PacoGames & Games distribution services
There are many games distribution services which developers and publishers use for spreading and getting web games. This blog post explains what distribution services we use, why, and especially will reply questions we are getting in a personal messages, such as:
... I don't understand why your site pacogames taking games from XY ( certain unnamed game distribution service), which is also distributor games. They cheat the developers and do not pay …
Our opinion for games distribution services
Speaking for yourself, my opinion is described in great detail in my article Game distribution for web games - do we need it? It is basically also a reply for all the same looking and same working games distribution services which are being created like mushrooms after the rain. Opinion of PacoGames as a company is basically same. Therefore we closely cooperate on development and support of an alternative tool called GameArter.
Why we use game distribution services
It’s simple, because we must. Games free gaming website would not make sense. Fortunately, there are many games distribution services which provide us free games and moreover pay us for their publishing on our gaming websites. Well, let's be realists, it’s not the services who provide the free games and pay us share from their revenue, but individual game developers using the services for distribution and monetization of their games. And until the developers are willing to do that, there is a big economy reason to use the games.
What game distribution services do we prefer?
In PacoGames, we think long term and this affects also preferred games distribution services. On basis of own game development (games Taxi City, Apocalypse Z: Survival, Car Challenger and other tens of games) or from close cooperation with game developers on popular game series such as Pixel Warfare, Scrap Metal and other hundreds of games we know real cost of game development and how difficult is to make everything right to cover the development costs. It all with using GameArter, which provide 70-92% rev share from ads, in-app purchases, affiliate campaigns and additional bonuses for supporting promising games and game developers. If we look at revenue splits of standard games distributions services which provide developers rev share in a level of 33-45% (depends on high they have margin and how much they pay to publishers), there is clear unsustainability of this model - developers simply do not earn enough, their games will be still worse (made in a quicker time), players will enjoy them less and will gradually stop play them and visit gaming websites. After all, It’s not a black forecast, but description of the present.
Well, so what is the distribution service we prefer? In short, if we can, we take games from GameArter which not only that pay high rev shares for developers and is transparent in everything, but especially offers developers simple but smart features to bring more engagement to their games. From other services, we do not have any favorites. We look at quality of games, not the service via which is being offered. Of course, if a game is available over more games distribution services, we take the game from that service which either provide highest rev share for us, or more clean game version (external links, ads, brand…).
Finally, back to the quote - why we maybe use some games distribution service which is not fair to developers. You know, you can find negative feedback for everyone / everything on the internet if you google enough for it. It’s same with games distribution services and threads that some do not pay revenues to game developers, fake revenues and data, they behave aggressively and many more.
Personally, we do not monitor forums such as html5gamedevs, Construct or Unity where game developers share their experience with various services for distribution, monetization and management of their games. From that reason developers’ public experience do not affect our preference. Every service should allow game developers to remove their games, if they are not happy and this is main pointer for us - if a game is available, then it is a sign for us that all is ok with that service. Once a game is removed in one service, we are looking for a replacement by the same game from a different service. If there is more games removed from one service, then we are thinking about blacklisting the service.
If you have a game in a certain service which does not allow you to remove the game, and we use a game from that service, just ping us a message and we can edit the game on our website - hide it or start load it from a different service.