CALLING ALL GAMERS!

[jtibbles]

hello. I am currently in the middle of creating a games website, similar to http://www.arcadepod.com or gamegateway . We're calling it ESKIMO GAMES. The difference is I'm looking for THE BEST flash games I can find on the net to be presented on our website.
If any of you would like to be reviewed for addition to our website, please send an URL of the SWF, your name, title of game, description of game, and any one URL you wish, and we will review it, and if it makes the grade you will be added to us. Please email the info to info@eskimolegend.co.uk

(don't be thinking this is a project that will probably fail, we have background success with marketing. i.e. my latest project - I improved a website so much that it went from 300 unique visitors a month to nearly half a million, so I'm sure this will be a hit!)
cheers

[Froth]

You forgot to mention how much you will pay for the games you select. I imagine it might vary based on the various factors, but perhaps you could give us the range you're considering.

Also, what kind of rights are you interested in purchasing? Are you looking for exclusive rights to the games you purchase? Would you want to purchase the fla (so you could alter it to suit your needs) or would you only want the swf? And would you want the seller to do any customization (add your logo, etc.)?

These are all things that any one of us would want to know before submitting games for your consideration.

Good luck with your new project, and I look forward to reading your response.

[hooligan2001]

Yes i agree with Forth in that are we going to have anything to show for the hard work put into the games eg

1/ profit
2/ logo endorsements / credentials

Are you looking for different genres or one specific

[jtibbles]

Sure:
As with various other great games sites, such as http://www.sess.net, http://www.shockwave.com etc we are asking for people who don't mind putting up their games, or a freeware version of their games, for free. We cannot pay people, as the only money we inted to make here is a small amount through banners, which should hopefully pay for the price of the hosting, domain name and a small amount to those people who are working hard on it as we speak.
For you, the games developer, you will be able to include whatever links/advertisements you wish within your swf, and we will also provide the viewers with your company name and an obvious link to it, so that you can benefit from our traffic.
example: I recently made a game for a certain company, and placed it on a free games website. This game was picked up by a larger company, who wished to add it to their site. Since then we have been inundated with requests for making games for people, and hav gained a lot of popularity and money, all of which stemmed from advertising on a free games site.

[jtibbles]

Also you will recieve feedback from gamers, so that you can listen to what they say, and improve your own games, therefore you will learn much more from this form of free marketing, provided from our site

[hooligan2001]

i understand we dont have to post the full game if we want only shareware version. And we get free marketing so its a win win situation for us

[hooligan2001]

by the way would you be able to describe or give examples on the standards that the games should atlest compare ?

And is it only flash , or can we do director games and java ?

[var_flash_games]

Have a look here and tell me what can I do for u.
http://www.greyvector.com/2d/flash/games/index.html

[jtibbles]

Hooligan2001 - We'll show not only flash, but shockwave, director, java and possibly dhtml if its good. Also we may be showing a few online emulators with pre-installed games such as sonic the hedgehog, but I will have to check permission for that game

standard-wise, i'm looking for something that has fairly good-excellent graphics,gameplay, and no errors (important). The type of game I am talking about is, for eg, http://www.monstermafia.com/games/sumo

The games that would most likely get game of the week would be a game that has great graphics and gameplay, and something which is a unique idea

var_flash_games - I looked at your games and they're pretty good, but I'm not sure they all work. i.e. the cricket one would be included, except no balls are actually thrown to you, it seems you just swing your bat around.If you can either improve the game a bit by explaining more, or fix the error (if there is one) then games like that would be used on the site. Some of your other games wouldn't download (i.e. haunted castle), even though we were using broadband , so you might want to check that out.
I will not be checking all the games that come through the email myself, someone else does most of that. So could you please send the link to all the swfs(etc) (but not a link to its webpage), your name, game name, description, your url link and your email for the games you would like to validate for submission to info@eskimogames.com, and we will go through them one by one, and return an email to you informing you of our decision. It will be likely that you will be accepted
thanks all

[Hackey Sack]

dude on the cricketgame you have to press space bar to get the ball thrown to you, and your sumo link gave me a
SITE NOT FOUND!

[jtibbles]

gave wrong url
http://www.monstermafia.com/games/sumo.asp

[lesli_felix]

I think you'll find shockwave pay VERY well for games. It is only a share of the advertising revenue, but when your game is marketed to over 40 million people, you get paid very well, even at $.01 per page view.

If you're looking for quality games, you need to be giving skilled developers an incentive.

[jtibbles]

no, only in some circumstances do shockwave pay. We should know, we have a game on their website. Shockwave pay people who they approach and who get to sell their games through showckwave. But even then the chances are you have to pay a small fee for selling your games (after all, shockwave will have to pay for this bit, and credit card merchants are incredibly expensive)
Also please don't compare our site to shockwave, we are different. We are giving the average designer the chance to show off their movies. To be added to shockwave requires a special something. On my site you have a much much better chance of being added (the majority who link to us will be accepted)
We have a lot of background knowledge, we know what we are talking about.
Shockwave can pay some of their clients because they make a profit. It is unlikely that we will make anymore (even as much as) the price to set up our website and pay those dedicated people their wages. Of course if the site did as well as shockwave we would reconsider.
Shockwave have been going for years now, and it took them a long time to get to the status they are in. I doubt we would get as far as they have, but our website isn't really part of our business, its just something for fun, for people to play games on. The authors of the games (as I have already said before) are free to add whatever links they wish, and they can submit simply demos and freeware versions if they wish.
We're not here to try and make money, but to finally provide a website with some decent quality work on, and where people can play games without signing in, and even have the opportunity to submit their own games AND NOT get them rejected

[lesli_felix]

You made the comparison with shockwave, jtibbles, that was simply my reply to it.

If you're looking for the best games on the net, then surely some people WILL have their games rejected?

Don't take this the wrong way, I think what you're doing is great, and will probably make a submission to you at some point.

[hooligan2001]

Ok i think this would be a good question

What are you guys getting out of all this ?

Profit or Non Profit organisation , if you are getting a profit why shouldnt we since we are the people that are developing the games for your site. I dont mean to sound so hard but alls fair in love and war. Am i right ?

[jtibbles]

lesli-felix - Yep, admittedly SOME will be rejected, but only those that aren't very good, i.e. far too big or slow, pornographic material, too rude or offensive, boken ones, horrible graphics, and very beginner-based games. We're looking for a happy medium between http://www.newgrounds.com (where anything goes) and http://www.shockwave.com (where you have to be relly good). There would be no point in us just making somethin thats exactly the same as NewGrounds, because there would be no progression into new areas.
On a different note, I forgot to mention we will provide votes to help us decide how we can make the site bigger, once it is up and running

hooligan2001 - As I said b4, we should hopefully make just about enough to cover our costs for providing this service. U should know that the people who are doing this are only really doing it because, a. its good practice for new and upcoming web developers and b, because we love games and flash and the whole internet community and we want to show other people the type of work that people out in the virtual world can do, to prove that its not just big corporations who can do good work, so we (both the website developers and the game designers) can show people the real skill of us multimedia people

[Ray Beez]

Hooligan,

I run a similar site and I can tell you right now, bandwidth costs alone suck up all income generated from banner ads. It's a sucky, sucky time to be running any website that has more than just text on it.

There's just no making a profit off this kind of site unless we were lucky enough to be accepted by a MAJOR ad service like DoubleClick, or get a permanent sponsor. As it stands, every time the site increases in visitors, the bandwidth cost increases proportionately.

That is why our next site will not host any games. All games will be links to other sites. That way we at least have a hope of turning a small profit.

Ray B.
LilGames.com