Experiment: monetizing a Flash game

October 28, 2007 by Emanuele Feronato
Filed Under Flash, Monetize • 48 Comments 

Multipart tutorial: available parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

This is the first part of an experiment I want to start. Can we monetize a Flash game? And what kind of Flash game should we monetize?

Before starting to explain my experiment, let me introduce you three different categories of Flash games: one-day game, one-week game and one-month game.

The one-day game is a game you can develop in one day, or in a few hours. The game will not have great graphics or stunning level design because this requires time, and the gameplay will be very simple. The one-day game can only rely on originality and gameplay.
Pros: very quick game development – easy to play for everyone
Cons: poor graphic – repetitive gameplay
A big example: Boomshine

The one-week game is a game that requires some days to be coded. It should feature levels, powerups and a more complex gameplay.
Pros: very similar to a “big” game – can be very addictive
Cons: debugging could delay the release or the game may have some bugs
A big example: Bloons

The one-month game is a game that requires a month (or more) to be ready to play. Excellent graphics, great gameplay and a lot of well balanced levels is what it should offer
Pros: It’s a damn good looking game!
Cons: May require a team – If people will not like the game, it would be a very amount of time wasted
A big example: Ball Revamped 5

It’s up to you to choose what kind of game you are about to code, even if I suggest to make a couple of one-day games before trying to shock players with a more complex project.

I’ll try to monetize every category of game, and I am starting with a one-day game called Circle Chain.

Circle Chain

It’s inspired to Boomshine and it’s made of about 200 lines. I will release the source and the tutorial very soon.

At the moment I want you to know I made it in 3 hours. So it’s time to decide how much I want to earn from a game I made in 3 hours. This depends a lot from the Country you live in… here in Italy, an average programmer is paid about 30 euro/hour, even if I know a PROgrammer that earns about 80 euro/hour.

So I am going to define three goals: one for the “average programmer”, one for the PROgrammer and one “dream goal”.

I said the game took me 3 hours, and I am going to calculate an extra hour promoting the game on forums, blogs, sites and so on.

So the average programmer should earn 120 euro, the PROgrammer 320 euro and I am fixing the dream goal to 1000 euro.

Since all payments are made in dollars, here it is the goal sheet:

Average programmer: $172
PROgrammer: $460
Dream: $1439

Honestly, I am not quite sure I will hit the $172 goal

Never mind. It’s just an experiment, and should it fail, we’ll learn how not to monetize a Flash game.

Next question is: how to monetize? I decided to publish it on a page of this site with some Adsense ads and to embed Mochiads ads.

I would like to include Kontera ads too but I dont’ want to fill the page with ads.

The page I made is very lame, but I had to to it this way because I have only an hour to promote the game, unless I want my goals to raise…

Note: being a one-hour game, I am not looking for a sponsor. I will contact some of them when I’ll publish at least a one-week game.

Note 2: Mochiads does not pay you until the game is approved by its staff even if you are displaying ads. So at the moment I won’t submit the game to big portals. I’ll wait until they approve the game.

At the moment I have no further news, so I am waiting for Mochiads…

What else can I say? Play the game and give me feedback about it… how much will I earn? Did you like it? Did you beat all levels?

Multipart tutorial: available parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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48 Responses to “Experiment: monetizing a Flash game”

  1. mastermax on October 28th, 2007 7:40 pm

    I was making one day games before. I am making one week games now. You can see my flash games at games121 .

    http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2007/04/29/create-a-flash-game-like-security-part-2/

    helped me a lot at creating the Ultimate Assassin.

  2. chaew on October 28th, 2007 8:17 pm

    well ive just got back from a holiday in italy ;) and played this game and i think it is very addictive! its great for three hours work but if you wanted to improve it you could add better graphics and sound effects maybe.

  3. styxtwo on October 28th, 2007 9:05 pm

    wow nice experiment, i have a feeling the one-week games can make the most average money (per hour). since it has a good look and gameplay, but on the other side doesn’t cost a lot of time

  4. zedia.net on October 28th, 2007 9:47 pm

    Your game is really nice and I enjoyed playing it, but as for most one-day games, I don’t think I will ever play it again. It was nice that you added different types of circles, but I don’t think that it added enough complexity for me to want to play again. Maybe it was also the fact that luck and not ability did most of the work to complete a level. Also, you should optimize your page for search engines, you could do this by putting the instructions below the game or by adding a description or some text at least. Search Engines will be your first source of visits and will last for a very long time.

  5. pepe on October 28th, 2007 11:53 pm

    The experiment looks very exciting, I’m making some games and I don’t know what could be better, add mochiads or sponsorship.

    Here, there’s a list with the money earned from sponsorship of some games:
    http://www.flashgamesponsorship.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=37

  6. Maciek on October 29th, 2007 2:38 am

    I thouguht ill join ur monetizing thing, ive got a three hours flight tomorrow so maybe ill be able to come up with a game^^

  7. Thomas on October 29th, 2007 5:36 am

    wow! you could become a financial consultant!

  8. Frederik J on October 29th, 2007 2:53 pm

    Nice game, at 3 hours. Personal i don’t think, that it will make the PROgrammer income, because as zedia.net said, its not good enough for me, to play it again. But anyway, nice! And im sure I’ll enjoy your tutorial, Emanuele.
    /Frederik

  9. And Mar on October 30th, 2007 12:53 am

    I was dumb. My first game was 3-months to program, and it should have taken a week.

  10. Samuel Rostøl on October 30th, 2007 4:16 pm

    Hi Emanuele.

    Please post the tutorial in OOP, there simply aren’t enough tutorials on game-making in OOP.

  11. Samuel Rostøl on October 30th, 2007 4:33 pm

    Nice game, very addicting :D

  12. IceTran on October 30th, 2007 6:10 pm

    nice work there dude
    I like lvl 19 the most and the blue circles gets abit annoying. I nearly thought lvl 16 was the end.
    I kind of like the game but its not really addicting enough. Good work.

  13. ReJex on October 30th, 2007 11:33 pm

    Ahh, I noticed your game at
    http://www.kongregate.com/games/triqui/circle-chain?referrer=rejex

    So I decided to come over here to see what was going on. This is a very interesting experiment, and I can’t wait for the results.

  14. Bart on October 31st, 2007 2:12 pm

    Nice experiment! To how many and what sites did you submit your game?

  15. Emanuele Feronato on October 31st, 2007 2:23 pm

    I am updating the experiment post with submissions and other details in day or two.

    Just a little spoiler… I am rather satisfied of the results.

  16. Nikolai on November 1st, 2007 1:27 am

    Doh! Mine took 3 days. I can’t get anything right.

    http://www.dicingdangers.com/purp.php

  17. bob on November 1st, 2007 2:59 am

    Nice. But please give us the option to disable sound. The more control you give your users, the more they will enjoy the experience.

  18. Cale Gibbard on November 1st, 2007 6:58 am

    Hey, I have a better experiment. What if someone did something not only out of an interest in making money? Nah, it’s crazy, it’d never work.

  19. Peter Kao on January 31st, 2008 8:24 pm

    Very interesting experiment!

    I find myself always clicking on links before a game loads for some odd reason, despite the fact that I am an expert in avoiding Adsense traps. Maybe I’m just too impatient :)

    Peter Kao
    Mind of an Undergrad Entrepreneur – http://peterkao.com

  20. andy on February 20th, 2008 12:06 pm

    nice games Very nice experiment

  21. Copernicus on May 10th, 2008 12:36 am

    I played your game and I love it! I’ve beaten all your levels – your game is perfect: Easy to learn, a do-and-watch gameplay, I simply love it!

  22. Danyal on July 3rd, 2008 2:56 pm

    Hey cale,

    “Hey, I have a better experiment. What if someone did something not only out of an interest in making money? Nah, it’s crazy, it’d never work.”

    You think people enjoy sitting around figuring out how to make money?

    It’s probably the most frustrating thing, having ideas and stuff but not having the time to do them because you’re sitting on your arse bashing out crappy commercial websites just to pay the bills.

    So if this experiment works then congratulations to you Emanuele.

  23. bgfdtbhs on November 2nd, 2008 9:02 pm

    My game took about 3 weeks.

  24. Max on November 16th, 2008 7:56 am

    Good game, but too hard. I couldn’t get past level 5.

  25. Tom on June 11th, 2009 11:29 pm

    nice games!

    QUOTE:
    “It’s inspired to Boomshine and it’s made of about 200 lines. I will release the source and the tutorial very soon.”

    where is the source available please? i’m interested in it to learn how it works. would you be so kind to email me the source?

    thanks

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Trackbacks

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