Untold Entertainment Backs Up the Money Truck
i never get tired of this picture.
Yes, another money truck post … either we’re running out of ideas, or we just wanted to re-use that adorable dump truck image. And when Untold Entertainment backs up the money truck, you’d best believe that it’s a very small truck.
But here’s the thing: i’ve been ruminating on two absolutely terrific posts about Flash game monetization, which are required reading for current and future Flash game devs:
First, a primer on the various monetization methods available to developers by Alex Cho Snyder on his Evolution Live! blog:
Ten Ways to Monetize Your Flash Game
Axcho goes the extra mile by mentioning a some monetization schemes that few other authors touch on: Rental, Ransom, and Patronage.
If integrating a real money currency system and creating a bunch of items for your game seems like too much work, you could always just hold your game for ransom. In this model, you set the amount of money that you want to get from the game, and then you don’t release your game until you’ve received that amount in donations. Once you release the game, though, it’s free for everyone. And if you want to be nice, you could refund everyone for their donation if your ransom isn’t met. This is called a threshold pledge.
And then, for a head-clearing kick in the pants, read Dan Cook’s Flash Love Letter:
Flash Love Letter (2009) Part 1
Only cockroaches survive without money.
It doesn’t matter much raw talent you possess. With the right support, you could be the next Miyamoto. Sorry, not important. All that really matters is that you possess what I call the ‘cockroach gene’. Can you churn out ‘good enough games’ and survive if your games repeatedly fail to make money?
Preach it, Dan! (i haven’t been this excited for a sequel since the rumoured Seriously Dude, Where’s My Car?.)
What’s Gotten Into You?
i was just cruising through my daily digest from Flash Game Distribution, a service where non-money-earning Flash game devs can post their free work for free for portal owners to grab for free and post for free, so that other people can play them for free, and the portal owners can collect ad revenue off those developers’ backs. And finally, something snapped.
Some of these games looked good. A small handful of them looked real good. A small percentage of those were even … dare i say it? Worth paying for.
Games Are Gold
So here’s the deal: to all you Flash developers who are satisfied spending your own money (or that of your parents, your benefactors or your sugar daddies) on free-to-play Flash games with no monetization model for the simple joy and “presitge” of being able to call yourselves game designers, or (worse) to climb up the popularity ranks on Newgrounds or Kongregate, i say “hang you.” i don’t want to play your games. i don’t care how good they are. If you’re not charging for them, you’re bad for the industry. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
BUT! To those of you who have created Flash games and you are charging for them, whether through one of the monetization models mentioned in the above articles or some other brilliant scheme you’ve cooked up yourself, i want to hear from you. I WANT TO BUY YOUR GAME. i want to spend money – my money – on your game. And i want you to keep as much of that money as possible. So please let me know what percentage of my money goes directly to you. If the entertainment value you offer matches the price you’ve set, i will be all too pleased to buy your game. And then i’ll talk about your game right here on this blog.
And hopefully, everyone who reads this blog will buy your game. And then, if I have my way, all of you who aren’t making money with your games will be compelled to start making money with your games. If we’re going to turn this abysmal free-to-play Flash game situation around in favour of developers, we need to start supporting each other. And we need to declare that the work we do as game developers, regardless of platform, is worth money. Games Are Gold.
So who’s with me? Are you charging for your online Flash game? Please let me know, and i’ll happily throw some green your way. And i encourage everyone else to search their hearts and do the same!
Viva la Flash revolucion!
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This is ridiculous. You don’t want to play a game, even a good game, if it’s available for free? Who does that hurt exactly? What industry does that put in peril? The only people that free, quality games threaten are the people that seek to charge money for shitty games and rehashes.
Personally, I’d rather hang around the community making games for the love of it.
BTW, there are a number of for-pay weblog CMS tools you should look into. WordPress is, unfortunately, free.
Incorrect. Certain features of WordPress are free if you host the install yourself. The creators have monetized the tool, so that they can charge a certain subset of their users for a service they provide:
http://en.wordpress.com/products/
Games have value. *Flash* games have value. They are not inherently less valuable than games on other platforms, but that’s what the glut of free Flash games has led people to believe. That’s one way free games have hurt the industry.
The second way is that asking for money for a Flash game now seems audacious. How DARE you? It’s a FLASH game. And now, any developer who is not independently wealthy and actually wants to make a living from his craft is out of luck, because of this impression that Flash games should be free. It’s a lot like the impression that games on the iPhone should be 99 cents, and that any developer charging more is being greedy.
i’ve paid to play games all my life. i will like to pay my favourite Flash game developers for their work, so they can continue to create great games. Games Are Gold. It costs people – even hobbyists – money to make them. i’d like to start putting my money in the pockets of deserving developers, instead of lining the coffers of Mochi Media and the game portals.
Actually, I think that a good way to differentiate yourself in the iPhone market is to put your price higher. That way people will think, “Huh… Why is this game pricier than the others?” And price does associate value.
Despite the simplicity of casual games, people are still willing to dish out $20 for a new casual game release and not grumble too much about it.
Excellent idea. Why not buy, enjoy and PASS ON those excellent flash games that dare to charge?
Start with this one by Rock Solid Arcade:
http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/games/robokill/
Robokill. Really impressive & fun arcadey romp. Free for the first 1/3rd of the game, $10 to unlock the rest.
I’ve personally purchased this when it first came out.
There are lots of ways to make money on games. Flash is probably not it with the exception of some outliers such as Webkinz. Why not leave Flash behind and look at some other distribution platforms such as iPhone games or Casual games on BigFish instead?
That’s like saying you can make a chair out of spruce and make money from it, but you’re out of luck if you build it with maple. So far, we’ve only had one recommendation for a Flash game to purchase. Is it possible, as Dan Cook suggests in his article, that Flash games don’t make money because Flash game developers don’t *charge* money?
i complain a lot that Flash games don’t make money, but other than the service work we do, i’ve never actually charged money for a Flash game.
Have you looked into the whole Adventure Quest brand? They make quite a bit of money from their games and have some really great games!
http://www.battleon.com/
http://www.dragonfable.com/
Judging by the amount of advertising they do, there’s quite a bit of (likely VC) money behind these games. i’m morer insterested in buying something from an indie, you know? Someone a bit smaller … the proverbial two guys in a garage. Robokill is more the right speed.
From what I understand of Artix Entertainment… It started out indie and then exploded. They didn’t expect it to be so widely successful. They are no longer indie because they are now huge (but still staffed small), but it started as an indie shop – a Flash game that asked for a bit of money. According to this article – they never asked for venture capital:
http://www.casualgaming.biz/blog/222/Extraordinary-games-8211-Artix-Entertainment
If anything, they should be slated as an indie success – akin to Pop Cap starting from 2 people.
Pop Cap might have started with two people, but i hear one of them was Jesus.
Here’s another one: Now Boarding
http://www.nowboarding.us/
Exists as a free flash game + a much more indepth downloadable for-sale version (€12.99)
I’ve heard they are very happy with how it’s done financially
“Pop Cap might have started with two people, but i hear one of them was Jesus.”
ROFL – THAT FLOORED ME!
There’s a lot of argument lately about the failure of “Free” and not surprising since we’ve just suffered a market crash and ad revenues are in the toilet. But equally relevant IMO is the failure of “nearly free”.
The one thing the aforementioned success stories (Popcap, etc.) share is that they didn’t build their business on 99 cent games a la The App Store; they all started at the $20 or more price point. If they had started at the bottom of the price range I highly doubt they would be in business today, regardless of their talent as developers.
You can’t build a sustainable business on 99 cent games (as a developer at least). I don’t see how that’s really any different than building a business on Flash ad revenue. They’re 2 sides of the same losing lotto ticket.
bravo on a great post !
:)
[...] i’m a Flash gamer, i purchased only one Flash game. But i think this is due to the fact that when i asked for recommendations for Flash games to buy, i only received two [...]
Wow, cool! I didn’t realize anyone had mentioned my blog post in a blog post. :)
In case you want to be all correct, my full name is “Alex Cho Snyder” my first name is “Alex” and I leave my username “axcho” uncapitalized. If it’s at the beginning of a sentence, I rearrange the sentence. ;)
Sadly, I haven’t found any Flash games I felt like paying for, at least not any that actually asked me for any money. But I’ll let you know when I make one of those. :)
Thanks, Alex. Correction made!
- Ryan
is there any ebook on how to create flash games ..
i have a feeling you’re about to tell us of one … ?