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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperBusinessNeed some Business model Advice (Flash or Shareware?)
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CephalopodGames
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« on: June 02, 2009, 03:28:54 PM »

I'm in the early stages of planning to launch my own indie game development studio.  I'm trying to decide what would be better:  To write games in Flash, and depend on advertising, and licensing, or to release low-priced shareware titles.  I can see pro's and con's to both.  Currently it will only be me working on titles(hopefully down the road some friends join in).  I'm most comfortable working in Actionscript 3/Flashdevelop right now, but I could definitely write in C#, or Java.  Also I was thinking offering game-related flash development services is an option too.  Is it a matter a preference?  I think eventually I would like to release both Flash Games, and Shareware. I'm not looking to, or expecting to strike gold, but at the very least have a legit studio, and turn at a least a small profit. Any advice would be really helpful.

ps - indie piracy seems to be way up lately as well.  It makes me think to go flash, but then depending on Ad clicks, and hoping for good licensing  Apoplectic See my? dilemma?  I feel like the sooner I can decide the sooner I can start work on something.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2009, 03:32:34 PM by CephalopodGames » Logged
Snakey
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« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2009, 05:27:15 PM »

Flash won't stop piracy, since people can pull the game off your site or another site could take it from you. However, if you are concerned with piracy, then perhaps the flash route could be a good way to go.

Shareware is still a viable route, but people will still pirate your game regardless. There's definately still money to be made there though.

However, the business model has to involve more than just how you wish to charge people for what you are doing. You also need to have a plan on how to attract people to your site, what makes them want to play your games, and so forth. So ideally you will want a marketing and advertising strategy as well.

As a point of advice, don't quit your day job even if you have a legit indie studio. You'll still need the extra cash to survive while your developing your first game. I made that mistake myself, so just sort of putting it out there.

Unfortunately without a portfolio, I don't see how you could offer game related flash development services to any one as there would be bigger / other companies that also do the same thing. Unless you provide tools or a flash engine for those that don't want to build their own that could work. But still, theres no harm in offering that anyways.

Good luck!
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ElGenerator
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« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2009, 05:45:09 PM »

To write games in Flash, and depend on advertising, and licensing, or to release low-priced shareware titles.

There are so many approaches to a successful business and the combination of these are endless. My best approach at this late night would be one or more of the following:

- multi platform title (flash, iphone, facebook, the more the better) so one can keep the risk of getting no income at all low and increase the count of possible revenue streams
- free game for all platforms, income over ads and/or licensing deals
- free game with micro transactions
- free game where licensees pay for their game theme
- find a college now! someone that fits you and your style of doing things, someone that can do stuff you can't
- if one got the money, create a good game and really go indie with self distribution and self funding

And each possibility has another thousand strings attached.

"indie piracy". A pirate does not give a bottle of rum if you spent your precious money on creating the game or if it came from a big fat conglomerate. As soon as you charge money for it and make it digital you've got to face piracy. You should consider piracy as a risk to your business and therefore handle it like all other risks, with care.

The best advice I have right now is: Read every games/developer/news blog/forum you can get. The more you read the better. There are so many great guys out there telling their business story that ignoring this knowledge would be pretty...short-witted.
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CephalopodGames
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« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2009, 10:09:29 PM »

Awesome.  Thanks for the tips.  I have been putting in the research time, reading tons of blogs etc for the past couple weeks.  This is really one of the bigger question marks I have left.  I think eventually it will be a combination of types, and coming up with a complete plan.  I have plenty of freedom on my day job luckily too, and get the time to read the blogs etc.  Helpful stuff. thanks.
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bateleur
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« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2009, 01:56:42 AM »

Also, don't misinterpret piracy figures. These are not "lost sales".

The figures you should be concerned about with indie games are sales numbers. Plenty of indie games continue to generate good sales numbers, so I wouldn't say there's much cause for alarm.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2009, 02:06:21 AM »

piracy may lower conversion rate though -- for instance, see this for numbers from my own game: http://studioeres.com/games/content/history-conversion-rate-immortal-defense -- compared sales per 100 downloads before and after a torrent existed for the game

anyway, i'd be hesitant to take advice from people who haven't sold games before, but i've no advice myself to give. i think the decision shouldn't hinge on which would make more money (which i'd say is shareware if your talents are good, Flash if your talents mediocre), but on whether you prefer making longer or shorter games. if longer, shareware, if shorter, Flash. because to make as much money as you would with shareware, i'd estimate you'd need to release about 3x-5x as many games a year in Flash as you would with shareware. the potential to make a living at both exists, it's just that with Flash you need to make a lot of low-quality short games, and with shareware you need to make fewer ultra-high quality games.
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aeiowu
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« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2009, 07:21:59 AM »

We're actually planning/hoping to release our next game, Liferaft, as shareware in flash. We're not thrilled with the sponsorship model so far mostly because it breeds such a disconnect with us and the customer/players. We'd rather have a direct relationship with the people that play our game for a number of reasons...

The main idea behind shareware for us is to leverage the power of the portals by offering up a portion of the game for free with a link back to our site to purchase the rest of the game, probably for like $5 or something. There's been some concern as far as the community on these portals rejecting attempts like: "OMG I have to pay?!!?! 0/5 this suxxxz!!!!!" and that may be the vocal minority but I don't think it will effect the success of the game _that_ much. We're not sure though, it's certainly an experiment. Frankly, flash is a great way for people to hear about our game and play it with little to no barrier to entry. If we get 100,000 plays across all portals and our conversion rate is something like 1% who buy the game then we'll make 5K on the game. We might have been able to make more on a sponsorship but 100K plays is hopefully on the low end... Or maybe the conversion rate is too low, or perhaps... too high. :-/

Other games like Fantastic Contraption have had a great deal of success with a modified shareware model in that they offer the level editor as a paid option rather than more content in the game. These sandbox games tend to be more of a catchall in terms of audience so having a paid level editor that can save levels for the hard-core side of it makes sense and ends up being mostly hidden from the majority of casual players who probably never really care anyway.

For Liferaft that won't be the case. You'll get to a certain point in the game and then we'll show a "pay $5 to get the rest of the game" has a much greater chance of frustrating a large portion of our players. But oh well, we're going to try it and we'll be sharing our experience on our blog and so on. It comes down to the fact that we are making the game we want to make and while a sandboxy type game with level editing/sharing may be the better, more tested route, it's not what we want to do.

On Flash...
You see the big problem with Flash in our eyes is that it doesn't make any monetary sense to spend more than a week on a flash game given all of the current models. Sure there are exceptions but this is generally true. Easily my most successful Flash game was made in like 4 days with Jiggmin, Effing Hail. It was fun to work on and I love the game and am proud of it and all, but sometimes we get the itch to sink into a game for awhile and make something special. When you start spending 2-3 months on a Flash game it really ends up losing you money really quickly. Though... working on a game for a couple months is fun and allows you to make a much better, deeper game. It's fun to make quickies but we want to make something bigger and the current Flash models don't support this kind of thing. So... this whole Liferaft experiment is really our last venture out into the world of Flash and what it can do for this size game. If shareware can give us a decent return on our months of investment then it makes sense, but I think for that to happen you've gotta think outside the box with Flash. What the portals and FGL have setup for you is a very narrow-minded business model that works really well for churning out games and even better for the portals themselves. The devs get the short end of the stick.

Of course there's plenty changing. Microtransactions and all that jazz can really benefit your game and are "thinking outside the box" as far as Flash is concerned. Again though, like with Fantastic Contraption, MicroTX games are very specific and either your game can fit really well into that model or you'll need to modify serious portions of your game to accommodate that system.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2009, 07:26:17 AM by aeiowu » Logged

Loren Schmidt
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« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2009, 10:02:05 AM »

This is useful information, folks. Thanks for sharing.

I have yet to ship anything myself, but several people around here have also had success with services like Steam and Direct2Drive. Those might also be worth lookinga at.
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