Outsourcing Flash Game Development: ITPremium or DevLabs or ?

[Ryan Clark]

Hi everyone,

We've been approached by a few Flash dev companies (ITPremium (http://www.itpremium.com) and DevLabs (http://devlabs.com)) who want to make Flash versions of Professor Fizzwizzle. We have not worked with either of these companies before, so we're hoping some of you be able to give us an opinion on either of them. (It seems ITPremium has worked with many indies (http://www.itpremium.com/pf_flashgames.html)!)

Also, if you have outsourced your Flash development, do you think it was worth what you spent?

Thanks for your insight!

[tretmike]

Hi all,
Hi everyone,

We've been approached by a few Flash dev companies (ITPremium (http://www.itpremium.com) and DevLabs (http://devlabs.com)) who want to make Flash versions of Professor Fizzwizzle.

We just start to work with ITPremium (they are creating the Flash version for our Rainbow Web game (http://www.SugarGames.com/rainbow_web/)), but they are very professional and it is very easy to work with them.

I think that ITPremium is a good choice, I recommend them.

[Grey Alien]

Why convert it at all? try something like www.igloader.com. It worked for me and was really easy. I can understand if the sites you are aiming at are flash only.

[Duke]

We've worked with ITPremium on our Crime Puzzle, and I can say only nice (great?) things about working with them.
To answer your second question, I am now sure it pays off. Launching the flash version has revived the sales on Yahoo and Arcadetown, but also on our own website, where it is still not presented at all (don't ask me why :o ).

[Ryan Clark]

Thanks very much for the feedback so far everyone! It is appreciated.

Why convert it at all? try something like www.igloader.com.
Well, Flash is better in my opinion because it'll run on nearly every platform in nearly every browser. Since our game is sold for Win/Mac/Linux, I definitely want our web version to run on those platforms as well!

But you're right, if our game were Windows-only, using something like igloader would probably be best.

[Savant]

I got an email yesterday from some company (I deleted it and I don't remember the name, sorry) who wanted to convert Dr.Germ to a web version (with half the features removed and the graphics downgraded) for $1,500.

Needless to say, I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

[Ryan Clark]

Needless to say, I haven't laughed that hard in a while.
Why? What part are you laughing at? The price?

[Savant]

The whole deal. $1,500 to rewrite it in flash to end up with a game that has half the game modes removed and the graphics downsampled.

Or, I could use igloader and deliver the game as it was meant to be for far less money. And no rewriting.

[ErikH2000]

Or, I could use igloader and deliver the game as it was meant to be for far less money. And no rewriting.
Igloader seems pretty decent, but a Flash game would immediately run in nearly everyone's browsers without asking them to download a plugin. (Because most everybody already has it installed, as opposed to igloader.) And it would work on Macs too.

-Erik

[arcadetown]

I got an email yesterday from some company (I deleted it and I don't remember the name, sorry) who wanted to convert Dr.Germ to a web version (with half the features removed and the graphics downgraded) for $1,500.

Needless to say, I haven't laughed that hard in a while.
Stop laughing and take it seriously IMHO. Activex loaders are nice but very limiting from a marketing perspective. Whereas there's tons of web game sites that'll run your game if it's Flash, just because it exists. So suspect you'd get your $1500 investment back and then some. If combined that with the save game feature I spoke about once think you'd see a nice positive swing in sales.

[berserker]

I got an email yesterday from some company (I deleted it and I don't remember the name, sorry) who wanted to convert Dr.Germ to a web version (with half the features removed and the graphics downgraded) for $1,500.

Needless to say, I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

I don't know what level of quality they would be able to bring, but in general, $1500 is quite cheap if you ask me.

[Chris Evans]

Yeah, what were you expecting? $250-500 for someone to code your game from scratch? That's not even a week's wage....

Anyway, yeah if you can get a Flash/Shockwave port of your game, it's definitely worthwhile. I've been meaning to post a big topic on this...

[James C. Smith]

I haven't laughed that hard in a while.....The whole deal. $1,500 to rewrite it in flash . That sounds inexpensive to me. But it would only be worthwhile if you had a need for a web version and if you game was appealing with half the features. I would probably see if they could do more of the features for $2,500.

Adding a web version to your own web site would probably not add $2,500 of value to revenue to your site. But a web game like that could allow your game to get lots of exposure on other site that cater to people wanting to play web games. For example, on MSN Gaming Zone, downloadable games with web version sell many times more then without a web version. BKR was on zone for months with no web game and did okay. We added a web game and sales jumped. But the web version did nothing for sales on our own web site. Also, RLW used a custom Active X control for the web version (similar to igloader and it was better than no web game at all, but not nearly as good as having a flash web game.