Monetizing Flash games

[KNau]

I've recently been hired to produce webgames for a company and have come to enjoy Flash development to the point that I may keep up with it once my contract is up.

I know all about the typical indie business model of making a game, releasing a limited demo, selling the full version and I just don't know that it interests me anymore.

What I'm wondering about are these websites I keep seeing that are packed with simple free Flash games. No full versions to sell, just little time wasters.

Their business model must be traffic and ad clicks (I'm guessing) but they don't all create their own content. Is there a viable business in making free Flash games for sites like these? It looks interesting because without the pressure of "selling" to an audience I see a lot more experimentation and crazy, unqiue games on sites like these. I want in!

How does one go about making money from free webgames?

Any tips or advice are appreciated. Thanks.

[Jason Chong]

Community based, turn based or possibly real-time games with flash clients and very affordable subscription account ?

[Sakura Games]

What I'm wondering about are these websites I keep seeing that are packed with simple free Flash games. No full versions to sell, just little time wasters.

If you noticed, all those sites are also packed by activeX spyware or nasty pop-up javascript windows... :D

[princec]

You also probably noticed how many of them there are... and how many of them seem to all have lifted each others' content.

Cas :)

[papillon]

... And you probably get spammed regularly by providers trying to OFFER you those same 2000 games to put on your website. :)

At least, I do.

[KNau]

Wow, no I haven't experienced those problems. I've had the occasional pop-up that sneaks past my protection but they're mostly harmless.

So I assume the only way any Flash developers on this board have ever made money is by selling full versions of their games based on demo downloads. No ad revenue, no licensing games, etc.

Interesting. Thanks for the info :)

[yanuart]

Make your own site that display your game exclusively, while you do that you can use un-intrusive ads for the source of income (a good example of this is www.teagames.com or www.orisinal.com).

Don't expect much though, your real cash cow comes when other webmasters try to license your game. The trick is, if you've made your game good enough they'll want it exclusively and you can put quite a price tag on your game. Actually this is a very tricky part of the business cause webmasters always try to get your game for the lowest price possible a.k.a FREE
But if you're a good negotiator you can come up with more than 1K for a single game. This is good cause usually flash games only takes a month or two to develop. Alot better than making an indie games :)

After you've built your relationship and reputation with webmasters, you can just sit back and relax while they're asking for your next game. Sometimes other companies will hire you to make games for them.
The competition is stiff though but if you can keep your quality up you're in for a big business.

One thing that seems wrong in this business is : If webmasters can pay you quite a load of money for your game (and you bet they pay other developers too) doesn't it mean that they make more money than you do ? :D

[UnknownGuy]

The one problem with Flash is how open-source it is, the ability for people to bypass 'walls' and put it up on their site, or just hot link it.

And yes, most flash games aren't available to buy, specifically because how it easy it is to decompile and then distribute it.

Most people try to sell to portals, like miniclip, and mousebreaker, etc.. You can't really start your own "portal" with only your games, simply because people come for a variety of games, not just a few.

Flashkit.com is a good forum, more specifically the games section.

Good luck!

[Chris Evans]

So I assume the only way any Flash developers on this board have ever made money is by selling full versions of their games based on demo downloads. No ad revenue, no licensing games, etc.

Interesting. Thanks for the info :)

Whoa whoa, don't jump to that conclusion so soon.

You can make money off the ad revenue and game licensing but it just depends how good/interesting your game is. Also, I recommend keeping the game exclusive to your site for the first couple of months to maximize your Ad revenue, then gradually start licensing it out to other sites.