Okay so i can remember a while ago i was trying to upload my game to dropbox and google drive to share my prototype with others. Noticed that then when i made the folder public with my unity game it either showed the html code or started to download the html document in my browser. I am not sure if this is still an issue.
Anyway to make a long story short i have started working on a file hosting web-app, (i intend to make it open source and available on github hopefully within the next month). So i was wondering if current users on unity would be interested in a file hosting service that allows you to upload your web games so you can share the final product or maybe prototype with others.
I know that for example to submit a large game to firefox you have to host the game files yourself or upload them somewhere. I am hoping to make the service free with approximately 8gb of user space. I guess i would like to gauge what level of interest there would be from this community in a File hosting service. Thank you
I think good solution for Unity games, both downloadable, and web (player/webgl) is either Kongregate or Gamejolt. Both have ad rev sharing AFAIK and are big, popular and free to use.
hey @darkhog , i agree they are both good solutions, however they are not file sharing services in a traditional sense.
In terms of revenue sharing, i will not show adverts on the users files, that would be up to the user to place their own advertising links in the html document or within their game. The adverts that i will show will be on all other pages such as user login area.
The service the site would be providing aims to be more similar to dropbox or google drive except users such as unity developers would be able to upload their games and have them publicly accessible for others to test or maybe to submit to other marketplaces that require external hosting.
On kongregate and gamejolt you need to upload your games and have them reviewed i believe along with descriptions etc, where as this file storage solution can be thought of as more of a free limited web server to host your game along with other files either publicly, privately or through an access key.
That will probably not work. Not showing ads on the primary traffic areas and not charging a fee means no revenue stream. Sharing large files isn’t going to be cheap.
@zombiegorilla I totally understand where you are coming from and i completely agree. At the moment i have not thought through monetisation options completely. I dont want to sound like i am stepping back on my word, but i do intend on putting an option for users to enable adverts to both earn extra space on their files (up to the 8gb), however the initial amount of space will be lower and users will have the option to enable adverts to get up to 8 gb of free space. They will not be required to do so with an initial 1gb free offering. If users would like to gain more space without adverts my estimated cost would be approximately $2 per annum per gigabyte which would be very cheap.
My intention on this post was not to jump the gun and go through monetisation options before i could guage the demand for the service. So i guess i should state i want to try to find a sustainable solution where users can upload their games for testing or even to share a completed version with others on the internet without comprimising their rights to their own content and figuring a fair solution to allow the service costs to be covered at the minimum amount.
So to summarise i intend on creating a file hosting service like dropbox that doesnt restrict unity developers, which when launched aims to have a sustainable revenue system. I hope i havent confused the situation too much.
For now i am focusing on getting the platform ready if users would be interested in such a service, your feedback has been extremely helpful in helping me confront some difficult questions, the truth is i like to program and i guess i usually put monetisation on the back burner.