The idea is that the studios involved will include a new Games We Like section both on their website and within the games themselves
These slots won't be purchased or traded rather, developers list games they've genuinely been playing.
It's an initiative that the brothers believe will help connect the small but loyal audiences that follow certain indie developers.
Indie power
"If every indie dev picked 10 other games to promote, we'd all be helping each other out enormously, and we'd strengthen the position of self-publishing indies in general, who often don't have marketing or advertising budgets to get the word out," said Ste Pickford.
"Nobody has to reciprocate the promotion given. It's unilateral promotion, and given for free, so it's totally in the same spirit as indies helping each other out with technical and design problems, which they already do."
According to John Pickford, Games We Like should sidestep the problems that certain other indie initiatives have encountered that arise due to the imbalance between the different audience sizes of each game.
In such set-ups, "less popular games seem to be getting a better deal than games with an established fan-base," he noted. "Such initiatives often get bogged down with rules for balancing this out, with conditions of entry, or credits earned by the number of views, etc., and the initiative either breaks down or turns into a form of paid advertising by another name."
Pick of the bunch
Zee-3 has already launched a Games We Like section on its website. Quarrel, New Star Soccer and Boonce are some of the games recommended, with the list set to be included as part of the next update of Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint for iOS.
"Advertising and cross-promotion platforms already exist, and this initiative won't compete with them," claims Ste Pickford.
"This is something extra that indies can and should do, and may even be more valuable than advertising."
Both John and Ste plan to update their own list regularly, and will include it as a matter of course within future Zee-3 releases on iOS.
[source: The Pickford Bros.]
