Get in the ring?

Enormous supply of free titles: it is all roses for gamers.
But for developers who want to profit from Flash games the situation is Janus-faced: low entry barrier and widespread user base in tandem with fierce competition and volatile tastes. Peter Hargitai of Game in a Bottle, one of the creators of long time Kongregate favorite Gemcraft series talks about the realities of building Flash games – not only – to make ends meet.

: How many Flash games are out there? How tough is the competition?

Peter Hargitai: We are talking about thousands of games. The bulk of them get very little attention, while the best (or more fortunate) games might be played by millions. Every day new games are featured on the top page of major aggregation sites replacing current ones and if a game can not make it to the top (the number is different page by page) then it will never get back there. In this case, it will get plays in the range of thousands. If the game is mediocre, it is almost impossible to get recognition. If somebody wants to make the living of games, one must be adamant and can not release half-baked ideas. Although nothing is set in stone (unlike other platforms that have extensive requirement systems), there are a lot of considerations one should make when planning, making a game. The advantages of Flash – like high penetration rate or easy access to development tools – make it possible for a small, enthusiastic team or an individual to create a game that might get to a lot of people. There is an abundance of games, and the majority of the attempts are very far from making money.

: What are the caveats, what makes a game crappy?

PH: A rushed, slapdash concept will not be successful. If anyone at once can see that nobody would spend more than three minutes playing it, or the amateurish execution is striking. If one can not figure out (and there is no info either) what to do, the game is not player friendly, for instance “penalizes” unfairly. The first impressions are crucial. If the game can not convince the player to “dig deeper”, then the careful production and brilliant concept are all but waste.

: How can a game can gain attention on a large scale?

PH: If one can come up with a very imaginative concept and realize a game upon it. Something that looks a serious effort no matter that the hobbyist kind shows. If a team can achieve this, there is a chance. I have Shift on my mind as an example for an elegant, simple idea. Think of a black and white platform game in which the Shift button turns the character upside down. There are a lot of hidden opportunities in this base concept, could be taken into many directions. Games of best quality get the attention of the players in a good scenario. But not certainly so from the aggregation sites as they can not spotlight more then 5 or 10 on their top pages, so there are many good games that are unfairly omitted. We can be considered lucky that there are sites featuring our games on their top pages – the competition is fierce between the games considered best. A game’s fate can be influenced by the sudden shifts in the players’ preference or somebody spreads a rumor that a certain game is not good – or the other way around – and “mobilizes” friends.

: How did you get where you are now?

PH: It took a few games. Two years ago I started with a pirate themed game – still alone back then. It had moderate success but that time it gave enough hope that one can earn any money with making games. The next game enjoyed a little more success – made it on full time by then. We made up our minds, had nothing to lose. That was followed by Balloon Invasion, and a less successful one. The breakthrough was Gemcraft, our fifth game. We were featured on Armor Games and Kongregate. I got acquainted with Adam Schroder from FlashGameLicence.com when we were making Gamecraft (chapter 1) and he recommended to auction it. For 10 percent commission they run a service through which one with good chance could get a better offer from the many registered members (game owners) than the developer itself. The highest bidder was Armor Games so they own the primary licence of Gemcraft. While Gemcraft was out there on the top page, about six months ago Daniel McNeely, owner of Armor Games contacted me directly that they would like to licence a sequel (that in fact became a prequel) and made an attractive offer to choose them instead of another auction. Thanks to the players there have not been three games that could remove us from the Kongregate top page yet. How much is it our merit? There was hard work put in both games but that was not enough, we needed luck too.

: Could you be more specific about hard work?

PH: The first Gemcraft took 5 months to complete, Chapter 0 needed seven (side note: more work did not make it better or more successful). We could have completed in shorter time. Underway we ran into dead ends that made development a month or so longer. The two of us did all the work. We knew that the released game would have bugs but also that we could rely on the gaming community. We could make use of the chunk of the commentary. People sent in ideas that were easy to add to and improved the game.

: Could you introduce Flash business models?

PH: Aggregaton sites like Kongregate feature games and make money of the ads.The benefits for developers: these sites help them to reach many, many gamers that is helpful in brand building, they get their share from the ad revenue, and some sites offer prizes to encourage developers to submit their games. Websites have access to ads through service providers (i.e. Google Adsense, MochiAds, CpmStar), on the other end are the companies that want to advertise. The two parties are connected through the automatic system of the service provider.

The premium content model – access to extra content for micro payments – is evolving now. It is not mandatory, the game can be played without it but if a player wants enhanced experience or level up fast the option is there. If a developer wants to employ it, the game must be designed and crafted with this on mind from the start. What is the premium contect going to be, will it worth to the player, the player should not feel ripped off, should get quality experience for his/her money. The core content should be satisfying too for players who do not want the premium content – they might change their minds.

: Do you think this model could work and if yes, why?

PH: Absolutely, a few examples: Travian, Evony, Puzzle Pirates. There are many other businesses with basic content for free, ushering in the fee-based premium content/product. If this works elsewhere, why would the online game industry be an exception?

: How many professionals are there?

PH: There are some teams that could make themselves completely independent, building their own sites, take for instance Casual Collective or NinjaKiwi. There are many games on these sites, the latter has more than 80. They can be called professionals, in other words they profit from making games. But there are not so many like them, most of the developers make way less revenue. I do not know how many start developing games, must be tremendously lot, but there are very few who can call it their business, and expand. For instance, we can make the living but expansion is far away on the horizon. Maybe in two or three years time, provided our forthcoming games become successful.