How to make money out of flash games

Creating and publishing flash games is a key part of a budding games designer’s life. This is due to several factors:

·      Manufacturing costs are low – with access to the right software your flash game endeavor can cost very little or in most cases nothing. This means it’s a low risk strategy so you can be as adventurous as you like, if you’re willing to put the time in.

·      If you know what you are doing its quick!

·      They look good – lets face it you can create some great quality looking graphics and animations all in one place.

·      Flash is a robust multimedia platform and it’s very accessible.  

On top of all this you can make money from your creations. This is a perfect way for you to study full time, create a healthy portfolio, get real player feedback and earn some pocket money. So you’ve made your amazing flash game what do you do next? Well let’s start with advertising.

Revenue from advertising can be produced in two ways. In game advertising and advertisements placed around your game. If you plan to host your game on your own purpose built webpage you can use Google AdSense. It’s free and the adverts are customized to match your page. You generate income by the number of views your page has. However this is only if the page is viewed, there is no guarantee the page visitor will play your game but it’s a start. The second technique integrates adverts to play within the pre-loader of your game. You can do this by using Mochimedia. They embed static and flash video into natural expected breaks in gameplay. The perfect places for these adverts are in games with multiple loading screens.  Both types are on a pay per view basis, so it’s pretty obvious that you need to engage and entice a lot of players to your page to even make a significant amount of cash from this technique. So after all that you defiantly wont be able to pay your rent with this method. If you want to upload your game to a game portal such as Kongregate or Armor Games, you wont be allowed to upload it with embedded advertisements in it. However Kongregate does share part of its advertising revenue with its community of developers.

Revenue sharing is when a web based ad supported online portal hosts free to play games. They share some of their revenue with developers who post games onto their site. The amount the developer earns depends on how much interest their game has produced. Again the more plays the more it pays. The benefit of using this technique is most of these portals have a well established community of followers, the portal names would often be already well founded and reputable, therefore you wont have to push consumers towards your own hosted website, they are already on the site. The only competition left is making your game stand out against the thousands of others already uploaded. But whatever method you choose to make money in flash game development you will always face this issue. When you upload your game to a portal you still own all the rights to the game so you can distribute it on multiple sites as well as your own personal site. There are tons of online portals you could submit your game to here are just a few:

·      Microsoft Casual Games

·      Shockwave

·      Meez

·      Kongregate

·      MyGame

Some of these sites also offer a sponsorship to developers.

Both Kongregate and Armor Games offer a sponsorship.  This is when links to the site and the site logo are included within the game. The developer will usually get a sum of money up front for their game; even if the game isn’t successful you will still get paid the amount you agreed upon. With any sponsorship deal you retain the rights to your game. You keep your source file and only give the hosting website the exported version of the game. Kongregate offers an exclusive sponsorship deal. This means that you can only have one sponsor per game. You can still upload your game to other sites but this is purely so they can attract attention and try to divert traffic to their own site, you have to include their branding in it. However you can also include a link to your own website that hosts your game. This method dramatically limits the amount of money you can make off your game. Armor Games offers both an exclusive and non-exclusive sponsorship deal. The main difference between exclusive and non-exclusive sponsorships is that with a non-exclusive sponsorship you can obtain a license for your game from another gaming portal.  

Licensing is similar to a sponsorship. However a license would be a site locked non – exclusive sponsorship. You would redesign an exclusive version of your game for that particular site. This version would not be hosted on any other website and would be customized especially for that site. It could include features such as the portals logo, an API system, include no ads or other external links, a themed skin etc.…  Because each version of your game would be different you can have multiple licenses. The downside of this method is that is does require extra work. You will need to edit your game each time you obtain a license for it.

So if the sponsor of your game allows you to acquire licenses, you can attain as many as you like and still host your own game on your own site that is filled with adverts. All of the ways discussed previously has given you money from third party sources such as companies advertising and sponsors. There is a way to make money from your players. You can sell them restricted and exclusive content.    

The premium model charges players small amounts of money for extra content for that particular game. You could sell extra levels, better weapons, more characters, level editors etc.… This technique would be more successful if you uploaded a strong underpinning version of your game and added the extra content after the game had started to generate interest.

Micro transactions have a similar set up to the premium model, but you buy virtual cash to buy the in game content. This normally involves two types of currency you can spend within the game. One you earn during gameplay and one you spend your real cash on. Take Farmville for example. You earn farm coins by doing certain task but there only a certain amount of items you can buy with that in game currency. If you buy farm cash you can buy tons more content. If you go up a level they may reward you with one farm cash. This taster encourages the player to buy more; they may just need four more farm cash to buy that barn they really want… The amount of content available on Farmville is vast and this improves the gameplay dramatically especially as your friends can see your farm, naturally it has to be better than theirs. It is that element which makes purchasing and obtaining the virtual items a key part of the game. Kongregate have an in site currency called Kreds. Players can buy Kreds and spend them buying updates for the games they enjoy playing on the site. If you host your can on their site and wish incorporate extra content you will need to use this system. There is a benefit to using this set up as it can be stressful to arrange and Kongregate does all that for you. It does costs to maintain a micro transaction organization . Although Kongregate charges you for the use of their established structure, you wont have to worry about maintaining it.

Flash games are already becoming more and more popular and as you can see there are lots of ways for us studying developers to make money by designing them. But what do we do when we have a vast portfolio of games we’ve made? Its only natural that we make our own games portal. Showcasing our hard work and fill it to the brim with advertisements. You can then sponsor your own games and create your own brand. However you will need to spread the word about your new endeavor by any means necessary. Get friends and family to tell everyone they know to take a look, blog about it, set up a Facebook page and tweet it to the world! Soon you’ll be getting budding games designers begging to have their game published on you’re site.

Bibliography

Anon, - MSN Games - Free Online Games. Available at: http://zone.msn.com/en/microsoftcasualgames/default.htm [Accessed October 20, 2011a].

Anon, FarmVille - Zynga. Available at: http://www.farmville.com/ [Accessed October 20, 2011].

Anon, Flash Game Monetization: Making Money the Pain Free Way. Available at: http://mochiland.com/articles/flash-game-monetization-making-money-the-pain-free-way [Accessed October 20, 2011b].

Anon, Google AdSense Product Tour. Available at: https://www.google.com/adsense/www/en_US/tour/index.html [Accessed October 19, 2011c].

Anon, Single Player: Welcome - Kongregate Developers. Available at: http://developers.kongregate.com/docs/single-player/welcome [Accessed October 20, 2011d].

Anon, Sponsorship | Armor Games. Available at: http://armorgames.com/page/sponsorship [Accessed October 20, 2011e].

Anon, The Largest Network of Online Games – Mochi Media :: Fueling Creativity. Available at: http://www.mochimedia.com/ [Accessed October 19, 2011f].

Anon, Virtual Goods: Welcome - Kongregate Developers. Available at: http://developers.kongregate.com/docs/virtual-goods/welcome [Accessed October 20, 2011g].

Axcho, 2009. Ten Ways to Monetize Your Flash Game. Evolution Live! - Ten Ways to Monetize Your Flash Game. Available at: http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/06/ten-ways-to-monetize-your-flash-game.html [Accessed October 19, 2011].

Games and other media

"The difference between games and other entertainment products (such as books, music, movies and plays) is that their consumption is relatively unpredictable" (Hunicke, Leblanc, Zuberk, 2004:2)

This quote really bugged me when i read it and it is one i completely disagree with. When you release a film can a director guarantee how an audience will take it? No they cant, but they can encourage towards a certain response. For example they may choose to film a scene on a rainy day to help make the mood of that scene sad and dreary. But whether that scene evokes the emotion sadness is down up the viewer.

Is that not how a designer creates a game? With one way of consumption in mind, like the player will start on level one and work their way up, but when they decide level ten looks much more fun they may just dive in there.

Any consumption of any product is unpredictable because people are unpredictable. The best you can do as a designer is make an educated guess by studying your chosen demographic.

References 
LeBlanc, M., Zubek, R. & Hunicke, R., MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. Discovery, 83(3), p.04–04.

Story Springboard

Tyrus's perfect world comes crashing down when the kingdom of Kemet is struck by dozens of natural disasters lasting hundreds of years. As a results everything is left in ruins and slowly the once proud and powerful place is left in tatters. Crime and chaos dominates everywhere. In what’s left of his small hometown Necho, Tyrus yearns to see the empire be restored to its former self but despite his efforts darkness always seems to prevail. He comes to the realisation that for the light to emerge from this rotting world he must walk the path of darkness and take over Kemet as and evil ruler so that eventually the light of the kingdom would fight back. But to do this he must smother the light within his heart and keep his true intentions hidden from those around him. He must become darkness itself. 

Tyrus rules Kemet for more than a decade before anyone tries to oppose him. Keon, Tulia, Isadora, Delius and Euan are a young group of gifted creatures, from the city of Kush who challenge him with guidance from their mentor Kiana. To succeed they must first take out Tyrus's known main bases. The first is located in Natron, run by Javan a monstrous being filled with dark intent. The second in the city of Yarsu, run by Corinthia a ruthless creature with no morals. They must defeat these beings of darkness before they can confront Tyrus directly in Kemet's capital city of Montu. The battle was far from an easy on as they fought there way to Montu. The group was one by one diminished as Tulia, Kiana and Euan are killed whilst Isadora is captured and held prisoner by Javan. After the bittersweet victory of defeating and killing Corinthia, Keon and Delius must take refuge in the quiet swampland of Necho to hide from Tyrus's bounty hunter Denise. It is there that they meet the mysterious Nubia, an old friend of Tyrus's who is the only one who has worked out that he isn’t who he seems. She urges the boys not to continue their quest but they carry on regardless. Eventually they make there way to Tyrus's castle at the centre of Montu city where they rescue Isadora and a have a stand off with Tyrus. Tyrus is killed during their battle and never got to see the world he sacrificed so much for.

Mehen

'Mehen' is one of the only Egyptian games that can have up to six players. Many other Egyptian games are for only two players (such as Senet or Aseb). Like most games of its era its exact rules are unknown but guesses have been made as to the nature of the game. Objects that have been associated with the game are:
 - A board in the shaped of a coiled snake (this represents Mehen the serpent god). Some examples of the board are seen with the head of a bird used to represent the tail.
 - Casting/Throwing sticks. An old version of a dice. One half of the stick is marked the other half isn't. Players would throw the sticks and depending on what side the stick lands on would determine how many moves they could move. For example if i was to throw four sticks and two of them was to land marked side up and the other two was to land blank side up i could move two spaces. However some interpretations state that if all four sticks i threw were to land unmarked side up you could move five spaces.
 - Six carved lions/lionesses
 - Six sets of marbles/balls

The aim of the game is to get as many marbles/balls as possible before the end of the game. Each player starts with a equal amount of marbles which can be decided by the players before you start the game. But the maximum you can have each is six. You use the throwing sticks to move around the board however you can only actually move after you have thrown two. You add up the total of all of your previous throws and move that many. The first person to get all of their marbles to the snakes head can then turn into a lion. They then move around the board in the opposite direction and if they pass one of their opponents marble they can claim it for themselves. The game ends when the a lion reaches the tail. The winner is the person who has the most marbles at the end.

Suggestions have been made that the game was eventually banned for religious reasons. 'Mehen' is actually a serpent shaped god who protects the sun god Ra during his journeys in the night-time. It was seen as 'killing' the serpent by carving the lines into its back to make the board. If Ra isnt protected and dies it was thought that all life would seize to exsit including all afterlife.    

Creating a retro looking image in Photoshop

I started by setting my background colour to an off white one, as this would add to the worn and retro effect I was going for.   

I then used the custom shape too and selected a shape call ‘registration target 2’. Using the free transform tool I made the shape quite big so that you could only see a small portion of it. I made sure that the centre part of the image was in the lower left and corner.   

 

I wanted to change the colour of the shape to an off black colour, I tried to do this with th paint bucket tool when this message came up.

 

I clicked ok and this allowed me to change the colour using the paint bucket tool. I don’t want this colour to be too dominating so reduced the opacity to 29%. 

 

Next I had to make my multi coloured stripes. I used the magnetic lasso tool to trace the shape of one of the stripes. I then right clicked the finished outline and selected layer via copy.  

 

I used the paint bucket tool to changes the colour and he free transform tool to rotate and position it. I repeated this process until I had six stripes. 

 

Now I need to add some arrows. Again I did this using the custom shape tool. I used the free transform tool to rotate and position it and after rasterizing the layer, used the paint bucket tool to change it to a bright colour. 

I then needed to add several other shapes to the image to make it more of a montage. I used the custom shape tool to create them, changed the colour using the paint bucket tool and gave them a stroke – this would make them look more retro.   

 

Now that I have all my elements in position I will start to make it look more worn and retro. I needed to darken the colours slightly so added a new adjustment layer and selected hue and saturation. I made the hue – 16.  

 

I then created a new layer on top of all of my other layers and used the paint bucket tool to fill it with a light blue colour. I then selected filter, filter gallery and applied the texture ‘grain’ to the layer. I changed the blend mode of the layer to ‘colour burn’. 

I could now see my other images underneath this layer. 

I added another layer but filled it with a grey colour this time. I applied the filer ‘grain’ to this image as well. However on this layer I reduced the fill to 47%, as I didn’t want it to overpower the colours underneath it. I made the blend mode of this layer ‘linear burn’.   

The last thing I did was add a new layer and fill it with the same grey colour as before. Again I gave it a grain filter but this time I changed some of the grain properties.

I made the grain type horizontal and reduced the intensity slightly. I reduced the layer fill to 47% and made the blending mode for this layer overlay. Adding this grain will make my whole image look more worn like an old poster. 

Battleships!

When playing battleships many people approach it different ways. I go for an approach i like to call shove them everywhere and hope for the best. I randomly place my battleships everywhere and just hope that's enough to help me win. However when playing against Alex that wasn't going to be enough. He seemed to have luck on side as he sunk all but one of my battleships. I still hadn't even got one, it was at this point i felt like giving up on the game, i was more or less defeated why carry on there was no chance i could win. So when it came to talk about any changes we wanted to make to the game, this was an area we could agree needed work on.

We introduced an element we later called 'the killer square'. This was a single square both players had to place that, if their opponent hit, it would sink all of their battleships. This gave a losing player a chance to win, give them a glimmer of hope that if they hit that one square they could turn the game around and win out of the blue. Therefore give them an incentive to carry on playing. Just what i needed to want to carry on playing earlier.

Another good thing about this 'killer square' is it makes you play the game more tactically. You need to think about where you place this square, shoving it anywhere could ruin your game if your on a winning streak. You cant place it too close to your ships, in case they get taken down and your opponent mistakes that square as part of that ship. Too far away and it stands out too much.

Although when we played the game again no-one hit that square, we both still felt the pressure whenever the opposing player got close. Adding more unintentional tension to the game. However we both did also agree that when we got close to winning if our opponent did hit that square it would make losing the game even more frustrating. But then again when isnt losing a game frustrating?   

Response to Doug Church - Formal Abstract Design Tools

I thought this article was an interesting read. It really got me thinking about why designers insist on creating games which all seem so similar. There are so many first person shooters out there - Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Modern Warfare, Counter Strike etc ... so why if we have one do we need another? Sure they may change location, focus on a different war or even have a different guns but when you get down to it they are so similar is is only those little details that make one differ from another.

Maybe its the designers fault. So many young designers like to make the games they have played that the market has become over run with games that are just copies of previous hits. This was also a point that was suggested in the 'Dont be a Vidiot' article by Greg Costikyan. I agree with him to an extent, but i don't think that is the only issue. Perhaps so many ideas have been done its hard to find something new. I'm sure it is possible to create something exciting and fresh but i feel that games designers being given boundaries in what they can create by one thing only - publishers.

I studied Media studies at A Level and this is definitely a trend that runs through multiple industries. Like the movie industry, why when the world screams 'no more vampire movies!' do they insist in drowning us in them? The answer is an obvious one; money. A publishers priority is to make money so why take a risk? They know for a fact that a war game that has been published is doing great, they can just make something similar and do great too. So there instruct their team of designers to create a new war game similar to the latest craze, but give it better graphics or a new gun. And so they do.

So what is causing all this madness? I think we, the consumers, are to blame. I brought call of duty recently and i enjoyed it so much i brought the new medal of honor game too, just because it looked similar. Does that sound familiar? And that's the issue. This trend will continue until we say enough of this genre now! I wont buy it anymore i need somthing fresh, but really whats the chances of that happening? And so the trend will continue publishers will carry on making money and stop the designers doing what they do best, creating, inventing and designing.     

Reference:

Church, D., Gamasutra - Features - Formal Abstract Design Tools. Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal%20abstract%20design%20tools.php