Direct Sales FTW

Direct sales from the developer to the consumer will always be the best way to make money. There are just too many unknowns otherwise. Here are some of them:

Trust -> Is the publisher legit? will they just do a runner with the money? will they report royalties accurately, have they made deals concerning your game you dont know about? are their promises of projected sales accurate?

Support -> You have no way of knowing if a tech support claim is legit. Did they really buy it? did they copy it off someone? is it a dodgy pirated copy? You have no way to know

Feedback -> You are one step removed from your customers. Will the portal/publisher pass on any customer feedback or suggestions?

Community -> People will talk about your game, but at the publishers / portals site, not yours. This does little to build a community

Reputation -> You didnt make the game, the publisher did. At least as far as the customer is concerned. Who the hell are you?

Updates -> You want to patch the game? you need to go through a third party. they need to schedule some QA. maybe next month? next year? sorry, the games too old, we dont issue patches.

Demographics -> Who bought your game? what gender? what age? what country? You will never know.

Of course, ALL this can be offset if the royalty check is collosal enough. But it *does* need to be pretty good to offset all this. That's something to keep in mind when you balance out your strategy for selling games.

I'm really getting into Starship Tycoon 2 now...