Lately, I’ve been pondering the idea of Blender game makers having a way of marketing their games in a viable way. The idea hit me when thinking about Steam. It would be cool to have a website dedicated to marketing Blender made games. It might provide strong motivation for quality BGE production, collaboration, pooling of resources and ideas etc.
Just wanted to pick some brains to see where this could go.
This is good for the producer/creator but for a consumer this doesn’t really make sense.
What incentive would someone have to visit such a site?
A typical gamer wants a nice looking game that runs well, and history shows that BGE games have not been the most stable.
Whats wrong with using current sites like itch.io or indiedb.com?
Situation in which it would work:
All games are released under 1 publisher name, who ensures only the best quality games are released and will be responsible for unstable games. People can build up brand recognition/trust this way and will visit the website for the publishers other games if they enjoy a certain one.
Actually what we need is exactly this
I’m not sure why a sub-page like this is still not created in blender.org website. It will be perfectly in place on BF site. It will help greatly to promote both - blender and blender game engine and also will serve as marketing for your games.
It may have sub sections for art and games, also for plugins…and so on. (Look at the header of ba forums, there are so many great 3d art showcasing there and then it sinks down in eternity :), never to be seen again) .
I recommend selling your games onitch.io
You are missing the point. It is not about just selling the games. We can sell them on Steam or itch.io or gog or anywhere. It is about marketing. There are ~10k games on Steam and ~10k games on itch.io. If we have BlenderGE only page/website, there will be a lot less games with a lot more exposure.
Nowadays, only making a great game is very far from making money of it. And this applies for every game company out there, from small indie to AAA corps. because there are hundreds of thousands of games on the market.
The most important thing for games right now is marketing and creating fan base.
I’m going to be real for a second here.
I disagree - there’d be a few games with almost no exposure, and I think this marketplace / page would end up dying fairly quickly. For a comparison, itch.io doesn’t get a lot of traffic (nowhere near what Steam gets), and that’s a pretty large storefront. Why would a Blender-specific marketplace do better than itch with less games, less features, and less marketing and interest? Especially when considering that there’s not a lot of finished BGE or Blender-related games out there, and even less commercial-quality ones? If you think it’s hard getting your game on Steam or itch and getting eyes on it, why would it be easier to put the game on a custom marketplace and get eyes on that marketplace?
That’s the real question. Itch and Steam fill voids in digital game distribution. What void would this theoretical site fill?
If people want to get their name or the BGE’s name out there, they need to finish fun, quality games, put them out there on existing marketplaces, and market them, like every other game. Nobody’s really going to do that for you, regardless of the site or quality of the game.
EDIT: I assume this supposed to be a marketplace - I might have misread. If it were just a page for marketing Blender games, I still don’t think it would do well. Not enough finished quality games coming out frequently and reliably enough.
Yes, you misread it. As JoeITA initially said:
It would be cool to have a website dedicated to marketing Blender made games. It might provide strong motivation for quality BGE production, collaboration, pooling of resources and ideas etc.
I was thinking only about marketing the games, just like it is in Unity main site. It is a win-win situation for Blender and for the developers. It won’t be a store, it will be just a showcase - what the devs can do with the engine.
About not finished and not high quality games…well it is normal…even for Unity and Unreal. I remember back in 200X year, Unity showcase page was full of s*it games, but it doesn’t stop them from doing that page.
An engine should not be ashamed from the developers endeavours. And I really think it will drive in more people.
LOL!
Out of interest, there haven’t been any actual sales of games, just donations so far. Which is very few.
I think may be Engine roar might make it as a small sale game. May be £4 a copy.
Out of interest, there haven’t been any actual sales of games, just donations so far. Which is very few.
Not sure what exactly is your point, there are dozens BGE games on Steam. My two blender games made…well, not sharing the exact number but it is compared to my annual salary. And I’m still making about 500$ per month while sleeping, from them. 
Most gamers do not care what engine is used for a particular game, they just buy and play.
upbge is just getting to where we can accomplish great graphics and gameplay
(geometry instancing + suspend physics + movement sensor + better skinning(soon) + static draw call batching(soon) + reflection map ui + paralax mapping + refraction + and not to mention better controller support thanks to lord loki 
)
I never quit a project
I have 4 or more half finished games
don’t blame the engine.
blame the fact that making a real full scale game is a bunch of work…
and dedication is the only thing that matters.
As you mentioned I also agree the Blender Foundation should showcase some of the best games made in the BGE instead of neglecting it in a corner after yo frankie released. Perhaps it will be revamped with 2.8.
You know what, maybe you’re right. Maybe it would be a fine idea to get Blender’s homepage to cover information on games made with Blender in some respect. Once there are enough commercial or high quality releases (assuming there isn’t already), they can have a page showing them - it doesn’t have to be regularly updated or very large - it can increase in size and frequency over time.
is there some legal issue to why people say that de BF is responsabile por engaging in a webplataform for showcasing BGE games?
Just asking, cause for 80 bucks i could make a site and have the domain www.blendergameshowcase.com for 3 years in host gator… if people are relly intrested in this and there is no break point with the foundation, i could put the money in, and hopefully some helping hands in developing the site and keep it working… just saying you know. But not a store page, and showcase page and in every game standalone page have the info from where to download the game if its free or where to buy it, rather is steam or itch.io or wherever the publisher wants to sell his game.
Maybe it would be a fine idea to get Blender’s homepage to cover information on games made with Blender in some respect
Actually I don’t know why it is not done yet. And I’m not talking only for games. BF should put on their site a subsection showcasing all the great blender artist work. I imagine there are tons of outstanding renders,videos, tv commercials,3d models and games that can be put there.
…cause for 80 bucks i could make a site and have the domain www.blendergameshowcase.com
Blender.org is the official BF site. Blender software have sever million users all over the world and the website is visited probably hundred thousands times per day.
We talk about marketing here. Everyone can make a site and put games on it, but it will not reach many people.
Showcasing in official gonna be cool.
Maybe its going to look/feel more official/professional.
Maybe the game list comes with filtering, tagging, versions, compatibilities, with small multiple gameplay preview images (I have slow/limited connection/bandwidth, trying to avoid downloading 10MB just to be deleted).
I use BGE as test/prototyping tool - throwing in everything/anything - as long as it works during pitching/presentation (no proper coding) maybe I need an official figure saying/guiding/advising “Here’s how to do this properly”.