We’re giving it one more shot with Interrupting Cow Trivia, which has a $20-30k budget, with microtransactions and membership hooks that will hopefully pull players back to our site and help us to grow an audience. i’m skeptical, though.

The thing about doing longer-term games is that there is inherently more risk involved.
I’ve been in the console game industry for nearly 20 years, and have seen how many companies have gone under because of the drive for bigger games. It seems likely to happen in the flash business in the next few years too, as the drive for quality and size continues.

Kahoots looks great. Looking forward to seeing that one released.

On your second point, though, we differ. Creating more games faster is not the answer. Check out Dan Cook’s second Flash Love Letter, where he calls for Flash devs to focus on longer-term projects:

http://lostgarden.com/2009/08/flash-love-letter-2009-part-2.html

This is what we’re attempting with games like Kahoots:

http://www.untoldentertainment.com/blog/kahoots-designer-diary

i hope it looks, in your wording “at least a little professional” ;)

- Ryan

- Ryan

Kudos to you for making a bible-based game in today’s world, that takes a lot of guts. I posted my 1st game this morning, and the feedback was less than friendly. I’ve made a grand total of $0.14 today, looks like I can retire early at last!

Keep up the good work,

Brennon

My experiences in the “flash game industry” have basically lead me to the exact some conclusions you made Ryan. The success stories touted around on fortunes made with flash games are but of the few rare examples. There are thousands of flash games being made that will earn MUCH less than $16/hr, and more in the range of $0/hr.

For anybody considering entering this market, you must understand it’s very competitive and the quality of the games are improving at a rapid pace, as more people jump on the bandwagon. You’ll need, at the very least, 1 skilled artist and 1 skilled programmer, or your games won’t even get a second look now-a-days. It’s also a very risky venture, as even well made games run the risk of fading into obscurity (meaning next to no money earned for a lot of hard work spent).

I think one of the reasons why all this flash game hype exists is there are special interests out there that benefit from the never-ending stream of low-cost content. Namely the top gaming portals, but also online ad companies. They are feeding off the life long dreams of many who always wanted to make games for a living. Who doesn’t have that dream;)

Learning AS3/Flash is great as a resume stuffer and showcase to potential employers, but unless you live in a country where you can feed a family of 4 on $100 American dollars a month, don’t plan on making flash games as a full time career. Keep it a hobby only. That way, making flash games will be more fun, and when you do earn a few bucks, it will be all the more satisfying.

And i can’t STAND rural areas. Here in the city, if i fall down and scrape my knee, i can pull myself with one arm to the nearest hospital, which is often about seven feet away. In the country, i’ll be mauled by a mountain lion, and i’ll slowly bleed out over the course of a long lonely winter. Then they’ll discover my corpse when they go to sow a new crop of beets. No thanks.

I did one in response to the original one too,
http://blog.gamingyourway.com/PermaLink,guid,7b3c73a9-00a6-4f48-94a4-372d17dd8775.aspx
( Hope you don’t think that’s too spammy, I will link back to this page ).

Rather than drawing comparisons in wages ( As that’s tricky, as it’s all so relative. I live in London so my costs are greater than someone who lives just 50 miles away ) my problem with the article was it makes it all sound so easy, just get yourself a copy of Flash and you’ll be sleeping on a bed of cash wearing a crown in no time.
In effect in cheapens the hard work which actually goes into making a game. Yeah Flash is easier than assembler on the C64 but it’s hardly drag and drop and it’s done, that’s $40k please.

The people here in Toronto who earn $50 and up are senior devs with at least 3-4 years’ experience, with many titles under their belts. They can code in AS3. There’s a rift widening between those who can and those who can’t – unforuntately, AS3 is leaving some talented developers in the dust.

So the Flex and AS3 guys are making good money, but it’s always for fee-for-service contracts. i don’t know anyone in Toronto who’s making a living on original Flash stuff. Well … maybe this guy:

http://bunnyherolabs.com/

Did you check out Emanuele Feronato blog?
Our first experiment has been motivated by his flash games monetization experiments, even if that were roughly one year ago.. we will let you know about our results, for sure :)

Do you know what freelance Flash developers earn in Italy? i’m curious.

So here in Italy trying to make money with flash games is still profitable :D (well at least until you earn enough to emigrate in Toronto).

Putting jokes apart (still, the figures I wrote before are completely true), I must say this rant is completely true.
Me myself, and friends, are trying the road of indie flash developers (obviously, in our spare time).
We are IT engineering students, and we are not quitting university because of it, but honestly we would love it turning out to be a nice job.

Apart from studying, I work part-time for a company that sells web solutions, something like 4hours a day, 5 days a week, in the e-commerce field (creating oscommerce solutions, developing graphical themes for customers, creating (php) code to address customers particular needs, developing credit card modules for the miriad of payment gateways in Italy, managing and programming solutions that help customers migrate their old shop DB to our oscommerce-based solution), and getting 770USD/month, working in the black market (unreported employment).

After all, I don’t know which is worst! :D