[Disc] Money

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Originally Posted by Eager Beaver

Discussion about money took place many times in these forums.
as I have already stated in previous threads a Flash game is a piece of art. Can you buy a Picasso, or a Rembrandt for $100?
However, Picassos, and Rembrandts cannot be faked or pirated …with ease!!!

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No, but not many people ever can paint a picture of Picasso's quality and just the fact that he painted it makes it worth alot.

Same can't be said of flash games. Many of the game that people come to me for sponsorship for I can easily duplicate and make better without pirating, but starting from scratch. And game player do not care who the heck made the game.

Your comparison between a flash game and a picasso or a Rembrandt is irrelevant.

Honestly, a flash game is a commodity, not a piece of art. I make gamesa and I view my work in that way because unlike picasso, I know many people can easily duplicate or better my work.

@ArchBob: True, the coding of a flash game can often be replicated, however I believe the factor that makes these small scale games unique is the originality. Not everyone can come up with a brilliant idea, and often when they do it's something new and original. Imho, there are many unique Flash games out there because it's designer friendly and fairly easy to pick up compared other tools. So yeah, you may be able to recreate something, but no one will want to play a clone of a game that they've already played. Take line rider for example (it's an extreme example, but still valid): There are quite a few clones out there now, but the original line rider captivated it's audience with the idea - it was simple, easy to get started, original, and lots of fun. Yes those clones still get a large reception, but everyone will remember and preferably come back to the original.

Sorry for going off on a tangent there... Back to the topic, I think it's already been summed up more than enough: Don't talk about sums on these boards. It's as simple and easy as that. :)

Viza.

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Originally Posted by Archbob

Many of the game that people come to me for sponsorship for I can easily duplicate and make better without pirating, but starting from scratch. And game player do not care who the heck made the game.

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This is how honest freelancers are being fleeced by unscrupulous hackers.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

unscrupulous

i had to look that word up hehehe..... immoral..... just for those people that have less of a vocab then a beaver...

Wow, this thread at least taught us all how to finally break out of that awful state developers and designers have fought with through the ages, most commonly known as writers block.

If you have trouble coming up with ideas of your own for games, just open a portal and take the ideas sent to you by others, then rewrite them into your own. What a great concept! [/sarcasm]

contact list --> remove contact --> confirm

Being somewhat a "old-time" user of FK, I think that the thread-discussing-money trend is more than just a trend : it reflects a shift that happened in the memberships itself.

Lots of the new people are extremely focused on getting their games on the market, and get some quick money : it gives me the feeling that the board is more about how to squeeze some quick money out of Flash more than the "labor of love" that I liked about it.

Now, the reason for that statement is less obvious than it sounds : what I mean is that maybe FK has evolved into that "semi-pro" ( and by semi-pro, i'm not making any statement on the quality of the product, but on the mindset they were built in ) direction, and that ruling out the money discussion isn't serving the community it has become ?

Personally, I wish Planet would consider opening a specifically "amateur" Flash board, where people aren't afraid to show their projects, and where passion and dedication have a place to be again : in the game section now, it has become more and more rare to read real "development" threads, showing work in progress, thought provoking gameplay questions, wow inspiring graphics, etc ...

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Originally Posted by JerryScript

Wow, this thread at least taught us all how to finally break out of that awful state developers and designers have fought with through the ages, most commonly known as writers block.

If you have trouble coming up with ideas of your own for games, just open a portal and take the ideas sent to you by others, then rewrite them into your own. What a great concept! [/sarcasm]

contact list --> remove contact --> confirm

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Its not like this is a new concept. We've all had ideas taken from us and have taken other people's idea.

For instance the owner of Flashgameliscense took my original Asteroid's Revenge Idea and made a much better game. Likewise my last game was based off of the old "touch the bubbles game" with a new twist.


We don't actually hack your game or break your code. We're making a game from scratch where we make the graphics, create the sounds, etc.
Its not "unscrupulous".

Is every FPS game an "unscrupulous" copy of Wolfenstein 3D, because regardless of how you change the graphics, the gameplay is the same.
Most of these games that we get sponsorships for aren't excalty new ideas, most of the them are clones of idea that have been done over and over again.

How many sliders have you seen recently? Are they all new ideas?

Are sidescroller where you shoot everything in your path new ideas?

Are the numerous tetris and pong remakes new ideas?

No, they are just remakes of old ideas. 90% of games made today are not new ideas. Even Coeperia Fighter 3 isn't really a new concept. Street Fighter came before it. Truly unique ideas don't surface very often. Even Asteroid's Revenge, I based off of the original Asteroids.

How many Original ideas have you actually thought of?

And for the record, I haven't duplicated any of the ideas that have come to me because hardly any have been worthy of my time to duplicate.

I am sorry If I have ruffled some feelings. :mad:
I am suffering from agony about how the well-started thread is taking shape.
Beaver lives for FLASH and even prepared to die for FLASH, money or no money.
All the best for everybody.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008

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Originally Posted by EvilKris

What C64 game was that Ray?

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It was a port of "Spirit of Excalibur" (Amiga). I don't think the c64 version was ever finished and published. I kind of was too slow in delivering the goods. (Which is what I'm talking about when I say companies will pay a premium for professionalism that comes with experience. I was young and knew how to draw great graphics, but I lacked discipline and a reliable work ethic. (no longer true thankfully)). When you sell a service to a client, it's more than just a SWF file.

luxregina: You bring up an interesting perspective.

Which reminds me of one thing I didn't mention... I said that discussing cash figures can be good too. It can put your business plans into proper perspective. For example, www.gameproducer.net posts some sales stats from self-published indie PC and Mac games: http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/ It really puts into perspective that for the PC games market, it's not a matter of just making a game and then getting rich. Many games do not even sell enough to fund the next game or allow the developer to quit their day-job.

In a sense, the same should be true for Flash developers. But I just don't feel this forum is the place for it, because not everyone wishes to approach Flash game dev as a business endeavour. GameProducer.net is aimed at the producer side. What's funny is another site, www.indiegamer.com have the opposite problem from here. Their site is supposed to be focused on the business side of independant game publishing, and they get annoyed when people come in and ask for help on how to make games. :-D

Dollar figures are being discussed over on the GameLicense site, and I think maybe also on the Mochi forums? Is that good enough?

Ok, I felt like I had to post atleast something in this thread since it's getting so big. I really don't know which side to take to tell you the truth. Ive talked about money on flashkit a couple times, forgeting the rule. The only concern I would have about talking about it would be (like said before) have some beginners come in and think they can make a 5 minute pong game and get paid hundreds of dollars for it. I mean if your just starting flash, I dont think having money as the main goal for doing it being a very good idea. I didn't even know that I could make money off games until a few months ago. But I can say that getting paid is a very nice reward for doing what I would do free.
Overall, I don't think money should be discussed alot on flashkit because many beginners come on these threads. But when I see it discussed on Mochi Ads forums or places like that, I think it's cool because
1) I find it interesting to know what people made off their games
2) There aren't alot of beginners on the mochi ads forums.

So Im not saying discussing money is a bad thing at all. It's just bad noobs can see it :)

Yeaa.. going back and reading that, it didn't make much sense but whatever.
Im not good at writing, unlike ray beez who can write brilliant 3 page posts :)

Anyways happy new years flashkit.

It would be nice if we were able to discuss money. I don't think that it will come down to price undercutting, because who really announces their project before they start it? I mean, when I make a game, I'm not like: Hey everyone, I just got a really good deal with Xportal, and I'm making this type of game, and here are some really good ideas I was having with it. K thx bye.

You (supposedly) put up material that you've already finished (possibly for beta), or something that has a solid foundation and a unique idea. The only time price undercuttting happens is when a company goes looking for freelance work, and a whole mess of people pop up to bid for it. If you put up a good finished product, nobody can touch that without working 100 hours in a week to catch up with you.

For me, it isn't really a matter of making a whole ton of money off of my flash games (although that helps save for college), it is partly something that I use to express ideas and concepts, and it is nice if I make money off of it. To be honest, I wouldn't be into flash if there wasn't any money in it. I don't mind doing work for little pay, but I won't get into an area that has no practical purpose for me. I'm not focused on money, but I realize that I need to get something out of it if I'm going to put something in. Some of you love flash so much that you can do that kind of work without any compensation, but I am not one of those people.

Also, people seem to think that flash games are taking a turn for the worse, that developers aren't putting any effort into it because they care too much about making a profit. I think part of this is true, but I think that it is being facilitated more by the entry of a whole lot of 14-year old amateur programmers. I mean, the number of devs has probably tripled in the last year with all of the newbies, so now you are going to get a lot more underdeveloped work. This also explains the lack of innovation that can be seen in games today, because when you’re learning to do something new (relatively), you wont try to brainstorm and implement a new concept that even the pros haven’t come up with.

But if you want to make money, you have to put in work. Here is an equation that sums it up: Money = Math.pow(work, 2)
If you put an hour into all of your games, you will only get 1 unit of money per game, but the more you put in, the more you get back.

But yes, I do find all of the copying and crappiness very annoying too. Take comfort in knowing that eventually, the ones in it for the money will find that it isn’t worth it, and the good ones will master flash and produce some great material. Sorry that this post is such a book.

if you guys cant handle talking about money, just every time you see a dollar sign, close your eyes and scream your heads off. it works.

"It would be nice if we were able to discuss money. I don't think that it will come down to price undercutting, because who really announces their project before they start it?"

People like to flag up early alpha's though for peer feedback. That to me is the biggest worry of the board going too commercial, that no one will post anything until it's done for fear of being ripped off ( Ask Imprisoned Pride about it ).

Al I'm a bit confused about your view point though. You're in the talking money is cool camp, but then you say price cutting won't be an issue for most people. Then if people are just showing 90-100% complete games then why talk about the money aspect at all ? Where's the benefit ?
If it's just a case of "Hey, look at my new game, btw I got $xxxx for it" then isn't that just akin to saying you've just had sex ?

I think it's being pointed out quite a few times that other sites have the info, so if people are really panting to know, or brag, or whatever, then there are other outlets for it.
Saying that the info is out there and we can't just stay closeted away from it here isn't valid. We all manage to avoid swearing here and it doesn't kill us. I've managed to be an active member here without ever seeing any donkey sex on the board. If I want to swear or see animal related rudeness then I can do that elsewhere, it doesn't mean I should complain that I should be able to do it here when it's not a suitable place to do so.

Lux, you only post once a year these days, but it's always worth waiting for :)

Squize.

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Originally Posted by Squize

Lux, you only post once a year these days, but it's always worth waiting for :)

Squize.

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Ha! in this very case, your comment can only be ironic :) :)

Far from it mate :)

You need to get your arse back here more often.

...and back to the thread.

Squize.

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Originally Posted by luxregina

Ha! in this very case, your comment can only be ironic :) :)

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I second that post.
Flashkit has become way less attractive to me mainly because we have plenty of amateurs that just like you said aim for the quick money- they dont care about quality and often are between 13 and 16 years old. I often got into flamy threads with such members trying either to promote themselves (the "we"- slang thingy) or talk bluntly about their first money- personally I dont care at all about such,- all I care about are nice flash discoveries, code bew and lots of demos.

Personally I think that such people destroy their own future because at such a young age their should develop different abilities not just to copy other stuff and make lots of money out of it. Once you will be older variety in expierence of your past are what matter,- I know this from personal expience and I am not 13 years old.

Again I dont think that this will increase the quality of this forum, because aiming for money usually doesn´t go well with sharing expierence and knowledge thus the ingredients that made this forum in the past so great.

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Originally Posted by Squize

"It would be nice if we were able to discuss money. I don't think that it will come down to price undercutting, because who really announces their project before they start it?"

People like to flag up early alpha's though for peer feedback. That to me is the biggest worry of the board going too commercial, that no one will post anything until it's done for fear of being ripped off ( Ask Imprisoned Pride about it ).

Al I'm a bit confused about your view point though. You're in the talking money is cool camp, but then you say price cutting won't be an issue for most people. Then if people are just showing 90-100% complete games then why talk about the money aspect at all ? Where's the benefit ?
If it's just a case of "Hey, look at my new game, btw I got $xxxx for it" then isn't that just akin to saying you've just had sex ?

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I personally see no reason to put up an alpha for feedback. I only put up beta material, usually for bug tweaking and suggestions. Perhaps I'm an invalid example for this exact reason, however. Usually, when I put up some code for a game that I need help with, I change the variables to something completely different, but that would still be relevant to the problem. But the other thing is, in order to be undercut, you would also have to give out your sponsor information, and who does that?

I see a problem with people just flat-out bragging, but I have no problem if someone is using ambiguous money figures to describe a point or a marketing technique. The way I see it, if you brag, you are more likely to get undercut, because you announce your price, game, and portal. That easily allows people to go directly to the portal you are selling it to and outbid you.

Something that I do not want to see, however, is a person putting up the price offered for their game and asking if that is fair, because that is more like price overcutting, and I think that should stick to PM.

Then again, there are still the mochiads forums to go to, so for me, it doesn't really matter any way.

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Originally Posted by renderhjs

I second that post.
Flashkit has become way less attractive to me mainly because we have plenty of amateurs that just like you said aim for the quick money- they dont care about quality and often are between 13 and 16 years old. I often got into flamy threads with such members trying either to promote themselves (the "we"- slang thingy) or talk bluntly about their first money- personally I dont care at all about such,- all I care about are nice flash discoveries, code bew and lots of demos.

Personally I think that such people destroy their own future because at such a young age their should develop different abilities not just to copy other stuff and make lots of money out of it. Once you will be older variety in experience of your past are what matter,- I know this from personal expience and I am not 13 years old.

Again I don't think that this will increase the quality of this forum, because aiming for money usually doesn't go well with sharing experience and knowledge thus the ingredients that made this forum in the past so great.

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Yeah, the biggest problem that I have with it is that younger people can be immature.

But I don't think that you are destroying your future by copying things at all. Who doesn't have to copy something at first? The problem is when you copy things and don't try to innovate in your copy-ings. For example, don't copy the same game ten times, and don't try to make it the exact same thing, then try to sell it repeatedly.

And I have to disagree with you on that part. That would be the only point that I would see to talk about money--to share experience, whether on marketing, or how to license or anything like that. The inherent problem here is, that then you get more kids making crappy money games. So I don't know exactly how this would affect things.

My Solution: Ban anyone under the age of 16 from the internet. :D not really

Yea, the board has certainly gone downhill a lot. When I first joined here (which was less than 4 years ago), there was a much nicer atmosphere, and there were constantly threads about works in progress, screenshots being posted, demos, discussions etc. When was the last time we had a serious topic like that (not including the "please test my first game in progress" threads)? I honestly can't remember the last one.

I still regularly check the forum, but I don't post as much as I used to, I really only post now to comment on somebody’s completed game, or to respond in threads like this. I don't even have the motivation to help people as much as I used to, because there is no balance with other types of thread.

The worst part is that I can't really see it getting any better, if anything it will probably just get worse. The very good developers are all doing professional work that they can't show, the new developers just want to make quick cash, and everyone else is too worried about their game/idea being stolen :(.

I'm depressing myself now. Maybe I will show some screens from what I'm working on when I actually get somewhere with something I can show :).

Ali

I, like the previous poster, see little value in posting a bugged Alpha for show. I may let people preview a one-level demo, but after that, I usually show a beta or the complete product.

And honestly, I'm not afraid of people copying my idea because if they are they are just going to make a clone of my completed game anyways.