Using webgames to promote

[svero]

I haven't done a whole lot with web games up to now (ie browser friendly flash or activex versions of my PC stuff), but I do know they're quite good for promotion, especially when you have a webgame promoting, and the full version being sold from the same site. However.. Suppose I produced a web version of an older game that has already had it's run on the normal portals, what could I do with it other than host it on my own site to help promote that game? Are there directories of webgames that one could submit it to? Are there sites that will host and run your web version even if you have links pointing to a download version? How useful is a webgame when its not being used as a promotional tool on the normal portals when the game is first released?

[Chris Evans]

I have a whole long post on this topic that's just sitting in a Word doc right now. I'll try to finish it this weekend.

Anyway, if you're using Flash, you have quite a few options. If you have a somewhat small single-file Flash game, you can submit it to literally hundreds of sites who will host your game for free. Having links to your site within the game is fine since most of the Flash sites are eager to add games on a daily/weekly basis. Almost all those sites have a "Submit Game" link at the bottom of the page.

If your web game is somewhat unique or interesting, then quite a few web game review/link sites or blogs will pick up your game and you'll get a lot of traffic. I've personally benefited from this.

If you're doing an Active-X web game, then your options will be severely limited. It will basically just be of benefit to your existing site visitors, but you won't gain many new visitors with it. Hardly any sites will host it and very few people will link to it due to Spyware fears.

If you can get someone to port your game to Flash, then that's really the best option.

I'll try to post some more info later this weekend, but that's the gist of it.

[mahlzeit]

Are there directories of webgames that one could submit it to?
Plenty. For example listofonlinegames.com (http://listofonlinegames.com), but there are many others.

Are there sites that will host and run your web version even if you have links pointing to a download version?
Yep. An example of this is ArcadeTown (again, one of many). But I suppose you'll only get them to link to the download version if you offer an affiliate program.

[soniCron]

If you make a Flash webgame, be aware that it will get stolen.

It's in your interest to go to some measures to protect it. Nothing will work perfectly, but you can slow the flow.

In addition, it's helpful that you really emphasize the link to your website. If it gets jacked up to a site with a bazillion games, you're going to have an extremely small chance of keeping the visitor's attention, so you're going to want to keep them focused on you as long as you can, and give them many opportunities to click a link to go to your website. (You could simply leave a 16px bar at the bottom that says "click here to visit twilight games" or whatever. Maybe make the whole window a link while the highscore is being submitted...via an artificially elongated period of time.

Do Anything To Keep The Player's Attention On YOU, and make sure they have ample opportunity to visit your site. No. More than ample.

[Storm]

If you make a Flash webgame, be aware that it will get stolen.

Isn't that the whole point, to make as many people play it as possible? If stolen means it is placed on many other sites that he planned for then it is a success! :)
It seems that Steve only wants to make the web version a demo and then if people like it, they can download the full version.

[soniCron]

Isn't that the whole point, to make as many people play it as possible? If stolen means it is placed on many other sites that he planned for then it is a success! :) Of course. That wasn't my point, however. The idea is to protect it from being modified. If they want to, perhaps, remove the links, they can, and that doesn't do him any good.

[Storm]

Of course. That wasn't my point, however. The idea is to protect it from being modified. If they want to, perhaps, remove the links, they can, and that doesn't do him any good.

OK, I see your point. Yes, it is VERY easy to modify a Flash (SWF) file, and a couple of sites are known for doing this all the time.

[tolik]

It's important to properly protect SWF files if they do not heavily rely on client-server communications for initialization. There are professionals that are able to lock the code in such a way, that most of the decompiled code will be... absent from decompilers even on low level disasm or would crash a compiler. That doesn't corrupt SWF file in any ways and it would still play under all official SWF players.

It doesn't protect professionals who know it's just some bogus branching into nowhere, but will distract most of the lamers.

[svero]

Does everyone basically agree with the assertion that it's much easier to promote with a flash game than a game using an activex pre-loader? and that the latter is basically useless for promotion?

[Chris Evans]

Does everyone basically agree with the assertion that it's much easier to promote with a flash game than a game using an activex pre-loader? and that the latter is basically useless for promotion?

Well I would call it more than just an assertion...

Anyway, Brian or anyone else who has dealt with web games for awhile will tell you pretty much the same thing. Though I wouldn't go as far and say an Active-X game is "useless" for promotion, but your options are limited when compared to Flash.

You can go see for yourself. Just spend a couple hours searching through various web game sites and you'll be hard-pressed to find any ActiveX web games. To my knowledge ArcadeTown and MiniClip are the only significant sites that actually host ActiveX games (ArcadeTown's sister-site HeavyGames will link to it). They'll probably require a revenue share deal with the downloadable as well. Beyond that, there's not many options to get your ActiveX game out there.

It's not an assertion or theory, it's a well-known fact. Currently Flash games are FAR easier to distribute than any other web game format. I wouldn't say the others are useless, but for promotion purposes to draw in new visitors, Flash really is the best option. This is coming from a Shockwave loyalist like myself. :)

Maybe as Spyware fears subside and things like igLoader become more common, Activex games will be more effective for promotion. But I personally don't see it happening for another couple of years if ever. There's just too much security software built everyday that's designed to stop or hinder users from installing ActiveX applications. For good reasons, I might add...

[svero]

What are the options for flash development? Must one use the official Macromedia tools or is swf an open format with other 3rd party editors. Are the macromedia tools the best or is one better off using something else?

[svero]

I guess there's this thread from before...

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2270

Just wanted to get the latest greatest info. Is there a "most used" or "most popular" tool?

[soniCron]

Just wanted to get the latest greatest info. Is there a "most used" or "most popular" tool? Yes, the Macromedia Flash IDE. You can certainly get by without using it, but I'd say that's like using MSYS+MinGW vs. Visual Studio.

[svero]

Ok. Because My experience using macromedia stuff has been really bad in the past. Terrible quality editors, obfuscated interfaces, and overpriced for the pleasure of it.

[soniCron]

Well, it's certainly improved over the years. But I may have overstepped when I compared it to Visual Studio. It's nowhere near the level MSVS is, but relative to the free tools out there, the comparison stands. The Macromedia IDE is less than ideal to work in, but it's by far the best option. (And with Adobe in the picture now, I suspect we'll see an overhauled Flash with a much more intuitive workflow, in the future. At least, I hope so.)

[Dominique Biesmans]

There's also a lively and growing open source flash development commmunity. There's a free action script compiler (MTASC), a free XML<->SWF converter (SWFMill), a free Actionscript IDE (intellisense, syntax coloring) incorperating the tools mentioned above (FlashDevelop). And then there's Neoswiff, a C# to flash compiler.

Basically, it's become quite possible to make flash applications without touching the IDE. Which is a good thing IMO, since the Flash IDE is more geared towards graphical designers, and less towards developers. Of course you can still use the IDE to generate your graphical assets & MTASC + FlashDevelop for your coding tasks. On my blog there are a few blurbs about flash development, including links. The main open source projects are listed on http://www.osflash.org.

[Robert Cummings]

Certainly isn't "really easy" to steal flash games. Specially not ones that rely on server side objects to even run!

Even checking the success of a loaded text file is enough to force people to have to hack the hell out of the swf and in some cases, they might not be able to put it back together.

[soniCron]

At worst, all they'd have to do is change the URL in the Flash file and download the data from their own server. It's far easier than you'd think.

EDIT: And having it stolen isn't a big deal. It can even help provide exposure, thus the importance of slapping your link everywhere. If you don't over-protect the file and force them to hack it up, then you've got a better chance of them leaving your site links alone. In a strange way, their theft is beneficial to all parties.

[svero]

Im going to check out flashdevelop in a second but in the meantime, for those who are interested, I followed the instructions on this page...

http://www.actionscript.com/Article/tabid/54/ArticleID/towards-open-source-flash-development/Default.aspx

And got a pretty nice flash development environment running in Eclipse with a few plugins (Flashout, and ASDT). Managed to compile and run a basic script from eclipse.

[soniCron]

Keep in mind that Flash's strongest points are web deployment and a built-in animation engine. So don't leave your artists out of the loop when it comes to animation, or you'll be losing one of the greatest benefits of the platform. (Remember John Raptis spending 4 hours tweaking his bonus animation, in code, I presume? I spent 10 minutes on mine. ;)) I guess I'm just saying, don't forget about all the rich media you can embed, because that's one of Flash's greatest benefits. As a pure coding platform, it bites a big one, but as a media delivery mechanism, it's aces.

[svero]

Ok. Well I tried that flashdevelop IDE and that's quite nice as well. So either or is a good solution from what I can tell. So now I guess the next step is to find the source for a very simple flash game that I can read through to get a feel for how things should be done. Anyone here can point some source like that to me? The simpler the better, but ideally it would have the basic elements of your typical game.. ie loading some images, game controls, sound, etc...

[soniCron]

You can find the source for several of Neave's games at Archive.org:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050306024451/www.neave.com/games/

They're all classic games and are pretty well developed. However, he uses the IDE to develop, and all the assets are embedded, which is a pretty standard practice among web games. It may not be what you're looking for.

[svero]

Hmm .. yeah that's not so good. I've been browsing online tutorials and stuff, but its all kind of flash IDE centric. Id like to get something that is just pure code and explains the basics from a coder, and not an average user's perspective. So far not much luck.

[soniCron]

I think you're going to have a lot of trouble figuring out what to do from the perspective of a coder, because it was really designed as a multimedia tool. And, actually, you really want to be able to utilize the multimedia elements of Flash -- at least, at a basic level -- in order to make your game portable. You'll ideally want to end up with one SWF file that is your entire web game. I know this is pretty standard practice, and I don't know how much distribution mileage you'll get any other way.

That said, I can't recall what the name of the application is, but there is a program that embeds external media into an SWF, and I suspect you may be able to get by (in distribution and following tutorials) on that. Unfortunately, I haven't the slightest clue what it's called. (It's something casual, like "Bob's Flash Compiler" or something along those lines.)

[Dominique Biesmans]

Hmm .. yeah that's not so good. I've been browsing online tutorials and stuff, but its all kind of flash IDE centric. Id like to get something that is just pure code and explains the basics from a coder, and not an average user's perspective. So far not much luck.

I have hacked up an ultra basic bouncing ball program with FlashDevelop. There's no input handling yet, but it shows handling sprites, & using swfmill to import graphics. If you're interested I can zip it up & mail it to you.

[svero]

Yes please... Id like to get my hands on that.

- Steve

[soniCron]

Yes! swfmill! That's the program I was talking about.