[Disc] Money

[Squize]

Our quaint and shielded little forum has finally become commercial.

Loads of threads are popping up with people quite happy to say what they earn for making games, and it seems the unwritten rule about not talking about money just isn't being up held any more.

So I figured a bit of a chat about it in it's own thread may be a better idea than just fire fighting in threads where people have already happily posted their bank statements.

Should the forum become a yellow whore where everyone can openly talk about how much they earn from sponsorship / ads or do we keep it old school and keep those chats to pm ?

Personally I think money should be kept from here. It serves no purpose and a lot of it feels like a pissing contest, but the indy scene has changed.
There's not only miniclip and mousebreaker now, there's a ton of ways to earn money from your work. The vast majority of people here would like to make money from making games so perhaps being more open about it could help rather than hinder the community ?

It'd be nice if we could put it to rest, if it's the "Don't talk about it" let's not make it an unwritten rule any more, and it'd be cool if the mods could jump on threads who break the rule.
If everyone is cool with talking about money, then great at least it'll be clarified.

Thoughts please.

Squize.

[fil_razorback]

I'm against open money chit-chat. This board has always been a "cool flash dev place" and definately not a "business area, smoking required please".
If money joins the feast, I'm sure the mood wont stay that nice.

[Captain_404]

I'd say that we should definitely not have any discussion about how much we or any other person makes individually.

However, I think one singular topic under which the newbies can ask how much they should ask for for one of their games might be helpful. On the other hand, that didn't exactly stop all those "can u makes a mmo plz?" threads either, so I'm not sure how much good that would do.

So, I guess I'm against it. This is the "games" forum rather than the "pricing" forum.

[Eager Beaver]

Don't discuss mmmmooooonnnneeeyyyy

[alillm]

I would be for it if I thought it would help improve the market, make prices fairer etc (which in theory it could), however what we have seen recently just shows that its most likely going to have the opposite effect.

Pretty much every amount I've seen mentioned here that people are apparently happy with, is actually very low. Developers new to the market will see these figures, take them as standard and the vicious cycle will continue.

With that in mind, I'm also against price talking. Developers should know for themselves what their game is worth (based on work put into it), and if they want a second opinion or more information, there are plenty of people they can pm. There really isn’t much need to talk about it in public.

Ali

[walnoot]

I vote against money in general.

I'm with Fil's 'cool flash dev place'.

[adi4x]

transparency is always good

[0vidiu]

donno I think maybe we can discuss in big lines, not with exact amounts of money... Either that or don't say it at all!
Maybe we can get some input from some "sponsor" point of view?

[tidenburg]

I think sharing amounts of cash is good. Not for your games but for how much others could get for theirs, it would stop people getting ripped off by sponsors and the reason for not discussing it because "noobs will expect to much" is just stupid, if someone asks for $5000 for a pong clone then the sponsor will turn them down, they learn a lesson and its all over with. We would just have to point out that prices vary greatly depending on a number of things including how long you've been with the sponsor and who they are!

[chriserrorplain]

discussing money in public forums can ONLY be a bad idea.

From accusations of price fixing, to under cutting, to trying to calculate fair salaries to pay people, everything could easily become a confused, back stabbing, pissing contest. And besides numbers never tell the whole story on their own, so it's also pointless. Price X for one person might be just the right amount to pay for the development on a game in their sapre time, but if that amount is declared publically then professional companies pitching to a client who may ahve been reading some threads could find that price thrown at them as the 'going rate'.

chris error x

[renderhjs]

and I finally feel a little bit more back home, just like fil_razorback I have been avoiding FK lately partly because of the buisness talk.

I liked the older days where game dev nerds had to share things that really make out games or things related to it- but not buisness, money or even worse advertisments.
Well there are some rather new members with great insight (newblack, Cortana,...) but sadly also alot rather younger people with a buisness focus in mind because they discovered the quick money

I think it´s a good rule to keep this forum more development orientated thus the things you do with flash or other cool applications but not personal on the business side

[tonypa]

As long the discussion involves Flash and Games and it follows FlashKit general rules, there is very little reason for mods to jump in and kill the thread.

Generally, I can see that the many members are interested about money and are eager to learn methods and sums available in Flash Games. If it is something members want to discuss, they should be able to do it. Other members, not interested about it, may always not post in those threads.

However, if most members here feel this is not best place to talk about business and it should be reserved for developing matters, these threads can be moved into more appropriate location (Boardroom).

[EVPohovich]

The discussion of money, and how much one charges for work, is not allowed on the forums at Flash Kit. It falls under the category of "Price Fixing" which is against the Flash Kit AUP.

It's simple, do not openly discuss money on this, or any other forum.

[mr_malee]

keep it dev

I hate seeing these words in a thread

sales, revenue, mochi, ads, sponsorship etc.

[Archbob]

I actually don't see a reason for the rule as places like flashgamesponsorship clearely states how much many games got. Its not like its a secret or something and the fact is most games that come to me for sponsorship don't even get an offer.

[mr_malee]

if its not a secret then why discuss it?

money's crap, if you're in this business for money then you wont last long.

[691175002]

I say don't discuss money. It is not necessary in any way and can only cause trouble.

[webgeek]

money's crap, if you're in this business for money then you wont last long.

If money is your only motivation, maybe. But I certainly like making money and I'm still working on games and not just another cog in the corporate IT wheel.

It's a lot more complicated then simply "make games == no money". It can still be both fun to make games and potentially profitable at the same time. You just need to treat it like a business and less like a hobby.

[Archbob]

if its not a secret then why discuss it?

money's crap, if you're in this business for money then you wont last long.

If its not a secret, why are you afraid to discuss it? Why is it a rule not to discuss it? Whats wrong with stating the obvious?

And all of us need to eat.

Honestly, as the last thread has shown, there's a large amount of people interested in money. I've talked to Adam and he's told me that by far the most visited page on flashgameliscense is the page of past sponsorship prices. Its obvious that people are interested more in how much games are worth over a lot of other topics.

[webgeek]

Why is it a rule not to discuss it?

Because when a group of people get together and discuss how much they charge for work in an organized fashion, it's called "price fixing" or "collusion". Basically, if we all start talking about how much we charge, we will end up adjusting our prices to be closer to eachother. Cheaper prices will come up to the baseline, etc. This basically "fixes" the price and hence breaks the law in many countries.

How this is different then what unions do, I can't say - seems the same thing to me but that's a discussion for a different forum