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[Danc]

The second part of the Flash Love Letter is up, this time covering how to ensure that your games generate value.   Not sure if this should go in the design or business section since they are two sides of the same coin. :-)

Here's the link to part 2: http://lostgarden.com/2009/08/flash-love-letter-2009-part-2.html

There are only a few indie games out there that are worth marrying. Toribash and Dwarf Fortress come to mind. I think it is a fun exercise to imagine how your design and business would be different if you were trying to make a game that was part of a player's life for weeks instead of minutes or hours.

It goes without saying that not everyone wants make a living developing games, so pick and choose the lessons that apply to you personally. :-)

take care
Danc.

[undertech]

Thanks for the article. While not a developer myself, I found the concepts generally enlightening.

[Farbs]

Thanks Danc! The first article really inspired me, looking forward to reading this. Coincidentally I met Andre two days ago over

[bateleur]

I think it is a fun exercise to imagine how your design and business would be different if you were trying to make a game that was part of a player's life for weeks instead of minutes or hours.

Ten year project cycles and impossible funding difficulties!

[Danc]

This is perhaps an outlier, but Domain of Heroes took about 10 months of work with 2 people. That's doable. 

It is now bringing in enough money monthly to hire a new employee every 2 or 3 months.  And the revenue is growing each month, not spiking and dropping like you find with most packaged/downloadable titles.

http://www.gameproducer.net/2009/08/07/sales-statistics-domain-of-heroes/

These sort of games fund their continuing development after the initial 6 months to a year of development.  Not all of them need to be MMO's either...that is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do from a design perspective.

take care
Danc.

[raiten]

but... (looking at the stats for Domain of Heroes) total expenses $150K, revenue $96K (10 months after release?).

That ... isn't what flash game development looks like today. Who in flash can get an investment of $150K, and who can afford not to make at least all of that back 10 months after release? It makes me think of this tabletop role playing games developer who said that "if you want to make a small fortune making role playing games, start with a big one"

Interesting to note is that Kongregate's Premium Games Program, which offered amounts towards $100K for a select few micro-transactions multiplayer flash games, just closed down the shop a couple of months ago after funding 4-5 games.

[Danc]

Write to the Domain of Heroes guys.  They are doing more than fine. A service has a different business model than a packaged game. It keeps giving you money. Month after month after month for years on end. 

Pay your 150k in sweat equity.  You are doing it already, you just aren't adding up the hours you work on your game and calling it an expense. :-)

Jim from Kongregate popped on a forum a few days ago...Kong is still investing in MT games and I don't think Kreds are going away. 

[raiten]

oh, right, I missed/didn't understand the sweat equity part. not that I'm in a position to live on sweat alone for 8 months, but I guess some are.

kreds aren't gone and I'm sure microtransactions are on the way in, not out, but kongregate's grand sponsorship plans for $100K-sized microtransaction-fueled games are.

[puddinlover]

Another good read for flash dev's, he is right though... if you want quality you need quantity too.

[NateDog]

The ideas and thoughts are great no matter what side of the fence you're currently sitting on.  I make my living from browser-based, long-term games where a game lasts from between 3 weeks and 6 months and once players get sucked in and get competitive with the game, they will stay for months or years.  On our side of the fence, our problem is a horrible "start game".  Where casual flash games typically shine is the first 1-15 minutes.  That is exactly where the typical browser-based games loses 90% of new players due to boredom or confusion.  Combining the strengths of both has been done with great success by big budget  and massively multiplayer games (runescape, dofus, darkorbit) but is very rarely done by small independents because it requires so many different specialties which means higher costs and much higher risks of failure.