in recent years. Brand new games for the Xbox 360 now cost $60 each. The cost involved with developing games for the Xbox or Playstation is too much for most people. Only well established companies with lots of resources are able to produce games for these consoles. This puts the independent developer in a position where it is difficult to compete.
However, the rise of the internet has made producing free online games much easier. It is now possible for a independent developer to hire both programmers and designers to create an online game. How can this be done? When you hear of outsourcing in the news, you often think of fortune 500 companies. In reality, even small business people can outsource by using the internet. It is possible to find programmers in India, China, or Eastern Europe who can write code for very affordable prices. The same is true for designers.
With a budget of only a few thousand dollars, it is possible for you to produce free online games. You could hire programmers and designers via forums, and once you have designed the game you can cheaply advertise it via the internet. You could use text link or banner advertising. You could upload samples of your game onto P2P networks. Many of these advertising methods are low cost or free of charge. You could also use Adwords to market your product.
The internet makes it possible for small groups to produce quality games and compete with large companies. Before the rise of the internet this was impossible, and most people had to go work for large corporations if they wanted to produce video games.
It is also possible to build a website where you allow people to play the game free of charge. This could allow you to build a gaming community where you can earn income from advertising. There are no limits to the types of free online games you can produce on the internet. The only thing that limits you is your imagination.