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[Greg Game Man]

People have been really helpful around this place, so i thought i'd share what i know about flash sponsorship, especially for Cagey/Don Andy who wanted to know. I'll do my best to keep it understandable i tend to rant a bit.. heh

HOW IT WORKS:
Start with the basics FlashGame sites make money by getting loads of people onto their website, so they can make money through adverts. So they pay YOU the developer, to slap their logo/a few links to their website onto your game. Then their advert will be seen by everyone who plays the game, and TONS of people WILL play a good game(and visit their site), because there are 100's of FlashGameSites all trying to milk  this new new cashcow..and they will all steal your game and put it on their website. So a good game will be hosted by 100's of website, and get millions (some have billions) of hits.

HOW TO GET THE MOST $$$ FROM YOUR HARD WORK
- Firstly, remember that the sponsor NEEDS YOU to make money, and any offer they give you-you can be sure they think they will make a lot more. Be smart with haggling.
- Sponsors want the most traffic from a game, so what they pay you depends on origionality, polish, replayability..etc. I think its important to be origional. Give them something other sites cant offer..
- FlashgameLicense, in my experience isnt very good. Its much better to talk to sponsors and build a partnership with them, so you can come to them with all your games and get a fair price. Try emails/MSN/ or put your game on FGL, but dont accept bids, just use that to see who is interested.
- The best ad agency is MochiADS at the moment. Sign up with them, and put mochiads on your game! If its popular enough to stay popular (FancyPants), you will make money everyday for years..
- Take a few dreamweaver/wordpress tutorials, make a personal profile website and put googleads on your website. This way, with every release, you can put a link to your website as well as the sponsors. This will get you known, as well as more money with each release..
-Site-Locked Versions!! When you get a game sponsored (big$$), if you ask nicely, you can sell more versions after that to sites, with the sponsors logo removed and a bit of code added(site-locking) so it cant be taken off the site you sell it to(small$$), the thing is.. a site will pay around $50-$300 for this. So if you find enough sites that want this, you can make a lot of money with little extra work!

EXTRA TIPS
- to be honest, i wouldnt think about making $$ from your game until AFTER youve made it. Just make what you want to play, and keep it fun/origional. Then you wont end up with a crap flash game like most of them out there, specifically targeted at making quick $$, for a big audience(casual game market).
- be patient. Marketing flash games at first takes a while. Dont jump on offers you are made, find the best one, most flashsites take a long time to return emails, and its best to get their MSN/AIM.

LIST OF FLASH PORTALS
- You want loads of people to play your game dont you? Submit it here:
Here is a list of sites you might want to submit to:
www.newgrounds.com
www.freeworldgroup.com
www.miniclip.com (game needs to be pretty-fuckin-good for this!lol)
www.addictinggames.com
www.armorgames.com
www.hallpass.com
www.freeonlinegames.com
www.kongregate.com
www.2dplay.com
www.gamegum.com
www.flashportal.com
www.gamegarage.co.uk
www.bubblebox.com
www.xgenstudios.com

FURTHER READING
- i learnt loads of stuff from these places:
http://www.flashgamesponsorship.com/
http://www.mochibot.com/
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2008/03/04/experiment-monetizing-a-flash-game-part-8/
http://www.flashrights.com/
http://mochi.omgames.co.uk/emails.php
http://www.flashgamelicense.com/
http://mochiland.com/articles/marketing-flash-games-the-other-half-of-the-battle

ok if it helps you a bit, then good

[Don Andy]

 

[Terry]

This is pretty useful - thanks for putting it all together!

[Gregory]

FlashGameLicense.com has actually been working well for me.  I made a game, put it up, and got a decent bid within a few days.  Of course, at the moment I've accepted the bid and am waiting for the sponsor to contact me for payment and delivery, so there's still a chance for things to go sour.  It's only been a day, so I'm not too worried yet.

[Cagey]

oo Thanks for this, I was about to post in the jobs thread but now i have somewhere far more suitable.

I'm curious to know how well DeathDice did. All of my game ideas are vastly more complex (and hence take aaaages to make/not make) but if its worth making two-days-to-finish games then I have no reason not to.

[Greg Game Man]

Deathdice was featured/favorited in a bunch of places, and made me some really good $$$. I was really pleased with how the whole thing turned out :p I honestly started it from an idea "drugs n dinosaurs", but dice seemed better than dinosaurs :p Go for your big ideas!!!! why bother with the little ones? (unless you just want quick cash)

[Cagey]

Yeah quick cash is good cash. But just because I make small games doesnt mean I can't make big ones at the same time. Only two more weeks of Uni until I'm on a break (5 months!!! WAH!) so I'm getting excited at the prospects of much game-makings.

Edit: Who did your dp? I love the style..
Edit2: After much detective work i have concluded that it was you. 

[Farmergnome]

Ill vote another one for FGL, I made a quick hackjob of zompocalypse and just stuck it on FGL, and its well and truely paid for the week n a half it took to make, I might try direct emails next time just so I have a basis to go on but so far im getting realy good bids on FGL.

The idea of being able to release a game for free yet still make decent $ of it is quite appealing.

[isaac]

I for one have had much better luck with direct emails. With the last game I sold sponsorship on, Flash Game License gave me a single lead -- but direct email gave me four. I was able to play them off each other to add an extra $1000 on top of initial offers.

The whole process took about three weeks though and was kinda painful, so I can see the advantage of using FGL or something to just speed things up.

[Bad Sector]

FGL seems a better solution if, like me, you dont want to spend time running after flash portals and just want to put the game on the internet and get some cash for paying your rent and bills so you can continue with the next one :-)

[Greg Game Man]

ok, well when i marketed DeathDice, FGL took a long time to get up to a good price, and even then it was sponsors trying to pay less, to get more.. when i emailed some of them, and talked to a few people on MSN, its just nicer and i was asked to suggest a fair price for both me/thesponsor, so i did. and it was all cool. Now i have a few people on MSN, who i can go to for sponsorship whenever i finish a game and not have to mess around. In my experience, i think it is better to just build up a few contacts.

[Cagey]

Does the community pay any attention to games on FGL? Or the bidders for that matter?

Has anyone used First-Impressions? It seems like a good concept.

[moi]

What about ad money? Is it worth it ?
Can I have an idea of the money that brings?
And what about websites who host advertised flash games? will it bring any more than a few pennies?

[Gregory]

Does the community pay any attention to games on FGL? Or the bidders for that matter?

I got short critiques of varying usefulness from three or four developers on FGL.  Common themes in the reviews led me to make a few updates that I think improved the game a lot.  Also, as soon as my game was posted it got a real short review from someone on the FGL staff, which they might do with every game.

However, if the FGL stats on the games are to be believed, no one played it for longer than ten minutes.  Could have been that the game was crappy, could have been that they didn't care.

[alexandersshen]

What about ad money? Is it worth it ?
Can I have an idea of the money that brings?
And what about websites who host advertised flash games? will it bring any more than a few pennies?

To be honest, ad money is a difficult road.  Unless you have some obscene breakout hit or a considerably large portfolio of games that get thousands/tens of thousands of hits, you just won't see the money you see in a sponsorship until months later.

The only plus is that a game that has a very long tail end will continue to generate you money, months beyond you supporting/updating it.

If you can find a good sponsorship to throw down the cash, it may be your best bet.

Ads, on the other hand, are nice 'cause if you can't find a sponsorship, at least you can throw ads into try to generate a little money.

[Skofo]

What is everyone's thoughts on the Newgrounds API ads relative to MochiAds and other sponsors?

[Greg Game Man]

NG ads pay worse than Mochi, because mochi is a lot more popular basically..

with a million plays of DeathDice, i earned $209 with NG ads.(i think if i went with mochi it wouldve been maybe 4x that amount but i wanted to try out NGads)

Selling site-locked versions of games brings a lot more money than ads though i think. Unless you make a game which is played tons, like fancypants.