Experiment in Monetizing Flash Games

[JerryScript]

I came across this at FlashMagazine.com and thought it was interesting. It is obviously missing a lot of potential revenue streams, but it is still interesting to see the results of the experiment.

http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2008...h-game-part-7/

[renderhjs]

<personal oppinion>
happy commercialism,
this forum surely sucks lately- not much left for people like me. No wonder we get more & more amateurs aiming for the quick cash.
As much as it might be interesting for many people it´s posts like these that drop rapidly the quality lately of this forum- and my interest at all into flash!
</personal oppinion>

[Ray Beez]

I don't like the idea of someone spending a measly 3 hrs making a game... What's with that??

Render: Bit dramatic, no?

[JerryScript]

<personal oppinion>
happy commercialism,
this forum surely sucks lately- not much left for people like me. No wonder we get more & more amateurs aiming for the quick cash.
As much as it might be interesting for many people it´s posts like these that drop rapidly the quality lately of this forum- and my interest at all into flash!
</personal oppinion>

Sorry, perhaps I posted this in the wrong forum?

Perhaps we need two game forums, one for those who just do it for artistic/for-the-love-of-games/stroke-my-pride/done-just-because-I-could reasons, and one for those who believe in getting paid for their work.

I certainly don't want to offend anyone by posting the wrong subject matter!

[8bitjeff]

Wow, you are right, Ray Beez, only 3 hours? I spend that fiddling around in Fireworks with pixels to make the right space ship, let alone actually coding my game. If the worth of making games is going to be purely based on an hourly wage as in this article, then none of my games have ever made any money. I always spend 100's of hours perfecting down to the last detail.

But, I can see the worth in an article such as this, especially for the New Kids On The Block (sic). Put some time and effort into a game if you really want to make one. They money isn't great, so do it for the love of it, or help others do it if you have the right skills. If you get really good at it, there are ample places that will hire a good game programmer. If you are lucky, you will become rich at it (I know some who have).

renderhjs is right though, the Flashkit games forum has been about games and the love of making them for a long time, but the influx of kiddies with dollar signs in their eyes has been increasing lately.

[AzraelKans]

Wow, nice experiment, 14 hours for 349.00 thats not bad at all.

Although to be honest I dont think those games would actually take 2 or 3 hours to code for everyone (a newbie per example) those arent that quite so easy to code , also a perfectionist who probably would take twice the time just testing and optimizing the engine.

But yeah the EA state of mind, of "make a slightly crappy game and push it out the door, followed by the next" does work, thats why they do it. (specially if you have a catchy title or license)

Hey games have become the new movie industry, you can create an awesome epic blockbuster, an artsy indy film or a b (c) movie. and make some money from it.

p.s. Hey I just checked some of the games, and to be honest they are not half bad, maybe this guy has failed to realize he has talent to create fun and addictive games fairly quickly.

[Archbob]

I've made games much better than that and it didn't get me nearly as much, I should probably spend more time marketing them.

[AzraelKans]

Archbob: Exactly! thats what is missing in the article how did he advertise or where did he published the games? I mean 300,000 views in a day? What sort of portal gives you those hits? "tile ball" is not exactly, "catchy name instant hit, click me" material. I mean seriously tile ball? should I call my current game Tile jumpy character?

Of course is possible to make much better games than that, but if the article is to be believed (blind siding some fishy elements on it) it took about 3-4 hours to code each.

[hatu]

That's pretty funny but only one game really made him any cash, I doubt those 2-3 hour total development times too. Wouldn't it be more worthwhile to just make one awesome game that would get millions of views instead.

[AzraelKans]

hatu:
Ah! but you are missing the Business side of things, what gives you more profit creating one grand fairly priced product and see it roll or creating a bunch of small easy access products one after another? Thats a question that has been troubling companies for ages.

According my business classes B always beats A on the short run but on the long run A beats B. However if you only consider immediate profits, B is best case scenario for a start up. (less expenses more profit)

[Ray Beez]

hatu:
Ah! but you are missing the Business side of things, what gives you more profit creating one grand fairly priced product and see it roll or creating a bunch of small easy access products one after another? Thats a question that has been troubling companies for ages.

According my business classes B always beats A on the short run but on the long run A beats B. However if you only consider immediate profits, B is best case scenario for a start up. (less expenses more profit)

That's the problem with business classes. They aren't game designing classes. If you make one "hit", like "N" or Line Rider, you will reap much greater rewards than 10 crappy little 3-hr excercises ever will.

[lesli_felix]

Whatever your opinion on the artistic integrity vs profit debate, it's nice for someone to publish results like these. I certainly wouldn't

[AzraelKans]

Ray beez:
Yes, but you have less chance for sufficient sales with a single product than with many, thats exactly the problem.

Is Ps3 vs Wii all over again. Small profitable games are small business with small risk but you can balance that out by increasing the number and thus increasing sales, Large profitable games are Big business with Big risk. You expend more time in a single product without receiving income while doing so if your product dares to fail, you are just ruined.

In my opinion, I think the perfect business plan would be A, then B that is creating small products to capitalize yourself and a large project. (I actually tried to do that once, although but the smaller project, turned out to be not so small, not so fast to make but it was also more popular ) I actually think thats what Nintendo is doing, they have their wii sports, wii fit, and their mario parties casual games agenda but they also have their zeldas, their metroids and their galaxies, they have both.

The other side is the EA example they only have medium-small games and they all have some degree of lack of quality, its working for them because they still get good sales due to the quantity, but they are also getting recognized as a low quality company, they probably havent noticed but this IS affecting sales. I know several people that wouldnt buy a game just because it says EA in it. That is the other side of the spectrum. (you can only fool people a certain number of times, before they realize they've been had)

Everything you publish affects your reputation. And they don't teach you THAT in business management classes.

[Ray Beez]

EA, low quality? That's news to me. Unless you're talking about the gameplay. Pretty much every game from EA is very slick and well polished to very high standards. Whether you LIKE the game is another issue entirely.

[chriserrorplain]

"they probably havent noticed but this IS affecting sales"

haha, sorry AzraelKans old boy, but the idea of a company the size of EA not noticing even the tiniest of fluctuations in sales is quite, quite absurd.

chris error x

p.s. just read this corker too...

"Everything you publish affects your reputation. And they don't teach you THAT in business management classes."