[casual_games] Distributor / Portal Acceptance rates?

[Allen R Partridge]

James,

Thanks. The number I'm actually looking for is I believe that 14%. I'm 
an independent, and my day job is university professor. I need to be 
able to report on the acceptance / rejection rate of the portals on 
average for my internal review process.

The fact that some aren't serious contenders isn't really relevant. 
The same thing is true in article or book submission, some efforts are 
absurdly short, others just a bit, and others somehow break through.

Knowing that it's about 14% even anecdotally is very helpful. Anyone 
else able to confirm or deny that number in this forum. Or if anyone 
is willing  to confirm or deny via private note - I can promise not to 
tell anyone but that internal review committee. ;)

Thanks for the wisdom James, and thanks for the additional explanation 
as well - it helps to get a clearer picture of the industry.

--Allen

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:09:12 -0700
  "James C. Smith" <james at reflexive.net> wrote:
> Acceptance rates of what?  
> 
> I am guessing you are asking what percent of the downloadable try & 
>buy
> casual games that get submitted to a portal end up being sold on 
>that
> portal.  I have never seen anyone publish any exact information like 
>this.
> But it is easy to take an educated guess.  
> 
> It is fairly easy to see how many new games the portals launch every 
>week.
> Just subscribe to their newsletter or look at the history in the 
>"World Wide
> What's New Weekly" chart at game-sales-charts.com  
> 
> http://www.game-sales-charts.com/cms/index.php?option=com_dbquery&qid=44
> 
> Most portals launch an average of 5 games per week. Some only launch 
>3 and
> some launch 7 per week. Most portals are fairly consistent and 
>launch the
> same number of games per week.
> 
> The other part of the equation is how many games are submitted to a 
>portal
> each week. If you ever talk to anyone who reviews casual games 
>submissions,
> most of them tell you approximately the same story. They receive
> distribution requests for 30 to 40 mew game each week.  
> 
> So you could guess that each portal distributes about 5 out of 35 
>games or
> 14%.
> 
> But most people are more interested in knowing "what are my 
>chances".  If I
> decide to take this seriously, and try to build a business based on 
>making a
> real product for the casual games market, what are the chances that 
>my game
> will get distribution on a major site.  This number is probably much 
>higher
> than 14%.  The problem is, of those 30 to 40 distribution requests 
>portals
> receive each week, many of them are just pure garbage.  Some are not
> finished, some only send screen shots.  The Reflexive Arcade 
>producer tells
> me she only gets download links for playable games from about 20 of 
>those 30
> to 40 distributions requests she receives each week.  So maybe it is 
>more
> accurate to say that 5 out of 20 games get distribution. But many of 
>those
> 20 game are not series attempts to make a real product for the 
>casual games
> market place. The author may think it is finish and fits the market, 
>but it
> is really just has a core play mechanic and no real game. Or it has 
>major
> compatibility and reliability problems. Or it has artwork that looks 
>like
> the results of a Google images search.  With more than half of those 
>20
> games per week you can tell within 2 minutes that there is no way 
>the game
> is fit to be distributed.  Most portals probably receive about 8 to 
>10 games
> per week that are series contenders.  If a portal wants to 
>distribute 5
> games per week, they are basically picking the best 5 games out of a 
>pool of
> about 8 to 10.  So in this scenario, you could claim acceptance 
>percentage
> is closer to 55%.  
> 
> But the problem is, where do you draw the line? This industry has 
>such a low
> barrier to entry. Anyone can spend a weekend with a game authoring 
>tool and
> submit their game on Monday.  Who decides how many of the submission 
>aren't
> serious enough to count in the rejection ratio?
> 
> James C. Smith
> Producer / Lead Programmer
> Reflexive Entertainment
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org 
>[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Allen R Partridge
> Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 9:57 AM
> To: casual_games at igda.org
> Subject: [casual_games] Distributor / Portal Acceptance rates?
> 
> 
> Has anyone seen an information about rates of acceptance versus 
> rejection from the various distributors / portals. I'm looking for 
> published or official numbers from the major players regarding 
>accept 
> / reject ratios.
> 
> tia for any assistance,
> 
> --Allen Partridge _______________________________________________
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