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[mirosurabu]

Making money with flash games is getting harder, and sponsors pay very little money, we have a game up too on FGL (http://www.flashgamelicense.com/view_game.php?from=dev&game_id=13542). I emailed a lot of sponsors after a few weeks with little views. The mails produced more views but sadly not a single offer, just to people interested on a sitelocked version but no more.

Oh, I see, I just played your game and while I can see decent amount of effort put in visual appearance, it doesn't seem to stand out enough.

First, it's borderline average/above-average.

I say this because puzzles don't feel rewarding. I can just stare at the screen and press keys randomly until I get to the end. My mind doesn't register that as a reward. It's just random accomplishment that bears no meaning to me.

Second, it has no selling point. If it was medieval, it would be a lot easier to sell it to Armor Games despite not being above-average. Or if it was defense game or Halloween game. etc etc

That said, you may be able to sell it, especially if not many sponsors played it yet. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Guess this was a bit tangential, but oh well.

[Greender]

Making money with flash games is getting harder, and sponsors pay very little money, we have a game up too on FGL (http://www.flashgamelicense.com/view_game.php?from=dev&game_id=13542). I emailed a lot of sponsors after a few weeks with little views. The mails produced more views but sadly not a single offer, just to people interested on a sitelocked version but no more.

Oh, I see, I just played your game and while I can see decent amount of effort put in visual appearance, it doesn't seem to stand out enough.

First, it's borderline average/above-average.

I say this because puzzles don't feel rewarding. I can just stare at the screen and press keys randomly until I get to the end. My mind doesn't register that as a reward. It's just random accomplishment that bears no meaning to me.

But it has no selling point. If it was medieval, it would be a lot easier to sell it to Armor Games despite not being above-average. Or if it was defense game or Halloween game. etc etc

That said, you may be able to sell it, especially if not many sponsors played it yet. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Guess this was a bit tangential, but oh well.

Yes, a puzzle game is harder to sell too. Maybe it was a mistake in our behalf starting our career with a puzzle, but what can you do?, you have to learn from your mistakes and move on, our next game is going to be an arcade, hope it sells and hope the hamster game sells for something.
Thanks for the feedback Miroslav , very much appreciated.

[Nix]

Keep in mind your competition is stuff like this:

http://armorgames.com/play/5011/big-pixel-racing

Being "above average" and getting sponsorships requires you to put in a LOT more polish than even just 6 months ago.

But these guys are in the $5k+ league, aren't they?

And despite the effort they put in polishing their games, their games generally don't do well on major portals. Sure they may get sponsors for a while, but I believe that if polish isn't enough to go viral, it can quickly become apparent to sponsors that polish isn't good measure.

Look at Armor Games developed games. I don't see a lot of polish in there, yet their games are very successful.

Polish on its own won't sell a game, but in order to be competitive with your good game, you will need it to be well polished. If the core sucks but the polish is great, then you're right, it probably won't go viral and most sponsors are able to spot this. Most of them are gamers themselves, after all. But now matter how fun your game's core is, if it isn't polished, it won't do as well in the market as a similar game that is more polished.

[mirosurabu]

My point was that the trend of "sponsors relying on games with good presentation (polish?)" may not be sustainable. And that's pretty much all. I might be wrong.

And yeah, from my observation, that's a current trend: popular genre, popular theme, great polish = guaranteed sale.

[Nix]

My point was that the trend of "sponsors relying on games with good presentation (polish?)" may not be sustainable. And that's pretty much all. I might be wrong.

And yeah, from my observation, that's a current trend: popular genre, popular theme, great polish = guaranteed sale.

That's a fair assessment, but that's because games based popular genres tend to be fun, even if they aren't unique. Those genres are popular for a reason. Eventually players will stop finding them fun, and these popular genres will phase out, at which point they will stop attracting sponsorships. But I don't think that any sponsor chooses to bid purely on polish. If the game is fun (and fun can sometimes be achieved in a "sellout" manner by copying or cloning existing genres), it still needs to be polished to be successful.

Of course, I think that serious hits do have to be unique, as opposed to direct clones of existing games/genres, but they still must be polished, if only to convince players and sponsors to continue playing past the menu screen. Polish is a good indicator of how much time and effort a developer put into a Flash game. If the polish sucks, the gameplay likely does too.

[Zaratustra]

What you call "polish" is mostly whatever prevalent style there is. If a game is either cartoony or based on photoshopped GIS images, it's 'polished'. If it has any other art style, it's 'ugly'.

[Nix]

What you call "polish" is mostly whatever prevalent style there is. If a game is either cartoony or based on photoshopped GIS images, it's 'polished'. If it has any other art style, it's 'ugly'.

That's not true. There are two things I have to say about that:
1) There's a lot more to polish than just the art or art style
2) Any art style can be well polished as long as it's done well

Look at a Alien Hominid. That's an art style that has traditionally accompanied a large majority of crappy Newgrounds games, but the Alien Hominid artists did it so well and polished other parts of the game that it didn't matter.

Polish includes quite a few things:

• Smooth menu transitions
• Bug-free gameplay
• Easy to read instructions (an in-game tutorial is even better)
• Some of the features that players take for granted, such as mute buttons
• Consistent art style. Unless your art style is to have a lot of different art styles (which is hard to do), being inconsistent will look bad
• Hover effects on buttons and menu items
• A clean GUI
• If your game is level-based, a straightforward level progression from easy to hard. If you've got a really hard level, then a bunch of easy levels, you'll annoy players
• Effects. Particles effects, filters, alpha fading. There are all kinds of things you can add on to make things look a little nicer (and more polished)
• And much, much more

In short, polish has just as much to do with gameplay and other non-art things as it does with the artwork itself. And the opposite of "polish" is not "ugly." You can have the prettiest game ever made, and still have it horribly unpolished. Or you can have a very well polished, but ugly game. There are certain aspects of artwork that contribute to polish, but the artwork itself does not determine the polish of your game.

[moi]

stick-figure-zombie-invasion games is where it's at lol.

[genericlogin]

Bitter much?

[mirosurabu]

That's a fair assessment, but that's because games based popular genres tend to be fun, even if they aren't unique. Those genres are popular for a reason. Eventually players will stop finding them fun, and these popular genres will phase out, at which point they will stop attracting sponsorships. But I don't think that any sponsor chooses to bid purely on polish. If the game is fun (and fun can sometimes be achieved in a "sellout" manner by copying or cloning existing genres), it still needs to be polished to be successful.

Of course, I think that serious hits do have to be unique, as opposed to direct clones of existing games/genres, but they still must be polished, if only to convince players and sponsors to continue playing past the menu screen. Polish is a good indicator of how much time and effort a developer put into a Flash game. If the polish sucks, the gameplay likely does too.

Hmmm. I don't think sponsors really care about originality. They do care about fun but the kind of fun that is appealing to kids and parents. Original game may be received well on Kongregate and Newgrounds but if portal owners don't pick it, it's a fail from sponsor's point of view.

I recognize two ways to evaluate if the game is fun:
a) it is fun to sponsor
b) it is a combo of great polish, popular genre and adequate theme

As far as my experience goes, I think they try to avoid a) because what's just a personal fun is most likely not going to go viral.

With that in mind, I think sponsors are resorting to b) which is judgment based on combo of polish, genre and theme. It is another level of safety because portals that host games are thinking in the same way.


I have to say that Newgrounds and Kongregate are probably the most mature flash audiences out there. Other portals are driven by 10yr old kids playing with their parents. That said, majority of portals will only pick the game if it's casual and easy to play, avoiding original, unique games that are genuinely fun to mature audiences. That's why a game can do bad on Newgrounds and Kongregate but still get more than 30 millions of plays in one year.