Hey, I took 15 mins to look at the best place to post this and I am assuming it is here. I a few years ago, I managed to score mageworld dot com for super cheap. (reg fee ) and it was registered in 1996. My initial plans were to build a game. But after a lot of setbacks, and then more setbacks, and then a baby time is limited. I had it parked with Parked.com but then they disappeared on me. I had it appraised once, and it was low XXX range. Had no interest in selling it. My host provider received and email (from the whois info) making an offer of 2500$ from mage-world.com which I declined. I know this site has the potential to have value so I have a few questions. Is there anything quick I can fire up on the site and just let it ride to gather traffic with little or no effort from me? Just so it is not wasting away. Or is there someone willing to create something for me for a reasonable price as a 'place holder' until I decide to do something with it? It needs to be renewed soon, which I will renew for 10 years. I am not willing to sell the domain unless I get offered $100,000 or more. Which, I know is not realistic. But, stranger things have happened. if you have the time, can you give me some thoughts and opinions on it? My game which is now 35,000 lines of code wont be finished for at least another 2 years or more. Any ideas at all would be great. I just do not want a parked page, and now a blank index file. something needs to be done Thanks for your time.
Just renew it and keep on with your project . Although 35k lines of code isn't that much it's not something to be ignored . I'd make a teaser website for my future game .
for a text based game it is a lot of code. most of it is the classes and back end shit. not a lot of front end stuff. and it is pretty dynamic and unique. I wont drop the domain that is for sure. I think it is a gem. Thanks for the reply.
Your welcomed , however you might want to consider creating the front-end via WebGL . Text based games are more of 2003 thing .
Yeah, I noticed everything is going mobile/facebook games now. Problem is that I learned to code specifically to create a text based game. I played/signed up to most of the popular ones and they seem copy-pasta of each other.My idea, and what I created so far is quite unique, random and not copy-pasta. The play-ability is like Fallout/Skyrim/WoW but with text and simple static images. with intelligent AI. I am not sure what to do with it! I started to learn to code around 2002-2003 when I game I played sucked so bad, yet brought in thousands of dollars per month. I will look into the software you speak of. I appreciate the responses. I invested way too much money and mistakes and time to stop. If I had of known what I was getting myself into back in the day I would never have tried. /rant I am stuck between a rock and a hardplace haha.
open-up a subscribtion page with explainer video or smth of your game and start writing blog there for 2 years, and share improvements of game, screenshots so it will help you to pormote your game once it is released.
Stick a wordpress blog on it, and make one post per week, how to code games or something like that. It will gather PR and link juice over time. OR.. Head over to Blogger and set up a free blogspot blog, and point it to your domain. And again make one post per week just to keep it moving..
A blog idea sounds pretty good, Even a once a week post is better than nothing. Or I could just sit here when I have time, make 10+ post and just time release them. Another idea I had was creating a mage like wiki. The name suits it but I have no experience with wiki software, it looks pretty easy and simple to install I just know nothing about it. My game will get finished. I do not care if it takes 10 more years. Someone mentioned even "leasing" the domain to someone else. Where I just give limited FTP access, and they can use the site including using their google ads and pay me X per month. even like 10$ or something, or for free. It would be a win/win as they would drive traffic and maybe make money off ads, and when the contract is up than I have all that free traffic I will think about your ideas. I appreciate the feedback.
nice domain you've got there... if i were you i'd start that old game project that you've been setting back for so long
THe domain is not for sale. Not even for 5000$ FYI. so it is a waste of time to even message me for it. I am thinking on working on the project, but it is such an endless code endeavor I want to shoot myself in the face some days. I know that I am sitting on something in 20 years it could be worth a crapload of money based on the limit of .com's, the niche, and the great keywords. If i was offered 500,000 for it. I would sell it but unless I get lucky with some type of movie coming out, or a big game company for consoles wanting that site for their game there would be no interest in the average buyers for what i want for it if any scammers have any ideas, I have done my research. So do not even bother. Just transferred registrar to hostgator on that domain and set it to auto renew. Eventually I will pay for another 9 additional years on it. It will be a domain I wont drop regardless of what I do with it. But building a game would be fantastic, even if was not a cash cow.
You can get some professional help on your game. There are lotta people on odesk.com, guru, elance and even on sourceforge who can help you man, you will have to pay them though. Another 2 years is a lotta time, getting some one to help on this game can really shorten this time.
There is a site mage-world.com with 40,102 alexa rank. So you are getting offers. I think you should keep the domain. When you release your game it can get hit easily.
Mage-world made an offer which i declined. I contacted them first. and when I did keep track of the stats I was getting nice hits and parked the site, it brought in a few dollars but when parked.com disappeared my account went with it. I tried to chase it, but can care less at this point. I decided to continue my game. I just advanced my partner 2000$ in earnings to stop what he is doing and work on it with me. My text based game, although not as popular as 2003 is not your typical text based game. I would not even call it that. I would call it a 2D fallout with a different theme. There is nothing like it out there. I expect it to be finished by the end of june. Of course I wanted it done by last september too. regardless of what happens, I will NOT be giving up or selling MageWorld period. In fact soon enough i will be adding 9 more years to the expiry of the domain and it is set to auto renew anyway. the only price I would "consider" would be $500,000 which at this point is unrealistic. But domains sometimes have a strange way of having earnings depending on what the gaming community is up too.
about the leasing .. why don't lease it to mage-world dot com they made you a offer so now you make a offer to them. Tell them for a 1000 bucks a year you will drive all the traffic to their website, simple plain redirect. And because they will definitely promote your domain when your game launches you will have some links on the internet. But their website is nothing related to game so think about that.