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[salade]

I wish there were more flash games. it has such potential to create games that with gorgeous animation, but it seems to do so then whoever is creating it has to be an extremly good artist, animator, and programmer.

Personaly i wish there were less newgrounds.com gets about 10+ new flash game submissions a day only 1-2 are actually worth checking out and only a few a month are really worth playing for more then a few minutes.

yeah, i guess that came out wrong. i was trying to say that i wish there were more talented game developers that use flash (keep up the good work Edmund!).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

again to sum up what ive been saying, flash games dont get respect because most of the games that are in flash are very casual (bejeweled type crap fests) so the really well made flash games get lost in the shuffle a bit. but the fact is WAY more can be done in flash that can be done in gamemaker, and you can also make a living off your games in flash.. not something thats really possible in gamemaker.

While I've a lot of respect for Flash and am considering learning it one day, this isn't totally true. I'm not sure what you mean by way more can be done in Flash than can be done in Game Maker, because the best GM games are more graphically and technically impressive than the best Flash games. Similarly, there are people who make a living with Game Maker -- not as many as make a living with Flash perhaps, but they exist, so it's not true that it's not possible. But I agree that it's probably easier, and I agree that anyone who wants to make a living through indie games will probably have the easiest time doing it through Flash games right now (which is why I'm considering learning it -- my first Game Maker game hasn't even made $10,000 yet after nearly two years, which isn't really enough to live on).

[joshg]

I haven't really done much in gamemaker, but from what it seems, flash also has a faster dev cycle.

Is this really true?  I suspect the success stories will make it sound this way because you really need to be a fast-working Flash developer to make a decent living on Flash games.  ie. the guys making Flash games for a living all whip out new games quickly because only the fast coders are successful, not just because Flash makes it easy to do so.

When I looked at it last year, it seemed like sponsorships would only pay so much and you really needed per-play ad revenue / royalties / whatever to make a game really financially successful (ie. pays your bills).  And the nature of Flash game portals seemed to be even more hit-driven than the mainstream market - there are so many new Flash games out every week that your game won't stay on the front page unless it's a "hit" (and games that fall off the front page don't get enough eyeballs to make money on ads or royalties or what have you).  Downloadable games may not have the same potential market, but they do leave open the chance of long-tail revenue in the months and years after your game is released.

Of course if you're going to make freeware anyway, Flash is just as good a choice as GameMaker (possibly better if you want as many people as possible to play your game).

[Trevor Dunbar]

but the fact is WAY more can be done in flash that can be done in gamemaker

What if you can't code? Then flash is worth nothing as far as creating true games goes. Also consider GameMaker has dedicated hardware acceleration despite the engine is clunky and slow and the result executable is huge.


Flash would be better if you wanted to throw your game onto a web-page. GameMaker would help you create your game faster if you cannot code. Both engines are slow if you want to get terribly fancy.

But- Why flash/Gamemaker? ...have you considered using Unity? Just a thought.
3d acceleration, 3d graphics, Physics, 'relatively' cheap, light-weight run-time plug-in like flash.
The best of both worlds and then-some.

Also if you wanted to get money from your games I don't know how you'd do it if it was online-based.

You might argue that Castle Crashers is a great example of a flash success story, but it's just a C++ engine using image vectors from imageready. It is not flash, despite using vector graphics.

Also alien hominid only made money after they ported it to their c++ engine.

Flash might be a good start at marketing your game, but there is hardly anyway to monetize it.

[Craig Stern]

I think Edmund's said everything that needed to be said.

Personally, I like Flash for the same reasons he does: it's easy to work with, flexible, and browser-capable. All the criticisms people lodge against it (it uses vector graphics, it doesn't make stand-alone executables) are not actually a limitation of Flash. Flash supports sprites perfectly well, and it's only a couple of clicks to export a game as an exe.

Also if you wanted to get money from your games I don't know how you'd do it if it was online-based.

Google Paul Preece.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Also if you wanted to get money from your games I don't know how you'd do it if it was online-based.

I suspect Flash games make more money on average than the average commercial indie / shareware game. You don't even need to have a very high-quality Flash game to make money with it, I've seen really poor Flash games with millions of plays (and consequently probably thousands of dollars in ad revenue).

Sometimes Flash games rip music, rip graphics, are fan games, might not even have any original resources at all (every graphic and sound and music resource stolen), and still make thousands of dollars in ad revenue. Gem Tower Defense (despite being a really fun game) is an example of that -- the graphics come from Diablo 2, the game itself is a copy of a Warcraft 3 mod by the same name, not even their original game, and yet it has millions of plays.

So don't doubt for a minute that Flash games make more money than shareware games, from what I gather it's hard not to make money with a Flash game, even poorly made ones that were made in a week can make thousands if they have even mildly addictive gameplay. Which is probably why you see so many Flash games.

[moshboy]

This site a lot of information about just how much money can be made from flash game sponsorship and the figures aren't exactly small.

Edit: And here is a site he set-up to connect Flash devs with sponsors.

[Kneecaps]

So don't doubt for a minute that Flash games make more money than shareware games, from what I gather it's hard not to make money with a Flash game, even poorly made ones that were made in a week can make thousands if they have even mildly addictive gameplay. Which is probably why you see so many Flash games.

Hey look!  A poorly made game created in less than a week with mildly addictive gameplay that almost has 1 million views!

I mean seriously.  It's a ripoff of a ripoff (Jelly Blobs of Doom and Fishy) and I even used bounding box collision detection.

I don't like it when my games do okay, because I know that much, much better games are receiving less attention.

[salade]

If your goint to compare flash and gamemaker, money aside, you'd have to keep in mind that flash is really animating software with actionscript, while gamemaker was made with gamemaking in mind. flash seems to be more powerful overall, but game wise, game maker would be a more solid medium. then again, you'd also have to consider the vector based nature of flash, which in some cases of games would be more ideal.

[AndyWiltshireBPA]

... you'd also have to consider the vector based nature of flash, which in some cases of games would be more ideal.

A think thats a really good point when choosing between GM and Flash. Consider the artistic style of your game.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

But- Why flash/Gamemaker? ...have you considered using Unity? Just a thought.
3d acceleration, 3d graphics, Physics, 'relatively' cheap, light-weight run-time plug-in like flash.
The best of both worlds and then-some.
...
Flash might be a good start at marketing your game, but there is hardly anyway to monetize it.

Ok, first of all flash's strength is it's visibility. You pop a game on newgrounds, and if it's good you'll get a couple MILLION plays within a month. Your name gets out there, you get a TON of feedback (important: Newgrounds reviews are very valuable and you need to really read through every one of them. That's what the common person thinks of your game, not some group of developers). You wouldn't get this kind of visibility with a gamemaker game or a download, for the sole purpose that a lot of people are unwilling to download stuff they don't know is good or not when they could just play a flash game in the browser.

You CAN'T SELL A FLASH GAME however. Nobody will pay for one except in very very rare circumstances (alien homonid). There is a HUGE revenue stream however, that you get from sponsorships and (bleh) in-game ads. I never put in-game ads in my stuff cause I think they look tacky, but if your game is good enough, a sponsorship could easily be worth it. The prices of a sponsorship are going up really fast.

For instance, the first games I got sponsored all got me under $1000 (3 years ago). 2 years ago, getting 1-2k was normal. Last year (2007), 2.5-3k was normal for a good game. This past year (2008)? It's possible to get 8-10k for a good enough game. It keeps going up with no ceiling in sight.

The trick here is to keep it simple. Obviously, the shorter a development cycle you have, the more you will make overall cause you can pump out more games in a year. Flash is simple really, it's got its quirks but it has a really, really fast development cycle. Aether took us 2 weeks or so of solid work. My current project, Closure (due out next week) has taken me about a month and a half of work (at like 2 hours per day or so with some breaks).

The trick now, is to use flash to improve yourself. Spend some time making a game, see what people think, make a new game, wash, rinse, and repeat. I'm actually going to be expanding a few of them this year with c++ and see how that goes. I never tried to sell any games before so it'll be interesting to see where the market is (but currently I'm making an iphone game and 2 other-non flash games right now.... keeping myself busy cause school doesn't quite move fast enough for my tastes).

It's all about exposure.

[Jeff]

Hey look!  A poorly made game created in less than a week with mildly addictive gameplay that almost has 1 million views!

That is... humbling.    Also, inspirational.

[Edmund]

While I've a lot of respect for Flash and am considering learning it one day, this isn't totally true. I'm not sure what you mean by way more can be done in Flash than can be done in Game Maker, because the best GM games are more graphically and technically impressive than the best Flash games. Similarly, there are people who make a living with Game Maker -- not as many as make a living with Flash perhaps, but they exist, so it's not true that it's not possible. But I agree that it's probably easier, and I agree that anyone who wants to make a living through indie games will probably have the easiest time doing it through Flash games right now (which is why I'm considering learning it -- my first Game Maker game hasn't even made $10,000 yet after nearly two years, which isn't really enough to live on).

ive never ever seen a GM game that was more technically or graphically impressive then some of the best flash games out there. everything that can be done in GM can be done in flash, but there is a lot that cant be done in game maker. Flash also isnt limited to pixel based graphics.. you could literally make anything in flash, from hand drawn Disney quality animation to full 3d or at this point a MMORPG with crazy real time graphics filters, and with every year flash just gets more powerful.

how does one make money off their game maker games? ive been talking to cactus and the info i got from him was there was 0 money in GM games.. have i been misinformed? 

[Edmund]

Edmund, mind if I ask what Flash you've done?

http://www.Edmundm.com

[AndyWiltshireBPA]

Makes me wonder if I should have developed my Flash experience more rather then GM 

Edit: I just clicked, your the Gish guy Edmund? I love your artistic style and characters.

[Edmund]

Makes me wonder if I should have developed my Flash experience more rather then GM 

Edit: I just clicked, your the Gish guy Edmund? I love your artistic style and characters.

I am the gish guy (that gish in my user pic)

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Makes me wonder if I should have developed my Flash experience more rather then GM 

It's never too late to start.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

ive never ever seen a GM game that was more technically or graphically impressive then some of the best flash games out there. everything that can be done in GM can be done in flash, but there is a lot that cant be done in game maker. Flash also isnt limited to pixel based graphics.. you could literally make anything in flash, from hand drawn Disney quality animation to full 3d or at this point a MMORPG with crazy real time graphics filters, and with every year flash just gets more powerful.

how does one make money off their game maker games? ive been talking to cactus and the info i got from him was there was 0 money in GM games.. have i been misinformed?

I doubt Flash could make half of the games in this video without some major changes:

-- in particular, transparencies and additive blending in Flash are really slow. They also have low frame rates, etc. GM isn't limited in the way you describe either, check out that video, there are several 3D GM games. Could you name what in specific you don't think can be done in GM? (Watch the video first!)

As for how Game Maker games make money, the same way every other shareware game makes money: selling the game. There are many shareware GM games: papillon's games (hanakogames.com), magi (getmagi.com), my own immortal defense (studioeres.com/immortal), and a dozen or so others. I know that at least papillon makes a living at it.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

I doubt Flash could make half of the games in this video without some major changes:

Every single one of those could be made in flash.

With the advantage of flash being natively cross-platform. Also vector graphics.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Could you elaborate on that? If they could be made in Flash, why don't you see more games that look like those in Flash?

(It's also kind of funny that the video is 10 minutes, and you replied 5 minutes after I posted the video -- did you watch the video in double-time? :D)