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Sure there have been many questions about publishing your game on Windows and where to do so but after selling a couple of games on the Amazon, Google, iOS and Mac stores I have found one thing so far and that is that of all those the Mac is the one that has sold the most and had the most downloads quicker than any other for free version of apps too.
It seems the bigger screen is more loved than the tablet or phone game.

Best to last:
1 - Mac
2 - iOS
3 - Google
4 - Amazon

or at least this is my findings.

So, I ask myself what about Windows?
I have put off publishing something on Windows so far because as far as I am aware you have to find a store to sell with first and then mess about with an installer and something to change the icon.

As far as the installer and icon go I know you can download various tools to do this. I think personally though that the AppGameKit IDE should be able to do this for you, this is another thread topic though I suppose but for selling your game you have things like Steam, Amazon and Desura, etc.
None of these are easy or ideal really when you think about it.

You want to sell on a Kindle Fire you use - Amazon Store.
Android well use - Google.
Apple iPhone or iPad - iOS
Mac - Mac Store

Notice the theme here?
They all use their own company to sell and Windows has the Microsoft Windows 10 store, why don't we use this then??


Why are we not selling through Microsoft Windows and the desktop section of the Windows Dev side of things?
https://dev.windows.com/en-us/desktop/develop

If the Mac is the best for downloads and sales then surely Windows would blow this out of the water with the user base??
Can this be done?
I don't know.
Has anyone tried this?

To get a Windows Dev account is quite cheap and much cheaper than Apple.

For me it's a no brainer.
Would you rather develop on a computer with multiple input devices like, joypads, keyboard and mouse or struggle to get your system working awkwardly on a touchscreen?
I think this is why Mac has a higher download rate.

Hope someone can answer this and also what the situation is with Windows stuff, I am not even too bothered about Windows Mobile but there has to be a way we can release on the Windows store?
Especially when you think TGC have produced mainly for Windows.

Cheers.

Hi
For windows, mac and linux, you have forgotten Steam .
I think that we can export for steam with AGK2, but I don't know how to do.

Nope, I mention steam and I don't think it is a viable option for the normal user as the rest are to be honest with all that stupid green light thing.
We need an easy way like Mac to publish on the Windows store I think if it isn't already possible.

Anyone know or had any experience there?

I published one of my apps (non-AGK) to the Windows Store last year. The store allowed 'metro' styled apps that would be hosted by Microsoft and downloadable directly from the store much like the Mac store, and standard desktop apps but those would only contain a link to an external website so you'd still be stuck hosting it yourself and such desktop apps could not embrace any of the Windows Store features like IAP. It wasn't particularly difficult to build an app that met the 'metro' criteria, mine was driven by HTML5/WebGL and it required some bits of meta data to publish sort of like a Manifest file on Android. I could see this within the realm of possibility of AppGameKit but it has been so long I have forgotten a lot of the process.

Sales and traffic for my app were abysmal on Windows Store compared to other markets. Over the course of 12 months my app was downloaded less than 1,000 times, with around 100 purchasing the full version (it had a time-trial, a convenient feature offered by Microsoft automatically). A mobile version of the same app I developed receives around five times that many downloads per week on iTunes and Android.

Cheers xCept, this is very interesting. It seems that the Metro way would be better than having to host your app yourself so it would be more like downloading to the Mac store. It would appear that it wouldn't be too bad for TGC to implement this but this would most likely be for another update.
Maybe TGC should do a forum survey on here to see if this is something that AppGameKit users would like but for me it seems to not have this Windows facility then it would be a bit odd as the Windows user base is the largest and most popular.
Having said that it is interesting to hear about your app download numbers.

It would be good to hear from someone at TGC about their views on the Windows side of things and if this is something that would be looked at in the future, as far as I was aware they had some Windows metro code sort of implemented at a basic level before?

Windows store apps are crap. Personally, I'd avoid the windows store since AppGameKit is not 'universal apps' compatible. Hosting the game/app yourself with a paypal button is another possibility.

I've personally found that it's not where you sell your app that gets the most hits, it's where you advertise your app. Advertising gets sales, which is why I have't sold any apps. lol

This could be done but then you would have to advertise in a big way, it just seems that we have ways to easily put apps on:

Mac
iOS
Google
Amazon

but then for the main one Windows, nothing to easily do it.




This is true to a certain extent but Apple, Google and Amazon all contain free advertising as the app can be just found in the store and easily downloaded.
Maybe the desktop way with Microsoft store providing a link might be ok, will have to look into this.

Goes back to Windows mobile really, which would be good for AGK.

I imagine there are a lot easier to get exposure on the Mac store than on mobile stores. Thus it results in more sales.

On PC it's really all about Steam. Love it or hate it, there are lots of people who ignore games not available on Steam. You could say it's the PC equivalent of the app store.

Desura has had problems with paying devs. Other popular stores are https://www.humblebundle.com/store and http://www.gog.com/.

This is not advertising! lol

Advertising is pushing your app into other peoples faces, not waiting for them to know what to search for to accidentally stumble across your app in a random search.

One free way to advertise is to spam a link to the download page for your app wherever it may be to every message board, forum, BBS, facebook group and hermit hole you can. Yes it sucks, but it WILL generate at lease a small bit of traffic, and of that traffic, at least some will try the app. (And if your app is good, they may buy it.)

I know where you are coming from and maybe I should have worded this better, however the average user already knows about Amazon, Google and iOS stores but they will not know about Desura or Humble Bundle etc.

You can't get away from the fact that it is 100% easier to sell apps on Amazon, Android and Apple but when it comes to Windows which is the main platform it is not as easy to do or to get your app noticed to the average person which might be your target audience.

Eg, kids educational app, the kids parents might not be as computer literate as you might think but they would likely buy from the windows store. You can't say that the windows store is rubbish and nobody buys from there full stop. It all depends on the end user.

Being listed as a new game on Steam gives you a whole lot of views and you can also get suggestions. Not sure how the top box works, if it's paid advertising or what, but I see a lot of indie games there.