Flash Games Market Survey – 2010 edition

After the huge success of Flash Games Market Survey, Mochi Media in partnership with Flash Game License and Adobe present 2010 Flash Games Market Survey.

Last year’s survey showed just how vibrant the space is, it’s time to give some information again to help Mochi and partners to improve Flash gaming world. In addition, you can also win one of two $50 Amazon gift cards.

This survey is completely anonymous. Thanks for your time!!

Integrate Mochi games in your custom arcade website

Do you want to create your custom arcade website without using popular arcade scripts or WordPress plugins? Maybe with a Mochi integration?

That’s what Gabriel Bianconi did, and he wants to share his script with us.

It’s a simple, interesting script dedicated to all developers looking for a quick way to integrate Mochi games into their custom arcade sites.

« Hello. My name is Gabriel Bianconi. I’m a 16 years old Brazilian student and I’m interested in game and web development.
I’ve recently launched my first arcade website, PlugB.com. I decided to create my own script for two reasons: to improve my PHP skills and to have a more customizable website.

One of the features I integrated to my admin was the MochiAds ‘Post Game to my Site’ button. Since I add games manually (I don’t want to import all Mochi games), this saves me a lot of time.

When I tried to search about this feature, I realized that there is no tutorial about this online (at least, I couldn’t find one). I searched a little more and found a few scripts about this. Read more

LineBall Flash game sponsored and released

Do you remember the LineBall video teaser?

Now the complete game has been published and sponsored by Coolbuddy.com.

It’s based on the Flash AS3 Pixel based circle collision engine, that I found better than Collision Detection Kit when you want your ball to bounce.

I added a little twist introducing a gravity switch allowing you to change the gravity during the game. This feature gave me a lot of creativity in level design.

This is what I included in the game:

• 48 levels managed with shared objects
• CPMStar monetization
• Statistics by SWFStats and MochiBot

According to the success of the game, I might plan a sequel… meanwhile play all 48 levels on Coolbuddy.com.

Play ColorBallz, my latest Flash game

While I am giving the finishing touches at LineBall (yes, I found a sponsor), I want you to play ColorBallz.

It’s a simple game I made in a couple of days starting from Basic Filler engine with Box2D – part 1, 2 and 3.

All in all it’s almost the same game, I just added a twist introducing colors. You’ll get a bonus if you fill the area with the same percentage of red, green and cyan colors. Although I already have two games about to be published, this is the first of my 10 games to be released in 2010.

It’s monetized with MochiAds but I’m also planning to sell the complete source code once it’s polished and fully commented.

At the moment, after 6 days in the wild, it has more than 100K plays… hope to reach one million in a couple of weeks.

Enjoy.

My epic fail with ClickBank

Are you tired of reading about success stories with people making over $20K a day?

Here’s something new: did you notice, during this month, two ads about Farmville secrets and iPhone application development? Here they are:

These two ads belong to ClickBank, an ad network which at the moment made its clients earn more than a billion dollars.

As you can see in these two pictures, I did not earn a cent.

Let’s see what happened:

The reasons behind a failure

When I signed up at ClickBank, I obviously decided to display ads having something to do with my blog… this means programming, gaming or monetizing.

The most “interesting” products I was able to find were:

* A couple of registry cleaners (??)
* A couple of PS3 scam backup system (scam because you won’t be able to play with your backups)
* A dozen ebooks about the ULTIMATE (yeah) way to make money with a blog, or with ebay, or whatsoever
* Some hosting services

The first question was: did I really want my readers to buy a useless PS3 backup system? Come on…

So i opted for a FarmVille guide, even if I am not a FarmVille fan and I hate people posting on Facebook they just found a cripple blind sheep in their damned banana field. All in all FV is a great viral game and I thought a guide would be useful for some addicted players.

The other choice was a guide to iPhone programming… why not… I have a lot of programmers among blog readers.

Why it did not work

Well, every blog has its niche readers. Programmers are quite smart… unlike blogging mogul wannabes, they won’t buy anything from one-page websites claiming to sell the “Ultimate Guide to [put your favorite topic here, obviously all uppercase]”

People like you are looking for real deals from real companies, supported by real case studies… that’s why I was one of the three most important MochiAds referral while I wasn’t able to sell a single ClickBank guide.

So it was a waste of time. Wait. It wasn’t

Thanks to my experience, if you have a programming blog you can improve your ads revenue looking for products you can really review, test and suggest, leaving “ultimate guides” to newbies.

This obviously is my personal story, and results may vary according to the niche you’re talking at.

Get up to $100,000 for your next Flash game with Mochi GAME Developer Fund

Imagine a Flash game sponsor encouraging you to use MochiAds, helping you to market and promote your game, reviewing and testing it putting his experience at your service and helping you to integrate the latest APIs in the most proficuous way.

For some developers this dream could become true because MochiMedia created the Mochi GAME Developer Fund: a $10 million fund that will help promising Flash and social game developers support their games through sponsorship, licensing and publishing deals.

The fund will assist small Flash game development studios and independent game developers worldwide in building world-class games and businesses.

You will find the details in the official page, with some FAQs. Here’s the four more interesting:

Q: What is the Mochi GAME Developer Fund?
A: The Mochi GAME Developer Fund $10 million USD fund for investing in promising Flash and social game developers through sponsorship, licensing, and publishing. The goal of the Fund is to assist developers in launching and building rockstar premium games on the Mochi platform, and to cultivate long term relationships with Flash and social game developers looking to build world-class games and businesses.

Q: What is the target deal size for the Mochi GAME Developer Fund?
A: The Mochi GAME Developer Fund intends to partner with Flash and social game developers on a sponsorship, licensing or publishing basis anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000. Additional consideration may be given to other types of relationships on a case-by-case basis. Generally, the funds will be given upon the achievement of certain milestones of the game development process. The specific milestones can be discussed with the Mochi GAME Developer Fund team.

Q: What types of games is the Mochi GAME Developer Fund seeking?
A: We are open to Flash and social games of all genres and gameplay types targeting all kinds of audiences. Particular attention will be given to games that have high potential to monetize via MochiCoins microtransactions, include social elements that may be enhanced via MochiSocial or are particularly great games.

Q: I don’t live in the United States. Can I still work with the Mochi GAME Developer Fund?
A: Absolutely! Flash and social game developers are located all across the world. We care less about where you live and care more about helping you build great games using the Mochi platform.

According to these FAQs, it looks like an exclusive sponsorship, but I hope to give you more information as I’m running to submit the form and ask for some millions for my next game.

Sell sitelocked version of your Flash games and even .fla sources to Free Online Games

Are you looking for a quick way to sell a site locked version of your game? Do you want to earn some more selling the .fla source code? Then Neil from Free Online Games (aka FOG) is your man.

FOG is looking for any game, no matter how old it is or how wide spread it is already, as long as it’s a decent game. In this case FOG will buy you a site locked version of your game, or even the .fla source code.

What happens when FOG buys a site locked version of your game

* The game is sitelocked to FOG
* You have to interface your game with their API
* You have to remove all external branding and ads

What happens when FOG buys the source code of your game

* FOG retains the rights to re-release, resell, re-use, delete, make more version and all in all everything with your code
* All branding, ads and credits will be removed

Note: if your game is already sponsored, you may no longer have the right to sell your source code. Check with your sponsor as FOG is not responsible for your previous deals Read more

Triqui MochiAds Arcade plugin for WordPress upgraded to 1.2

Yesterday MochiMedia changed the games feed adding a new field called metascore that screwed the feed parsing.

So I am releasing the new version, compatible with the new feed and tested with WordPress 2.9.2. You can find it at the official page.

Talking about plugins, I am developing a new theme/plugin using crontables that automatically feeds the games, fixes the tables if MochiMedia updates the feed, and chooses the best games to publish.

Everything without any interaction from the user. The ultimate “forget about it and make money with your arcade site” plugin.

Stay tuned.

Monetize your Flash games with GamesChart

Do you remember Emanuele Ornella from Mind the Move? It’s the guy behind the Come2Play multiplayer API tutorial posted about a month ago.

Now he is explaining us a new way to monetize Flash games: GamesChart

« When I first saw the announcement on Flash Game Developers group on www.linkedIn.com about the GamesChart beta program I immediately thought to participate. It was a surprise to me to find that my game Haunted House was at first position for the entire 4 weeks of the beta program!

Actually also my Alice Memory game is also on the chart, even if never more than in the 6th position.

What GamesChart is about?

It’s another way to generate money from you Flash games. The nice thing is that it is not an alternative to the traditional banner you place during the loading of the game. But it goes together.
The main idea is to have publisher to “bid” for which game will be in the chart and this will generate extra revenue to the developer, to the publisher who correctly bid and of course to the GamesChart organization.

This is from Barry White directly from linkedIn group. Read more

Lineball video teaser

This is a quick video teaser of my upcoming game (probably) called Lineball.

It’s a draw game, a classic in which you must draw a line to make a ball reach the goal, but with some twists, such as the ability to control ball’s speed with arrow keys, red zones that will kill your ball if it touches the lines you drew, 42 levels some of them with moving environment, and so on.

The engine is almost complete, and at the moment I am working on level design, then I’ll retouch the graphics and polish some details, and it will be completed.

As you can see, I am keeping the menu very simple, with only two buttons, and some space for the sponsors. In the level selection screen, there is also a lot of space for sponsor logos.

The only thing I still have to decide is how to save level progression… I don’t know if I should use a Mochi account, or simply save it as a shared object, or using Mochi Coins to unlock some levels, or allowing to play some levels only on the official site…

The game will be completed in about a week, if there is anyone interested in sponsoring it, I am open to any deal since I am still working on the game… just drop me a mail at info[at]emanueleferonato[dot]com.

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