So, how much is a game worth ?

[Asclepeos]

Originally posted by adityadennis
I have to goto college in a year, and earlier I was looking at art colleges with flash and director, but lately I've been looking more at like c++ etc... so yeah, the flash job market sucks. It's probably because so many people know flash and now that flash is everywhere, it's not as cool anymore. Earlier it used to be a novelty, and people like nike and cartoon network had it. Newgrounds proves how many people have it now.
P.S. Squize: Although I doubt asteriods will work on websites, Something customizable like an extremely fancy quiz engine will. The only thing remaining, like was said before, would be the price, cause personal web page people will definitely not like paying for stuff.Something else which actually already exists (I think): Customizable buttons/menus.
Oh BTW, I remember Jobe had said that he sells stuff for like 20000+ ,but come on, he's written the official game book for flash. He's kinda high-profile.
Another BTW: "New Masters of Flash" by Friends of Ed shows some really cool stuff done in Flash. You can just visit the www.friendsofed.com site and download the files so you wont have to buy the $60 book.
:]

wrong. newgrounds shows us how many stupid people have flash NOT know flash. There's a big difference. Customizable buttons? no, that's kids stuff. Flash is already more than web design.

Oh BTW, I remember Jobe had said that he sells stuff for like 20000+ ,but come on, he's written the official game book for flash. He's kinda high-profile.

no, that's the stigma they all want you to believe that the only game makers are electrotank, titoonic, and WDDG. Fine, let them take in all the opportunities.

[ClydeTheGlyde]

Totoonic and ElectroTank are good and for most of their games they deserve to get around $5000 ( I don't know how much exactly they charge, just an estimate )

Wddg and Mindcomet are examples of companies who probably charge much more than that, but make crap. When I saw Lego site by wddg I couldn't believe my eyes how lame it was.

As in most things in life it's who you know. It's much easier to sell crap to a person you already know makes these decisions ( buying games for corp. site ) than making a great game, but having to make 50 phone calls to reach the right person and even then he/she may not even care to take a look at what you have.

[Squize]

I don't want to slip into talking about my own project, that was never the reason for starting this thread, but there are some things I just want to touch on.

The plan was not to bother with re-branding for each site, to be honest I would find that painfully boring, and for the price we have in mind wouldn't really be worth our effort. It was basically to allow the webmaster ( I hate that term. It's like a geek feeling good about himself sort of term ) to put the swf on their site with a little bit of cut and paste html ( I think thats where the guestbook comparison came into it ).

But it seems allowing the person buying the swf some sort of customisation is a common theme in this thread. How about having some sort of web based editor for allowing people to put their logo in the game, alter the game settings ( Like dip switches in arcade games ) or would it take more than that ? Would it even be worth the effort ?

Right, back to the thread proper:

tomsamson:"i pretty much agree with mentuat,if the game is top notch,stands above others and is remarkably different from all which have been there before (maybe because it has a vast multiplayer world or just a really creative powerup which is fun to play around with for hours),it can be sold for a good price (1000-5000$)."

Hi!
I remember nGfx posting a thread about is it worth the effort to develop a AAA title in Flash a while ago. Without a definate buyer is it worth it ? I know I'm going back to the being over the barrel of the buyers thing again, but I really believe we are.

adityadennis:"Squize: Although I doubt asteriods will work on websites, Something customizable like an extremely fancy quiz engine will. The only thing remaining, like was said before, would be the price, cause personal web page people will definitely not like paying for stuff."

You've seen the current games ( Yeah including the Asteroids game ), you honestly think that isn't worth a nominal sum ? Hmmmm. Maybe 1c1p might be shortlived

Asclepeos:"1. Games are closer to art than anything else, therefore it's value is subjective. For us it's not like "we get what we put in". Don't ever think like that with games. Games are only as valuable as their marketability. Sure some suck, but that's irrelevant to their ability to attract attention, albeit cheap. So, as much as I hate to say it divorce the ideas of quality and value. They are unrelated variables in this economy."

That's a fantastic point. Anyone as old as me ( I'm looking at you Pauly ) will remember the old 8-bit days when big name licences ( TV, films, arcade etc. ) used to be for the most part dire but sold by the truck load.
I guess things haven't changed. A football game, no matter the standard, will always outsell something like OBJ ( Although I hope I'm totally wrong ).

Squize.

[tripledolemite]

Most of the games on shockwave and elsewhere give you a level or two and offer an extended complete version somewhere in the $20 range. I always wondered who, if anyone enjoyed these little games enough to actually pay for them, until my dad recently forked out for a couple puzzle games. Apparently there is a market for this.

The problem as I see it for most of us freelancers is getting the exposure on our own where enough people are able to find our games so that the percentage that actually pay creates enough income to be worth our while.

Lets say then that you develop a game of quality and figure that $10 is a reasonable selling price. There's still the issue of exposure. These big sites (like shockwave, etc) can create the requisite exposure, but they take most of the cash for themselves. We the developers are left with chump change.

However, what if you offered free partnerships to anyone willing to sell your game? Say, of the $10 dollar charge, any site through which a user buys your game will get $2 (just tossing out numbers here), not to mention the free portion of the game playable from their site.

I'm sure many of us could create games with broad appeal, and I'm also sure that there are a number of high traffic sites out there that either would simply enjoy the free game on their site, or could use the cash generated from sales, and would therefor market your game for you.

At any rate, it's a no lose partnership at the worst.

Dolemite

[luxregina]

Hey !

Interesting thread !

(...)is it worth the effort to develop a AAA title in Flash(...)

First, can anyone tell me what AAA means ?

I have a comment on this, that will bring me back to the topic of the thread :

Take 2Kingdoms, for example : it's been now one year and half (not "solid" but still...) that i'm working on the project, now i'm sitting on more than 300 tiles, and over 150 sprites (counting sprite animation). I could say that i have enough ressource now to match with a 10 years ago game ( not necessarly in terms of quality, of course, just talking ressources here )
I'm also a regular graphic designer that works in a regular company ; if i price the time i spent on that project, the final price will explose the very concept of rentability.

I agree the points stated earlier : clients usually ask for simple games, with low gestation : i doubt any serious company asking for a game like 2K, and being ready to pay for it : if they want a good RPG, they will rather go on regular dev basics like C++, java, or even, to a point, Director.

Flash is fun, Flash is kind of powerfull, but it will never rival with any of the environnements usually used to build games.

Nowadays gamers are exigeant : they want good gameplay, astounding graphics, original soundtracks and lots of other qualities that Flash is not likely to meet ( here, allow me a digression : when talking about "nowadays" gamers, i'm not talking about people like me, old enough to remember the fun that we add to play Barbarian, or Cauldron on our Amstrad, Commodore, Sinclair ... )

That's why i think that in the diversity of game market, Flash is restricted to really few category, all low $$$ potential :

- The quick promotionnal games : the "use and drop in the trashcan" games (still not talking about quality, but obsolescence ...)
Companies won't invest big money in games that won't survive their promotionnal campain ... Specially when advertising companies promote update frequency over content : small games, unexpensive to produce, but that change often.

- The pseudo-emulation scene : where old grand-papas like me, that always dreamed in their young age that they could do a video game realize that it is now actually possible : and of course, we are talking about old-generation games ( Ikari Warriors, Cauldron, Zelda etc and to a certain point, 2 Kingdoms ... )
The point here is to show / proove oneself that Flash is a powerfull tool that allow lots of different and cool creations ...

Usually, it also involves a lot of developpement time, which dramaticly decrease rentability : companies won't necessarly be interested, and they don't care about the technical miracle, unless it is obvious for any non-flash gamer ...

As long as our games will be mimics of heavyweights like (Zelda, Pacman, Mario, Diablo, Tetris etc ) there won't be much money for us.

Take the example of the "Mario Kart Engine" thread that impressed lot of us : we were all excited because we know Flash limitations, and the way to counter them was quite clever ... but put yourself in the shoes of a company : why would they choose this over a Shockwave game that offers a much better looking engine, that will certainly offer more gameplay capabilities ?

- Sure, there must be a third category : the kick-ass game, addictive, clever with a totally new concept of gameplay etc etc, that doesn't rely on 3D GFXs, processor time : this could be the Eldorado for the one that makes it, but be honest, how many of those games have you seen on the board lately ?


So to answer your question How much is your game worth ? The one you are working on right now , i would say "nothing" ...it worth nothing, but that nothing worths a lot to me because i'm realizing a kid's dream ... Once completed, it might also worth satisfaction to have player enjoying my game, and may be to a certain point professional aknowledgment ... and this could lead to some money

[tomsamson]

Originally posted by luxregina

I agree the points stated earlier : clients usually ask for simple games, with low gestation : i doubt any serious company asking for a game like 2K, and being ready to pay for it : if they want a good RPG, they will rather go on regular dev basics like C++, java, or even, to a point, Director.

Flash is fun, Flash is kind of powerfull, but it will never rival with any of the environnements usually used to build games.


Take the example of the "Mario Kart Engine" thread that impressed lot of us : we were all excited because we know Flash limitations, and the way to counter them was quite clever ... but put yourself in the shoes of a company : why would they choose this over a Shockwave game that offers a much better looking engine, that will certainly offer more gameplay capabilities ?

- Sure, there must be a third category : the kick-ass game, addictive, clever with a totally new concept of gameplay etc etc, that doesn't rely on 3D GFXs, processor time : this could be the Eldorado for the one that makes it, but be honest, how many of those games have you seen on the board lately ?

hey there lux,i pretty much agree with most stuff you said besides the above,i don´t agree that companies would generally prefer director java or C++ instead of flash.
the market for flash games is currently (mainly) where 2d games are needed for the web in a small filesize.
much more surfers have the flash plugin compared to the director one,flash also beats the download time of director stuff by far (if handled right),besides that nowadays average pcs are fast enough to allow coders to create wicked stuff in flash,so when speaking about 2d games for the web,flash has more pros than director,therefore it has its own market.

[tonypa]

Originally posted by BlinkOk
hey tony, did you read the article i posted?
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,21....html/wn_ascii

Sorry, I forgot it earlier. Now I read it, thank you for bringing it up

Now that I see how even PopCap is huge compnay compared to most Flash game makers. 21 people, 100 000$ budjet and 6 month developement cycle for each game. Thats a factory

I wanted to point out another important idea luxregina said. Clients or players doesnt care how you made the game, they probably dont even know whats Flash, all they care is that game works and its fun to play. So not are we only competing with other Flash games, also Java, Director or C++ games cant be forgot. Flash version of GTA wont sell because there is real GTA and real GTA will always be so much better.

"Take the example of the "Mario Kart Engine" thread that impressed lot of us : we were all excited because we know Flash limitations, and the way to counter them was quite clever ... but put yourself in the shoes of a company : why would they choose this over a Shockwave game that offers a much better looking engine, that will certainly offer more gameplay capabilities ?"

Very true, I absolutely agree.

It was basically to allow the webmaster to put the swf on their site with a little bit of cut and paste html.

I still dont see why they should pay for it. Flash games are seen like GIFs, you want some on your page, you take them from "Free Flash Games Collection Page". And like those horrible GIFs wondering from one page to another, you see same horrible Flas games. You think they are willing to pay for good game, I think they are happy just if its moving, its red and makes "BOOM!" when clicked.

[Mojosmackwit]

Originally posted by adityadennis
I have to goto college in a year, and earlier I was looking at art colleges with flash and director, but lately I've been looking more at like c++ etc... so yeah, the flash job market sucks. It's probably because so many people know flash and now that flash is everywhere, it's not as cool anymore. Earlier it used to be a novelty, and people like nike and cartoon network had it. Newgrounds proves how many people have it now.
P.S. Squize: Although I doubt asteriods will work on websites, Something customizable like an extremely fancy quiz engine will. The only thing remaining, like was said before, would be the price, cause personal web page people will definitely not like paying for stuff.Something else which actually already exists (I think): Customizable buttons/menus.
Oh BTW, I remember Jobe had said that he sells stuff for like 20000+ ,but come on, he's written the official game book for flash. He's kinda high-profile.
Another BTW: "New Masters of Flash" by Friends of Ed shows some really cool stuff done in Flash. You can just visit the www.friendsofed.com site and download the files so you wont have to buy the $60 book.
:]

Newgrounds just proves how many people have pirated Flash.

[luxregina]

Originally posted by tomsamson
(...)so when speaking about 2d games for the web,flash has more pros than director,therefore it has its own market.

True ! i wasn't clear enough ( i'm always a bit ashamed to do long posts, since my english can be tedious to read ... wait that we have a talk in french !! )

Let me clarify : for me, this goes in the first category : the quick marketing game

Actually, what is a web game ? : there is the game, as a goodie, in a website : companies will obviously try to spend more money on their own content than on the goodie -> Flash, of course, but still low $$$

Then, there is the "real" web game, as a stand-alone product (let's say Elite on-line, for example of a game that "could" be ported in Flash with talent and dedication )
That's where the money is : big games, seen as big apps, where companies are ready to invest production time and money : my point was that, for that type of project, Flash wasn't the most adapted tool : for those games, people are ready to download a plugin, viewer or whatever, so we loose the competition ...

Take OgreIsland : i don't know if you ever played it (it's a MMORPG in Flash ), eventhough i'm totally impressed with the skills and dedication in putting this all together in Flash, i must recognize that it is way less attractive than C++, java, or Shockwave competitors ... and if i was someone else, i would have the exact same statement for Two Kingdoms

So if it's not for passion, i wouldn't recommend making Flash games, the amount of money you can make there is too limited, and big positions are already trusted by big companies !

<shameless promotion>By the way, you might be impressed with the upcoming Two Kingdoms Demo : inventory, Quests are completed, AI working, even if buggy </shameless promotion>

[RazoRmedia]

you can make an absolutely ridiculous amount of money out of flash games if you think outside the box.

Although games like asteroids, mariokart and electrotank golf can be quite entertaining, only a certain amount of people are going to pay to play them or pay to buy an extended version with more levels. Figures suggest that out of every 1000 people that stumbles across your game, less than 2% will actually purchase it or pay to play it.

In my experience as a game developer, you can split games into three types.

[list=1][*]fun games
---------
These are most of the games I see developed on this board, the're fun to play, can be addictive and are the most fun to work on. The way to make money from these is to try to sell them to gaming websites or companies which would benefit from having games on their site to advertise their products. Most of the games in this genre will start as hobbies and experiments and remain like that, with a small number being sold to an external client or available for download for a certain amount of money.

[*]site content games
------------------
Similar to fun games but built with a contract already established. The client may wish to have some kind of game (possibly viral) on their website to trap email addresses or promote their product. These can be very successful for the client but normally a set amount is charged and this rarely goes above £5k (UK). Thats all very nice but you'd have to sell at least 5 of these per year to be earning as much as a junior game designer in the majority of UK companies and finding good clients is like a job in itself.
[*]pay to play games
-----------------
My own particular area of expertise. I create freelance games in my spare time and I also work for a large gambling company which purchases these games. Recently, we paid £22,000 for a suite of 4 games (which in my opinion were basic and quite frankly a bit crap). They were produced by a company most of you have probably heard of who are sweeping over internet sites like wildfire.

How can they charge so much?

The games we purchase are for gamblers, they are pay to play games such as keno, poker, roulette etc. It can cost from 10p to £5.00 for one go but the user has the chance to win much much more than their initial stake. The price paid for these flash games was so high because they are risk tested to ensure we don't lose too much money in winnings and they also have a backend which will plug directly into our accounts using a white label component. It sounds complicated but its not, any reputable programmer with a decent knowledge of maths can pick it up easily and provide game integration in this way. The company in question actually made lots of mistakes which were amended by myself.

Gambling companies and casinos will pay lots for their games if you can make them addictive, fun to play and keep the punters money coming in, thats the key.

I recently made a game for my company and it earns them over £1,000 a day profit. the four games mentioned before which were bought in make less than £600 per day between them, its all about good ideas and then selling them.[/list=1]

Anyway, thats my little rant over. Just have a think the next time you're planning to do an isometric 3d adventure. why not create an addictive game that gives away prize money and try to sell it to gambling companies.

Good luck.

[mbenney]

hmm, some great points there razor.

i wonder if anyone has tried to combine the fun games with the gambling games. yes, indeed, the fun games can be addictive and fun... there is often motivation to top the highscore tables etc. The gambling games have all the thrills of betting and winning money. Surely these two types of games could be joined... maybe a prize giveaway for the person who tops the highscore table each week. Or a penalty shootout game where you can bet money on how many goals you can kick.

Ive always dreamed of doing a championship manager type community system, with real money involved. People have to pay to participate for the season, with real returns or prizes for topping the league or winning competitions.

I feel you can make money out of the fun games... if you can get the contracts. Unfortunatley its not what you know, its who you know... and its damn hard to get your foot firmly onto the bottom rung of the ladder.

[m]

[RazoRmedia]

i wonder if anyone has tried to combine the fun games with the gambling games. yes, indeed, the fun games can be addictive and fun... there is often motivation to top the highscore tables etc. The gambling games have all the thrills of betting and winning money. Surely these two types of games could be joined... maybe a prize giveaway for the person who tops the highscore table each week. Or a penalty shootout game where you can bet money on how many goals you can kick.
thats the idea. People are jumping onto the idea of having viral games now too, chunk ideas are very good at this and have had many successful ideas on harvesting email addresses through flash gaming.

Ive always dreamed of doing a championship manager type community system, with real money involved. People have to pay to participate for the season, with real returns or prizes for topping the league or winning competitions.
I'm currently working on a fantasy striker game through flash and XML with a java servlets backend. Its pretty complex but the beauty is that users will want to play week after week so you get more subscription based gamers.

I feel you can make money out of the fun games... if you can get the contracts. Unfortunatley its not what you know, its who you know... and its damn hard to get your foot firmly onto the bottom rung of the ladder.

you don't need a ladder, someone once said that if enough monkeys used enough typewriters, sooner or later, they would reproduce the complete works of shakespeare. I think just producing the games and showing them off is enough. Electrotank sucees has come from their golf game, its great, people love it, they became known because of it. I'm not sure I agree with their current way of thinking though, selling their games like popcap, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. The thing is, their are different markets to punt your games too.

[adityadennis]

no, that's the stigma they all want you to believe that the only game makers are electrotank, titoonic, and WDDG. Fine, let them take in all the opportunities.

Yeah, the point is that most people DO consider them EXPERTS and WILL goto them for even a pong game.

Squize: Your asteriods is definitely cool, but come on, you know that people with personal web pages hate paying for stuff. Here's an idea, though: Give out your one-coin-one-play games for free, but give a ten-second advert before the game starts. If it's a popular personal web page, people will pay. I remember reading something about a personal web page that got like 10000+ hits a day.

RazoRMedia: Doesnt your post come back to the original point of crawling the web, looking for open spots that could be filled by games, and them making them accordingly?

[RazoRmedia]

Originally posted by adityadennis
RazoRMedia: Doesnt your post come back to the original point of crawling the web, looking for open spots that could be filled by games, and them making them accordingly?

yes and no. I crawl this forum a lot but rarely post as most of what I see is fun and there is some brilliant ideas and content knocking about. People seem to develop games as a hobby, for fun. This is all very well but the most popular games we have are pretty boring and most of the work goes in to RNG and extensive algorithms. The fantasy striker game I am currently working on is very complex and very boring, its a hell of a lot of data for a little flash window but it will be popular. Not many people will be prepared to spend 10+ hours a day writing code for a game that seems at most a bit dull but many people will want to play this game on completion and many will pay for the pleasure.

Looking for spots and filling them will make you money but creating spots and flooding them will make you rich.

[adityadennis]

ah, I get it now.

Looking for spots and filling them will make you money but creating spots and flooding them will make you rich.

Sounds like one of those wise-man seen-the-world will-last-in-our-memory-forever old-man-and-the-sea quotes.

[RazoRmedia]

Originally posted by adityadennis
ah, I get it now.



Sounds like one of those wise-man seen-the-world will-last-in-our-memory-forever old-man-and-the-sea quotes.

wish it was mate but I'm 25 and currently hiding behind the couch because the rentmans knocking and I haven't got anything to pay him with

[WilloughbyJackson]

wish it was mate but I'm 25 and currently hiding behind the couch because the rentmans knocking and I haven't got anything to pay him with

Ouch. Mayhaps you can pay him in custom games?

I mostly dabble in game dev for fun right now, but I am probably going to be looking to sell some for extra income.

Asclepeos speakth on this:

2. The key advantage of flash over shockwave is it's ability to reach a MUCH bigger audience. It's viral marketability (due to size, easy distribution, versatility amongst systems) is the reason why it's such a welcomed commodity. Therefore making it into CD-ROM for me seems very inefficient and digressing to old shareware days.

Yes, I see your point. Probably a pay to play model would take advantage of Flash's assests better, and as many people have stated, if it was multiplayer, all the better.

But I have seen some moderately successful Flash EXE pay-to-download which people are "jerks" and don't bother making a MAC download for. (WHAT ABOUT LINUX )

There's always the growing Pocket PC market (but the Flash Pocket PC Exe thingee cost an arm and a leg for a year's license (to my understanding)).

Also the Japanese CD-ROMs I was referring to usually contain complete works of an artist which often goes beyond just Flash games. (Admittedly, some of them are naughty and often have the free SWF CD "game" demos stolen and put on Newgrounds... )

-pXw

[Squize]

A theme I've spotted in the past few posts is the relative lack of percieved value, and therefore the ability for us to charge a decent price, for "fun" games.

I know I've brought this up before ( In the Flash Player X thread ? ) but don't good ( Fun ) Flash games have a long shelf life ? If so their value is increased, although this isn't included in the purchase price ( I don't mean promotional games, that's a different deal all together ).

RazoRmedia:"I'm 25 and currently hiding behind the couch because the rentmans knocking and I haven't got anything to pay him with".
Brings back memories
As to your point about giving the people chance to win money from playing games but the games themselves being a chore, yeah it totally makes sense. Gambling and porn will always make money.

Lux, firstly I totally love your "The pseudo-emulation scene" term I'm an old man like you on that regard, and being able to write a game that you loved when you were young is so cool ( Although I think I'll have to wait for the next version of Flash before I can do Uridium ).
Also for the most part people really don't care what a game is authored in, it's the end results. Yeah we all went wow with the MK engine ( And rightly so ) but to most other people who have an Xbox or PS2 it's no big deal at all.
That's partly why I struggle with the exe only approach. Is Joe Public going to spend £10 to download your Flash game when with very little effort they can get Vice City for free ? ( I'm not advocating piracy, far from it, but we can't be blind to it. It killed the Amiga games market totally ).
So long as we avoid the "Isn't it cool for Flash" mantra and instead think of "Isn't it cool" when making our games, gameplay will always come first.

Tony:"I still dont see why they should pay for it. Flash games are seen like GIFs, you want some on your page, you take them from "Free Flash Games Collection Page"."
Don't see why or you doubt they will? Maybe, maybe not. Don't mean to be flippant but until the licenceware thing goes live and I get some feedback I really can't tell either way. I really hope it does, and not just 'cause of personal reasons, but because it'll open things up for a lot of people on this board and hopefully give us a bit more leverage with the gaming sites.

Willoughby with regard the Pocket PC market I know even Jeff Minter is finding it hard to make decent money on it, and he's better than all of us ( Will ever be ).

tripledolemite your affiliate idea is a good one, offering people the chance to make money themselves is always sexy ( Amazon haven't done too bad out of it )

adityadennis:"Your asteriods is definitely cool, but come on, you know that people with personal web pages hate paying for stuff. Here's an idea, though: Give out your one-coin-one-play games for free, but give a ten-second advert before the game starts."
I knew if I fished long enough I'd get some good words The banner ad in a game is an idea, it just jars agaisnt the artistic creative type in me. ( The artistic creative type who can't sell a game and has no money ).

I'm glad this thread has had such great input from everyone so far. Hopefully it'll help everyone on fk, esp. the people who are about to take the step from hobby to actual cash in the bank.

Squize.

[BlinkOk]

who the hell is Jeff Minter?

[Squize]

lol, mBenny just asked me that.

He started way back on the Vic-20 and just writes weird games totally for himself but which used to sell by the truck load.

Basically the guy can make a new system sing in a stupidly short amount of time. It's just frightening how quickly he adapts to new machines, and he writes full commercial games on his own.

I'd let him be the daddy

Squize.