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[raiten]

It's not a jab, but if people think there's truth in what you said then they're being misled, which is why I pointed it out.

The industry works like I think everybody else expects it would, portals place bids on games they expect will bring a lot of traffic to their websites. If your game ended up giving you $5 on MochiAds and 1-2 hits per day on your site, then $200 for that sounds like approximately 10x what it was worth (to a sponsor).

It can be hard to predict what games will become popular and in that sense, you can get lucky, but if you think it was just a coincidence that your game got a $200 offer while Steambirds got $30k+, you're wrong. Besides, most (well, at least many) big games make their money through referral deals, i.e. their income comes solely from the traffic they bring the sponsor.

[raiten]

Also venture money is very rare in the flash business (unless we're talking Facebook games and big fish like Playfish etc). Kongregate has received a fair bit in the past but I haven't heard of them getting any recently and I think they're now making a killing on both ads and microtransactions, probably more than enough to cover what they pay for game sponsorships.

[Brother Android]

The industry works like I think everybody else expects it would, portals place bids on games they expect will bring a lot of traffic to their websites. If your game ended up giving you $5 on MochiAds and 1-2 hits per day on your site, then $200 for that sounds like approximately 10x what it was worth (to a sponsor).

This sounds faulty to me. I don't think moi's site has nearly the pull that a Flash portal would have, therefore it's difficult to say exactly how much attention the game would have gotten under different circumstances.

[moi]

My website and game has had absolutely no publicity or anything I didn't really devellop it, I was just experimenting and sniffing the market and I don't doubt that any dedicated flash portal can pull out 1000 times my traffic and stuff.
But raitendo's claims like

Kongregate has received a fair bit in the past but I haven't heard of them getting any recently and I think they're now making a killing on both ads and microtransactions, probably more than enough to cover what they pay for game sponsorships.

Are exactly as guessworked as mines were, unless he happens to work as a kongregate accountant.
I'm not saying that kongregate isn't making money, but they're not making millions either. Probably much less.

And I was reporting about my experiences, that's probably what people expect in this thread rather than evangelism.
Let's all give experience feedback!

[tametick]

Kongregate has received a fair bit in the past but I haven't heard of them getting any recently and I think they're now making a killing on both ads and microtransactions, probably more than enough to cover what they pay for game sponsorships.

Are exactly as guessworked as mines were, unless he happens to work as a kongregate accountant.
I'm not saying that kongregate isn't making money, but they're not making millions either. Probably not even hundreds of thousands.

Wikipedia says:

As of July 2008, Kongregate has raised around $9 million in capital from investments by Reid Hoffman, Jeff Clavier, Jeff Bezos, and Greylock Partners.

I doubt people of that caliber (Bezos is the founder of Amazon) would invest $9 million in a business that cannot even generate hundreds of thousands in revenue (which is btw basically nothing for any company bigger than a couple of people).

[moi]

Yeah, it's not like web investors ever put huge money into websites that went and failed. These things don't exist.
(I don't wish for Kong to fail, I'm just saying that the amounts on the big sponsoring paychecks are maybe not going to last forever is all. Let's not forget this industry is based on free games at the moment (and let's pray that some of the portals don't try to curve it toward zynga style games))

[Radix]

Anyway. Truth is saleability is one part appeal to a 'special' audience, one part looking like a safe bet to sponsor, and one part getting sponsors' attention which has a big element of luck.
Not really anything to do with the quality of the game itself, unless you judge quality in the context of those attributes.

Personally I'm not a really that big a fan of FGL, for all their talk (because of course, their business relies on getting you to believe in the security and efficacy of their service), but as part of your strategy for licensing your game there's really no reason not to use them. Even if they're seriously hit-and-miss you don't really know until you try.

[raiten]

And I was reporting about my experiences, that's probably what people expect in this thread rather than evangelism.
Let's all give experience feedback!

How am I being evangelical? It's great that people report about their experiences, but when you make faulty assumptions on the entire state of the flash game business based on those experiences, I think the best feedback is to correct you. I'm not saying it's easy to make money from flash or that the market isn't saturated, just that games that are capable of bringing in traffic generally do well and are not at all dependent on clueless portals spruced up on venture capital. You make the flash game business sound like a bubble about to burst, but sites like Newgrounds and Armor Games have been around for 6-15 years without ever receiving any VC money and they're still paying $10K+ for games on a regular basis.

[raiten]

Personally I'm not a really that big a fan of FGL, for all their talk (because of course, their business relies on getting you to believe in the security and efficacy of their service), but as part of your strategy for licensing your game there's really no reason not to use them. Even if they're seriously hit-and-miss you don't really know until you try.

Well, since a month or two back they are asking for a mandatory 10% of the total sponsorship, even if you end up making the deal outside of FGL.

[Radix]

That's interesting... it's their prerogative as an auction site, so that's fine, but it sorta indicates (not that I'm surprised) they weren't doing enough for the gratuity system to work.

Interesting also that they snuck that in without sending me an email about it, at least as far as I can tell from searching my inbox. I don't like that. Might influence how I use the site in the future.

Anyway apart from that, if you end up with a bidding war that results in much higher sales than you would without the service, you're still better off. 10% isn't going to hurt much at the amounts the majority of games go for.

[weasello]

I agree with Raitendo and think Moi is being silly. I guess none of you came out to Casual Connect in Seattle? (Writing this from the hotel room!)

They don't make figures public, but you come out to events like these and just ask Jim Greer/Chris Hughes/Etc how much they're making these days. Stop sitting at home and speculating; get out there and just ask!

During my talk on Tuesday (it'll go watchable online for free in about 2 weeks) I talked about how SteamBirds' success wasn't luck; it was designed from the ground up to correct all the "common mistakes" programmers like me make when making games. I highly recommend you all watch it once it comes out.

ArmorGames made back all the money they spent on SteamBirds, and then some. In fact, anytime I bring it up with Dan, he kinda gets this Scrooge McDuck glint in his eye and practically trips over himself with excitement for the amount of revenue SteamBirds has made him. It wasn't burning through VC. And I do believe they deserve the lion's share of the profits from the game; they're the ones that took a gamble on an untested IP, after all. Sometimes portals lose money on titles, sometimes they win, and mitigating that risk is the name of the game. This is also why I don't make my own portal; it's waaaaay too much BS when I just want to make games. I'm happy to have others do all this risk management stuff without my input.

Keeping this on-FGL-topic: I also mentioned during my talk that I could have done everything FGL did for me, but I hate shopping things around, marketing, and doing the shady "bidding war via email" stuff. I would have paid 20% to hire someone to do that for me; they do it for less, so it's a no brainer. Other people think 10% is too much, and that's perfectly fine; I just want to focus on making my next game.

SteamBirds had no marketing and I sent out no emails or anything; it was completely sold by the FGL team.

I think, Moi, that you show a lack of even basic research into the industry by saying $200 is "normal" for Flash Games. The average game sells for $2000 (on FGL), and in my experience (and everyone else I know's experience) it's very true. If you're "only" making $200 normally, that means two things:

(a) FGL is a better market for your games, or
(b) Your games suck.

It'll take a lot of soul searching and being brutally honest with yourself, but (b) was the problem with all my pre-steambirds failures. I actually discovered that I absolutely suck at being objective about my own games, and I had to start collaborating with others to get anything decent done. Sucks that I can't be a lone operation, but at least I'm mildly successful now.

[moi]

Well let's just let other devellopers discover their truth by themselves?
Making talks in casual connects (the temple of zynga-style business BTW) makes me think you might not be the most impartial for talking about this.
IMO a key factor in getting sponsored is being known, having contacts with portal owners or managing to make some buzz about your game.
I reckon there are a lot of devs making money , some of them making a living with good quality flash games (long animals for example). But for me it looks like the flash games that sell are becoming more and more like cookie cutter casual games.
AND I am thinking that a good develloper like long animals, could make several times more money if they made games that they sold for money instead of making flash games (on condition that they could choose the right market). And then you've got very mediocre flash games selling for outrageously big amounts.
Once again, I'm not saying that out of spite, I don't really care that my game didn't get a good bid, I don't really consider myself as a good develloper to be honest.

[aeiowu]

first. are you serious about the "temple of Zynga" comment? If so, it's ridiculous.

second, it seems like you're suffering from a grass-is-greener mindset that's easy to sink into when things aren't working the way you think they ought to. I can identify with that for sure, but I'll tell you it's simply not the case.

I've put a fair number of games on FGL, and the most recent one that I released, Hundreds, didn't get a single bid. Not even the $200 that you mentioned.

Why was that? Simple, really.

The game wasn't good enough.

Maybe it was a few more days away from breaking some magical threshold, or was missing a feature or two. Hell, maybe people didn't like the fact that it was red. I don't know, but I have some theories and etc. but I'm not too concerned. The game was never meant to be a bread-winner so I had no problem moving on. Even if we were betting on it making $X,XXXK, we'd still have to move on or make some drastic changes. You've gotta give yourself room to grow and all...

I'm not saying this about you, or anyone specific, but it seems to me that many developers that haven't had much "luck" think that there are some other mysterious factors at work that bar them from reaching the Golden City of success. Notice how I used "luck" in quotes there. That's because from where I'm standing, I don't see where that plays into how I got to be where I'm at. Sure there is good fortune and all that, and plenty of bad shit too, but that always comes around if you stick with it long enough. Like the tide going in and coming out. I worked my ass off for like 8 years. 2 of those as a 8hr/day hobbiest, 4 as a 12hr/day design student and 3 as a 14hr/day full-time game developer.

Even with all the experience and "clout" or whatever, I made a game that nobody wants to sponsor. A great game is a great game and it'll get what it deserves on FGL, it behooves the people that run the site to do so.

[Radix]

A great game is a great game and it'll get what it deserves on FGL, it behooves the people that run the site to do so.

If you're trying something different or risky or just not quite clearly-great though, they seem to be short on manpower pretty often so cross your fingers.

(Though if you're making typical flash clone garbage for lunch money it sells itself so no perspiration.)

[moi]

Quite the interesting article, with also some actual facts towards the end.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29607/GameStop_Buys_Social_Gaming_Hub_Kongregate.php

[jrjellybeans]

Wow... just wow...

I wonder how the flash market is going to change.  Thanks for the link!

[bateleur]

ArmorGames made back all the money they spent on SteamBirds, and then some.

Wow - that's great news! I am both impressed and pleased. :handthumbsupR:

The game wasn't good enough.

I liked it. (I can never get past level 14 though... I always get too greedy making big circles!)

[ElijahKatz]

@melly

I think adding a global high score table would help ALOT

[kazamax]

Hi everybody! I was trying to find some experiences about FGL from other users and googling I found this site. I have submited a game in FGL few weeks ago but no bids yet, and want to know other experiences. So let me tell you thank you people Your comments are really helpfull to me. Also I saw 'Making and selling Fig.8' from aeiowu (Greg) and I think it's a really nice info!

I didn't know this forum until today, but I think I will be reading you daily from now

[Blackcorn]

My post is not a reply to Kazamax unfortunately (sorry pal), but a question about the "Previewer program" of FGL. Does somebody is already involved in FGL as a "previewer"? I would like to know how she/he has got an invitation to be it and also known if it was interesting to test game on the website? I find there are many games to test on the forum here, but I'm very curious about how does the "previewer program" works on FGL website.

Thanks by advance to the ones who will have an experience to share about this!