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Hi :)

I got some requests to explain how the flash games businness works, or at least my thoughts and expeciences in the matter, as i did few things on it.

The Postmortem

I've recently worked with flex\as3 on a game called Darkbase (http://armorgames.com/play/3398/darkbase-incubation), making also almost all the graphics.
The game did pretty well and it's featured on hundreds of portals, and it already spawned a sequel even if i left the team, with one more in the works.

We started prototyping the gameplay and doing a one level demo that looked almost polished as the final version of the game.
Then we contacted a bunch of flash games portals ( i think they were crazymonkey, armor games, miniclip and some more).
We mailed the demo plus a PDF file with a page with two or three screenshots and a nice description of the game features, all with a fancy layout.

After few days we got some anwers, but not *that* exciting how we would expect, it was the end of the month, next to halloween, and the portals already used their budget for new games, so they basically asked to send some more in few weeks. We anyway kept in touch with many of them, and if i remember well our manager guy managed to call someone at crazymonkey via phone, discovering they still weren't able to try the game... When one of the guys at that portal finally tried it they really liked it and we were able to sell our product.
After finishing the game they provided their logo and istructions about their score system, they were always fast and reliable after that episode so i gladly recommend them if you're searching for a sponsor.

It's really all about making your first steps in this world, if you manage to find a sponsor (and if your first game is good of course) you'll be able to send more and more stuff later on.

A thing I personally hate but it's really worth the hassle is making sequels. You can add features listening to what your users thinks about the game, and improve your original idea on the next episode, you'll also be able to build a sort of fanbase, or at least you'll find people that already played and enjoyed your game playing also the sequel for sure.
Last but not least: your sponsor will be very glad to accept sequels of a successful game. Basically: easy money for you, as you can focus more on making the gameplay interesting rather than coding the game engine, and more fun for your players.

For example, I must admit that Darkbase 2 was even more appreciated than the first one, even if it featured worse music and some bugs that the first didn't had. The art direction was also a bit sleazy too, because they mixed old tiles and enemies made by me with new stuff. The very good thing, however, was that my ex team managed to listen all the requests players wrote on Newgrounds after the first game, so they made the sequel more balanced gameplay wise.

Profit!

The best thing to do with flash portals is to contact them all, and to do a sort of bid.
If someone offers a bit more than others you can tell them gently that someone offered more (possibly without making names!) and they can then choose if offering some more or giving you the finger. Remember not to pull the rope too much and make it fair to keep yourself out of the unpleasant situation where you manage to piss off all the portals you're in touch with ;)

Your sponsor\publisher will be your main revenue, and even if it will be a fixed sum you could be able to search for additional incomes contacting online markets that sells gadgets or tshirt or something on these lines, asking if they want to be featured somewhere on the game menu.
There are also ads services like mochiads, that permits to you to make some bucks during time from clicks\gameplays.


Some additional tips:

- make sure your game is VERY easy to learn, i was shocked discovering that a lot of people got stuck at the very start of my game, but unluckly you're not only dealing with experienced players, but also with a lot of casual gamers, so be sure to make a non intrusive tutorial or give short hints during the very first moments of the game.

- Don't fear to be not original enough, it's true that a new concept or design can attract a lot of gamers, but if you see on the various flash games top tens, you'll see how they're full of metal slug clones, arena shooters featuring zombies or tower defence games. Do something you really like, but keep in mind that a very well executed platformer is better than a new gameplay idea that was rushed out of the door because lack of time.

- Do not copy overused concepts. While it's ok to do a game on estabilished design lines, making yet another tower defence will lead the portals to make very low offers.

- Graphic is very important, you don't need to have awesome artworks, even a minimal\abstract graphic style can work if done well, prefer bitmap based graphic to flash vector art if you're not skilled enough, if there's something worse than a bad drawn pixelly hero is a bad drawn vectorial one. Better than that, try to find a style, for example Dan Paladin has his consistent style, Edmund too.

- Gameplay is more important than graphics. But remember that good graphics\animations HELPS gameplay.


Hope it helps\interests someone! ;)

Right on, thanks for the very informative post. I was actually thinking about starting a thread to ask a few questions but this is good too.

I have been wondering lately how one goes about developing Flash in Linux? I heard that CS4 works just fine under Wine but that is about all I could find really.

I used Eclipse + Flex, i believe you can do the same under linux.
My game was 100% actionscript code, i really don't know how to use well Flash CS4.

There's also Adobe Flex Builder that has a linux version, it's basically a commercial version of Eclipse IDE modified by Adobe, it's maybe the best solution but it's pricey

Another cool ide, even if it lacks a debug feature (at least natively), is FlashDevelop ( http://www.flashdevelop.org )  but i don't know if it has a linux version

PS my nickname comes from Pink Floyd :P

Right on, I already have Eclipse installed for Java dev.

So basically the main difference is that you are more actionscript dependent then?

That's cool if that is the case as I would much rather just work with code really.

note: I am using Ubuntu, do you know if there is a Synaptic package for Flex?

after writing "flex ubuntu eclipse" on Google and pressing "I'm feeling lucky" i got this http://www.insideria.com/2008/04/step-by-step-setting-up-flex-b.html :P

Basically Flex is a sort of actionscript compiler, so you do everything on code.
It's cool because you can do your main loop and your classes without dealing with flash cs3 objects.
Also you can still load, embed and display SWF movies created with cs3\4 or whatever, i used external swf files that got embedded inside the main one for the game menu, the loading screen, the flash portal logo animation and the in game hud.

Thanks a ton for this post!  It was just the thing I was looking for.

Nioce, I am going to try this out now.

So, is there any drawbacks using just Flex and actionscript versus your standard flash development?

Thanks for the post!

Are you confortable in posting some numbers? like, how much money you got, how many people were on the team, how much time it took to develop...etc?

Also, how about the little letters on mochiads and the sponsors? anything I should be aware of?

And the last, a techy question: Does Eclipse have a step-by-step Flex debugger with watches and such?
I've been using FlashDevelop with traces, but that sucks sometimes.

BTW: Nice game and catchy drum & bass music.

Thanks!
-Martín

There are no drawbacks I'm aware of, and yes Flex has a debugger.
Personally I've used Eclipse, Flex and the FDT plugin, but The easiest way to develop on windows is using FlexBuilder.

There's also this stuff that could run on Flashdevelop too but i never had the time to try it http://arthropod.stopp.se/index2.php/?page_id=5 but it's mostly an advanced logger, not a real debugger.

Flashdevelop is lightweight, both Eclipse and FlexBuilder are slow and they tend to suck up a lot of ram...

Speaking about the numbers, the game was made basically by two people, me and a guy that did additional coding & the music\sfx.

The development was kind of long if we consider also that we built an entire framework for flash games, but the game itself took two months, during this two months i got ~2600 EUR, i bet the other guy got less.
I believe they settled a good price with the sponsor, being able to pay us and earn something plus there was an additional income from an online market. They also were able to do sequels ligthning fast, as i provided a fully functional system to make and script levels

Thanks

Shouldn't you get something from the sequel? I mean, you did the whole framework and stuff.

usually when you work fulltime on a software house (we were doing also "normal" videogames) is the society that owns all the stuff you do, technically i could still reuse that code as it's my stuff anyway.
Also i don't want to bitch about if i can or not have a share on the IP, the graphics or the code, I left the job in good terms with these guys and i don't feel cheated, one or more sequels were in the plan even while doing the first game

Oh sorry, I thought it was just you and a guy teaming up, I must have misunderstood it.

So when you went looking for sponsors - did you use FlashGameLicense.com at all?  I don't see any mention of it in your write up, but I have heard very good things about it for getting games noticed and sponsorship deals lined up.

Any thoughts on this?

Some people told me that FGL is not the best way to find a sponsorship deal, one of the leading reasons being that it's passive approach. They preferred contacting sponsorships rather than waiting for sponsors to contact them.

Any opinions on this issue is appreciated. :)

Exactly, not dealing directly with the portals will give you worse results for sure.
I never used that site but looks like a "flash games discount", also if they take commissions you're placing a middle man beetween you and the portal, and that's not good.

Searching for contacts could be a bit annoying at the start, but it's the best way to work. Also because the people working at the portal will start to know you, and if your games are going well you'll place new games easily.