Hello everyone, Does anyone know a good portal where to host a Unity game, offering a decent cut on advertising revenue? Or a portal that would buy rights to our game? Here is the context: My company is currently developing an iOS skiing game with Unity3D. The iPhone prototype is really fun, and as it turns out so is the keyboard-controled PC build. We were only really planning for a mobile version, but I'm thinking perhaps I might as well release a PC version since Unity makes it so easy. Any advice? Thanks in advance !
I'm assuming you know about FGL but will mention it anyways as that is their business model - finding you ways to generate revenue on a game like this.
I wouldn't expect you to make much revenue out of a flash style sponsorship or ad model. There simply aren't enough Unity3D portals out there yet. The ones that are out there have all kinds of issues that prevent Unity from really being successful (people getting tech issues then down voting the games for example on Kong). If you're really set on doing a PC version, then I would take it the standard downloadable try/buy route, OR make it into some kind of browser mmo/microtransactions setup. I've done very well out of the later /w Unity3D.
I think there are a few things you can do, and these are purely ideas with no substantial evidence to back them up simply because I've been looking into the same thing for almost the same reason really! Portals: afaik Kongregate accept Unity3d games now which is probably the biggest dedicated flash portal out there (in my limited research). You could monetise with adverts, I don't know the exact stats for web games and advertising as such but I do own a couple of small flash portals which bring in a small income. You could probably get sponsorship My current biz plan (subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune) for my own planned single player web game is to try the old shareware route, release the first part for free but require payment for parts 2 and 3, there may be some IAP involved as well for the whales. Alternatively, this would be my preference, you could use your web based app as a loss-leading marketing tool, simply release part of the game for free on the web but splash your own advertising for the iOS version all over it.
Thanks everyone for your kind responses! They are very helpful. @Lennard : didn't know about FGL. Do you know if they take Unity games? @Nutter : I was also thinking on using it the webapp as a marketing tool. Any idea which portal would bring me the most traffic and allow me to advertise the iOS version?
Well Kongregate and Facebook would be the most obvious, but there's a list of portals that accept on the unity site, http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/7558/which-game-portal-websites-accept-unity-webplayers.html I think it's still reasonably up to date, but you'll be best going through the terms of each possibly even contact them
You could also use in-game ads for additional monetization: http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?46591-GameAdTrading-InGame-Ads-for-Unity3D
advertising sucks it's not sustainable source of income the best way is to add some price add in games like you can put some of the levels locked which people going to pay to get unlocked or you can also add some paid add ons and power ups most successful game studios earn significant amount of revenue via this method only.
I vote for FGL or direct deal with Kongregate as your most likely revenue sources... unless you have something really spectacular.
in case you didn't realise you've necro'd an old thread ;-) However, I'd be very interested to hear how NicolasGB is getting on. I have been following the FLG announcements on their unity/mobile games and it seems a lot more viable than it did 3 years ago.
Hey there! Wow, so much has happened in the meantime. We ended up not porting our skiing game to web in order to focus our development capacities on mobile. I also started 2 more mobile gaming companies, both using Unity. For the time being, I don't plan on creating Unity games for browser for 2 reasons: 1. I feel there are more opportunities and growth on mobile 2. Chrome not supporting the Unity plug-in anymore is a bit turn-off now (I haven't investigated solutions so perhaps there are some). Cheers, Nicolas
Monetizing with in-game ads comes in addition to your suggestions. So no competition there. @DanglinBob: What do you consider as spectacular? We are going to release an ad-gallery shortly. I'll keep you updated as soon as it is online. Here is a little preview showing our interstitial ads: http://www.gameadtrading.com/adtest/unity.interstitial
@ Everyone, Hey! @Nutter2000, thank you for the list of portals that accept on the unity site. I am also looking for making money through games.