Experiment: monetizing a Flash game – Part 9

May 3, 2008 by Emanuele Feronato
Filed Under Flash, Game design, Monetize • 23 Comments 

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

This is a big update of the experiment, because lots of interesting things happened since the last one.

Let’s start:

Goals and targets

Obviously every experiment has its goals. I have two different types of goals: hourly income and games played.

The hourly income is necessary to earn a decent amount of money from the games, while the more games played, the more my brand spreading through the web.

The dollar did not get weaker during the last months, so the minimum goal is to earn $46 per hour of development/promotion, while the awesome goal is set to $123/hour.

As for the games played, I feel happy if a game joins the so-called million plays club and very very happy if joins the five millions plays club.

At the moment my games cannot aim to a more exclusive club…

Old games

First, I am showing you what’s going on with my old games

Circle Chain
Hours spent developing: 3
Hours spent promoting: 1
Hourly income: $78

Christmas Couples
Hours spent developing: 6
Hours spent promoting: 1
Hourly income: $164
Proud member of the five millions plays club

Tileball
Hours spent developing: 6
Hours spent promoting: 1
Hourly income: $5

GuessNext
Hours spent developing: 4
Hours spent promoting: 0
Hourly income: $55

Glomb
Hours spent developing: 3
Hours spent promoting: 1
Hourly income: $155
Proud member of the millions plays club

Now, time to talk about…

BallBalance

BallBalance was my first sponsored game.

Thanks to Chris at Flash Game License I got two sponsorships: one with Kongregate and one with Addicting Games

The game rocked on NewGrounds, getting the frontpage and having really good reviews

Anyway, outside NG, a lot of people found the game boring. I have to keep this in mind when making the sequel

Having the frontpage on NG helped me a lot to virally distribute the game, that is already member of the million plays club and on its way to join the five millions plays club.

As said, I found the first sponsor, Kongregate, thanks to Flash Game License. But what makes FGL special is that it’s not over once your game has been published.

If your main sponsor allows you to sell branded sitelocked versions of your game to other portals (usually after some amount of time), you can use FGL services to find a second sponsor, then a third one and so on.

That’s how I got in touch with Addicting Games. Justin at AG was a very kind and professional person, and really helped me filling all forms and documents needed to have my game hosted on AG

I spent 18 hours coding BallBalance, and I still have to promote it because of the huge distribution NG frontpage gave to the game. I spent another hour customizing it for AG, for a total of 19 hours at $132/hour

Recommended moneymakers

So how can you get the best monetization from your game?

First, sign up to MochiAds. The service is getting better and better and now introduced a service for portal owners that I will discuss in another post, and a detailed analytics report that allow you to know in which domains or coutries your ads are being displayed.

Another service you can’t miss is Flash Game License. This site introduced new features since my first review and now finding a sponsor is even easier because of the newsletter that FGL sends daily to portal owners with all new game submission, showing your game to more than 200 sponsors.

Moreover, there is a forum where all developers can share their ideas about coding, collaborations, game feedback, and so on.

If you are completely new to Flash games sponsorship, you must also take a look at Flash Game Sponsorship, where you can find useful informations about sponsorship evolution, case histories, suggestions and guidelines.

What’s next?

Soon the experiment will cover my new game, Bees n’ Flowers, the game born from my Perfectionism tutorial and self sponsored by my game portal, Triqui.

Bees n' Flowers

The question I am trying to answer is: why do portals pays for having their logos in your games?

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

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23 Responses to “Experiment: monetizing a Flash game – Part 9”

  1. Sunil Patel on May 3rd, 2008 11:57 am

    Gratz on the success of Ball Balance. I can’t wait for bees and flowers, or the answer to your next question. I still find it hard to believe that one game can earn a portal thousands of dollars (although its obviously true…)!

  2. chuck on May 3rd, 2008 1:49 pm

    I think that it’s funny that ball balance bombed on addicting games and you still made like $400 of that sight alone

  3. styxtwo on May 3rd, 2008 3:50 pm

    to bad tileball didn’t make to much. i feel it was the one game that deserved the most views. to bad its not up to me xD

  4. Xodus on May 3rd, 2008 3:52 pm

    I actually saw ball balance on addicting games at my friend’s house and i couldn’t belive it.
    Good job.

  5. Darryl on May 4th, 2008 6:14 am

    First of I have to say Mr Feronato … you’re a true legend; if I make money off of this I’ll send you a beer or 20 ;). Secondly, companies want their logo/link to their site on games simply so they can gain traffic to their site … and once you get a lot of traffic you can start approaching serious (large) companies and sell them ad space on your site. And that’s where the SERIOUS money is … as you know its all about advertising my friend … keep up the good work.

  6. Tom Fulp on May 4th, 2008 7:19 am

    newgrounds now has a ad program.

    The ads are less intrusive then mochi ads (they dont force you to sit there for 10 seconds)

    They also have a equal if not higher ecpm then mochiads, i suggest you try it out and keep us informed of your progress.

    http://www.newgrounds.com/account/flashapi/

    sincerly

    Tom Fulp of newgrounds.com

  7. Kesh on May 4th, 2008 9:30 am

    how much did u sell your game for to triqui? I would’ve asked for 10,000 no less.

  8. Emanuele Feronato on May 4th, 2008 10:17 am

    I’ll try newgrounds ads soon…

  9. souled on May 5th, 2008 1:27 am

    Is that really Tom from Newgrounds? :O

    Will Triqui start sponsoring games now?

  10. Emanuele Feronato on May 5th, 2008 12:59 pm

    It seems it’s the real Tom Fulp.

    I planned to try NG ads before his comment, as a part of the experiment.

    At the moment Triqui won’t sponsor games.

    There is no reason, AT THE MOMENT, to play a game on Triqui rather than Kong, NG, Nonoba, and so on.

    AT THE MOMENT

  11. Azulth on May 13th, 2008 7:54 pm

    Congratulations on making all that money. More than enough for a PS3. ;)

    Most games are awesome. Keep up the good work!

  12. Scott Johnson on May 24th, 2008 1:59 am

    First, let me say I’m a huge fan and I’ve been reading your experiment very closely. Interesting stuff! I’ve thought about ‘buying you a beer’ and I find this bullet on your about me page!?!

    4. I don’t smoke, don’t drink alchool and don’t take any drug. Anymore.

    Well I guess I shouldn’t but you any beers! So instead I’ve played some of your games upping your mochi-ad revenue :p

  13. Gloory on June 9th, 2008 11:21 am

    It seems like you should check out these developing contests:
    NOnoba.com and or XPOGames.com/contests…

    You might take the first, second and other prices….:-)

    Gloory

  14. Scott Johnson on July 1st, 2008 11:31 pm

    I demand more updates! :)

  15. phroggar on July 4th, 2008 8:44 pm

    More Updates?
    - Signed! ;)

  16. wintercube on August 9th, 2008 8:51 pm

    I just wanted to say thank you for your generous work here. I have learned a lot from this experiment and am trying to apply them in my own game projects. It’s a lot to ask, but I’d love to have an expert take a look at my first attempt:

    http://www.bigtac.com

    To all: please don’t post responses/feedback to my game here; I’d hate to be responsible for selfish clutter.

  17. wintercube on August 9th, 2008 9:56 pm

    btw, watch out for AddictingGames.com’s submission user agreement.
    In particular, section 5 grants some ridiculous rights to AddictingGames over your work!

  18. encoder on November 20th, 2008 11:15 am

    hi there!

    i must say that this is the most convincing stuff that i read that pushed me into the game development.

    i started my first game. generally it should be a week game, but i use a somewhat physics engine in it, ie: i code the physics part to be as reusable as possible. i got hang up on the collision detection, i got that behind me finally, now i have some optimization issues to resolve, finally got an idea for that too. so it’ll be out soon, featuring 12 levels and possible 3 difficulties.

    just like you i started out on a very fun gameplay, witch i realized that is being recreated right now on x-box. but atari was first ;)

    so in order to offer a good sensation i have to push a little bit on the graphics in order to create a very similar experience. i have to fire up 3dsmax again.

    stats update:
    - average game player 35yo
    - 40% are women
    - 30% women over 18
    - 18% boys below 17
    - 26% of 50yo Americans have played a causal game (9% in 1991)

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