Greg mentioned that time spent on creating a game does not matter, its the final product that matters.
I do not understand how a person in Greg’s position would publish such a statement. Here is why.
1.PEOPLE SPEND A LOT OF TIME TRYING TO CREATE A GREAT GAME, not many people wake up one day and say “I am going to spend a lot of time to produce a big pile of smelly crap”. The reality is, most attempts to produce something great fails.
2. Kongregate should want as many developers as possible to spend a lot of time to create games. Why? because some people actually succeed in creating a great game after a few tries.
3. Therefore, Kongregate should encourage people to spend a lot of time in “attempting” to create something great. Saying that its the final product that matters does the opposite, evident from how many people were upset.

Correct Response
Trying to defend yourself is another poor business decision, although some degree of defense maybe necessary. Greg and the kongregate team should have said something in this nature.
“We did not intend to be offensive, we understand it is our duty to serve the flash game dev community for all that it has given us, we are sorry for how the statement turned out. We take it back.”
Then maybe defend yourself a little -although its pretty hard to defend yourself if you follow my logic.

From there, i left the company and started my own shop, Untold Entertainment. Again, i took other people’s money to execute their concepts and develop games according to their marching orders. It’s only (comparitively) very recently that i’ve started to seriously look at how the rest of the Flash ecosystem functions. i’ll admit that i was appalled at the concept of giving my stuff away for free to a pile of portals so that they could collect ad revenue on my work. That’s why i deliberately chose a game from our library (Two By Two) that didn’t have a lot of value to me.

And of course, since it didn’t have a lot of value to me, it didn’t have a lot of value to anyone else, so the ad share revenues were a pittance ($90 in a year). All of this wailing and crying is simply me anguishing over the nagging thought that there has to be a better way. And i’m getting a lot of valuable help from folks like you with every petty, vitriolic post i write.

But i’m learning. The strategy i’m taking with Interrupting Cow Trivia is to add a membership system and all manner of hooks that drive players back to this site, where i can control the audience to some degree. i’m all too happy to give that game away for “free” to a million and one portals, because there’s an exchange of value. The portals get a free game, and i get a community. And hopefully, that community will pay some *real* dollars for the enchanced, ad-free game experience.

Don’t worry. i won’t be a crybaby forever. Thanks for your patience.

In ANY industry where the author self publishes you NEVER get paid by the hour, you get paid based on the quality of the final product, or by pre-selling the product to someone who can back you financially.

Using TV as an example, a lot of people get their start doing pro bono work for public broadcast programs. The front the costs to produce the work then sell the product to the local station management.

With movies, people shell out their money to go to film school and build a portfolio. Writers submit short stories to magazines and possibly get a $5 check if they get published.

All the independents start out at the bottom, investing their own time and money to produce works that one day will be regarded as high quality submissions to their respective industries. THEN they get hired to do hourly or contract work for the non-independent companies and finally achieve those reliable wages.

My interpretation of Greg’s quote is in-line with what a lot of people seem to e saying. Nobody asked you to make any specific game for any specific amount of money. Sure they asked you to submit your work and test your mettle… see if you can produce something that will prove to have commercial value and ultimately open some doors for you to get consistent paydays just on your reputation alone.

I don’t really want to point fingers or get into some waste-of-time flame war but I get the feeling you feel personally disrespected. Possibly in some bid for one of your games, something you invested a lot of time in, was gauged to be worth less than you expected?

It really never hurts to question the status-quo, but at the end of the day, the current business model for most flash portals remains the same… as does the perceived value of any given work. If I could offer some friendly advice (from personal experience) it would be to just focus all your energy on positive growth so one day you can go from being an indy flash developer and become a household name that gets paid for their work no matter how bad it is *cough*Kevin Costner*cough*.

(seriously, though, keeping up with this thread has been a full-time job for a day and a half now)