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Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you had started talking about something else.
I meant to reply to some of the stuff on one of the other pages, but it put me here. On the other hand, the name of the thread is "Is there much money in Flash games?"
The rules state that you cannot talk amounts of money.
Sorry about that then.
If I had one dollar for everytime they talked about money here...
To bring another side of the story, got to let you guys know that I started my companies with no knowledge whatsoever in Flash, web and gfx really, there was no school at the time and the only source of info was the help files from Flash :scared: and learnt everything as it goes and it went pretty well and I still enjoy coding games and apps in Flash even if I didn't have any previous knowledge about proramming before opening Flash. So all this to say that when you wanna do it badly, then you find the energy to do things and create what seems to be impossible. And yeah that was my only source of income for ten years.
There's money to be made in anything you believe in and fight enough for :cow:
I've been making quite a large amount of money from flash, you just need to look around for good clients, don't ever go for the low payers ;)
totally agree on the last statement. Sure, technically speaking some type of work like basic adding of an intro and hs component could be done without any big effort in most cases but sadly those types of clients who arenīt into paying a propper sum in first place are normally those who generally value the workload/effort low and therefore are also often those who will ask for more and more additional unpaid work to be done afterwards
(or abuse your game in ways theyīre not allowed to since yeah,they just donīt care at all).
Yep, I totally have to agree with the last two posts...
It actually depends. When you first start out and you don't have a portfolio, getting those high-paying clients is hard. I hire alot of first-time flashers(I also hired some experienced ones) and give them a project on the cheap to build their portfolios. After they do a few projects, they generally move on to higher-paying clients. They get their start, I get my projects on the cheap. Works pretty well for me.
We all had to begin somewhere. I remember working for nearly nothing doing PHP freelance when I first started.
Yep I think that's a major point if you wanna make a living out of it too: don't sell yourself for cheap. The thing is that if you sell your stuff really cheap, then the exact same customer will NEVER call you when he'll get a big budget for a game.
And "building a portfolio" is just a dirty trap from people making a living on your back. They make you feel that you're going somewhere and that they are helping you when they just give you the shovel to dig your own tomb.
Stay away of those guys who "don't have much for this first one, but eh...the next ones are gonna be good money son".
What we did when we started was to build a fake portfolio. We put together a demo reel from a lot of our "work" together. Basically just like 5 seconds edited nicely on some cool music. We never had to show any complete work (that didn't exist obviously) and never had to look for clients from that point - kinda of snowball effect happen then. So just put together some nice screenshots, cool graphics and some simple code together to show them that you CAN do it (even if you've never been paid for it so far).
Laughing at low price is very recommended as well.
Talk price to start with, don't leave it to the end. The only clients we actually did work for are the ones who talked straight about money to start with. All the rest are jokers really.
If you act seriously and profesionnaly you'll attract the good fishs, if not it will stink badly.
What is the meaning of "building a portfolio". Somebody advised me some time back to build a good portfolio to get customers.Quote:
Originally Posted by artlink
There are two ways to look at it.
By building a portfolio you are just showing off your work, which you should be doing. One place where you can direct any potential client so they can see what you're capable of.
The problem is a lot of new guys see building their portfolio as a chance to make some extra cash, so they'll work for next to nothing just so they've got the experience of working with a "client".
It's the 2nd one which basically screws the whole indy market. It undervalues everything, and is one of the main reasons we don't talk money on the games forum ( It used to be the case that someone would pop up with "$100" for a game, and people would just dive in to actually under cut that joke of an amount, to the point where people were offering to do it for free just to "Build their portfolios" ).
To me building up a body of work should be for the fun of it. If you want to churn out a load of crap games for $100/$200 then that's all you're going to have, a load of crap games.
Instead of thinking of the short term gain, I'd advise anyone to spend the time making some really good stuff, something to be proud of, and then you'll get the clients who understand the value of things and earn more.
Squize.
Basically, set yourself a amount of money below which you'll never go (something that pays the bills and the coffee). If you have to wait for clients, then experiment and build nice stuff just not to drive you crazy and have a nicer portfolio to show. Lke it has been said client's project aren't really exciting or challenging most of the time, and the ONE that will be sexy, you'll kill yourself while doing it because you want it to be so great.
And on top of what Squize said, I've got to add that most of the clients won't even understand any notion of gameplay or anything related to code. Their only concerns are about the feeling of the game which they get 99% from the gfx and some cool background music. They realy don't wanna go into anything specific codewise believe me, they are too afraid to sound clumsy.
The great part of being your own boss too is that when the client ask "eh can we just add airplanes in the game that bomb submarines, I know it was supposed to be a tic tac toe, but..." you can just sit back and smile and after a pause add "sure, that will be cool, I send you a new budget for that this afternoon" and then they turn "well...er...ok forget about it, you know, I think crosses and circles will do".
:rolleyes:
Hmmm... I was wondering, I know this is not the right forum, but do you guys believe now that "gamevertesing" has become a slightly popular you could get advertising for free to download non flash games? like Linux, Mac, XNA?
XNA GSE 2 was released a few days ago and It would be sweet to port some games to it, now that it has "xbox live" capabilities. (is a shame there are no Achievements though)
Something I was reading about somewhere else, I can't remember where off the top of my head, is that the guy who made "Desktop Tower Defense" makes a ton off of just that game. If you can get a game that's captivating enough and host it on a website, you can get a ton of money in advertising. He gets something like 20 million hits a day (I don't know if that's the right number or if I made it up, like I said, I can't remember much about the story). I know you said not to mention money, BUT this is sort of a different situation. Nobody's going to outbid him or lowball him or undercut his price or anything, but this article said something about him making almost $8k a month in just advertising.
I think that situation may be a little less frequent than just selling a game, but it's still interesting to think about.
I read a similar interview ( Escapes me where it was too ), but he was kinda misquoted.
I think they took his best month, and then multiplied it by 12 to work out what he would get a year, so the figures are kinda tweaked.
He's basically come forward and said he wished he was earning that amount.
Squize.
Just had a look at the Flash Freelancer section for the first time here, and found it extremely funny actually and we're not very from what you said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Squize
Did any of you guys actually take a job there?
I have taken two jobs there, one a couple of weeks ago, and the other a few years back.. Both well paid, by good clients.. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by artlink
You may be correct. Even still, if he only made half that much or even 1/4th of that much, it'd still be a worthwhile use for his game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Squize
I apologize for the doom and gloom and disgruntledness (I love making up words) of my last post. I was in a bad mood and should not have been posting. Again, my apologies.
Truth of the matter is I don't hate my job and my two bosses are pushing to get me promoted. I work at a huge worldwide company as a mechanical engineer. I sort of crashed and burned in my first position here working directly with customers and then my support staff all got new jobs and nobody bothered hiring replacements. Since then I have done a lot of things I didn't like to keep the job, but now I have clawed my way into doing a lot of work with data systems, data processes, and data integrity. That stuff is pretty fun, and when I am challenged and enjoying myself I excel at what I am doing. I also love the people I work with, and the value of that cannot be underestimated.
On the flash end, I don't see myself ever freelancing with flash. Working with small clients like that would destroy my soul, as would the job insecurity.
My dream is to quit my day job and do my hobby full time, but I doubt that will ever happen. The plan is to incorporate anything I make as an additional draw for my wifes site and to make whatever we can on ads. It is all right now an attempt to let my WIFE keep doing what she loves (write and draw for our site).
We just started with real ads a few days back and are making a few snickers bars per day. Gotta start somewhere. One cool thing is that we are making some neat contacts in the gaming industry. My wife has been offered a couple jobs actually as both writer and artist, but they would all require me quitting my higher paying job, selling our brand new house (in a buyers market), and moving out to California where the cost of living is higher (and the houses cost 2x as much).
So life is allright, but we are falling in debt as long as my wife isn't making an income. Just looking for some way to make money on the side that may someday grow into something more. If that darn promotion would actually happen we may be in the clear.
Wow, enough of my life story! Carry on with your discussion!
I do have another "game selling" related question:
If you sell a game to a website, do you lose rights to turn around and sell it to a different website alongside that other one? For example, if I sell my game to website X and I want to then turn around and ALSO sell it to website Y and website Z, can I do it? Well, I know that I can virtually do anything I want to, but is that common practice or is it common practice to sell the game and kiss it goodbye?
and Alluv, I feel you man. My wife took a 50% pay cut to change jobs, and together we're barely making enough to scrape by. That's PART of the reason I all of a sudden got interested in game development in Flash. I work with it all day anyway, why not turn my fruitless passion into profit? ...maybe pay off a few stupid debts we have...
Anyway, good luck with your endeavors. :mrt:
...I don't know what Mr. T has to do with all that, but I thought he might cheer us all up!