Contents
Where's The Cash For Flash?
 
 
Printer-Friendly VersionPrinter-Friendly Version
 
Latest News
spacer View All spacer
 
February 9, 2010
 
Analysts: EA On The Right Track At Last
 
GamesBeat@GDC Confirms OnLive, GameStop, PlayStation Home Speakers
 
Ubisoft Q3 Sales Edge Down, As It Ramps Up Big Franchises
spacer
Latest Jobs
spacer View All     Post a Job     RSS spacer
 
February 9, 2010
 
THQ
Animator - Motion Builder (contract)
 
LucasArts
Senior Systems Designer
 
Trion Redwood City
<b>Sr. Brand Manager</b>
 
Telltale Games
Game Designer
 
Telltale Games
Senior Software Engineer - Core Technology
 
Airtight Games
IT System Administrator
 
Roblox
Apple Game Engineer - Kids' Virtual World
 
Roblox
Senior Web Engineer (front-end)
spacer
Latest Features
spacer View All spacer
 
February 9, 2010
 
arrow Television, Meet Games
 
arrow Two Halves, Together: Patrick Gilmore On Double Helix [1]
 
arrow The Road To Hell: The Creative Direction of Dante's Inferno [20]
 
arrow The Sensible Side of Immersion [11]
 
arrow Jumpstarting Your Creativity [6]
 
arrow Truth in Game Design [49]
 
arrow Postmortem: Vicious Cycle's Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond [4]
 
arrow Developers React: The iPad's Future [16]
spacer
Latest Blogs
spacer View All     Post     RSS spacer
 
February 9, 2010
 
Lineage 2 Interview - 'Freya Update Is Just a Beginning' - Pt.2
 
Fixing the GDC 2010 Schedule Builder [3]
 
Swashbuckling for Landlubbers: Why you may already be encouraging piracy! [19]
spacer
About
spacer News Director:
Leigh Alexander
Features Director:
Christian Nutt
Editor At Large:
Chris Remo
Advertising:
John 'Malik' Watson
Recruitment/Education:
Gina Gross
 
Feature Submissions
Features
  Where's The Cash For Flash?
by Paul Hyman
13 comments
Share RSS
 
 
February 9, 2009 Article Start Previous Page 2 of 3 Next
 

If ever there was a Flash developer whose business model depends on multiple revenue streams, it's indie studio PixelJam Games, the brainchild of co-owners Miles Tilmann in Seattle and Rich Grillotti in Eugene, OR.

But that wasn't the duo's original strategy when, at the end of 2004, they launched their first game in the retro, low-res, big-pixel style of the Atari 2600 and Super Nintendo that would become their signature look.

Advertisement

"Our plan had been to quit our jobs as illustrators and designers, spend six months making a game, and live off the donations that we hoped gamers would send us because they liked our game so much," recalls Tilmann. "I guess you could call our plan 'Hope For The Best.' In retrospect, I'd say we were kind of naïve."

When money didn't start pouring in, the pair tried a different tack, this time securing an exclusive sponsorship for their second game, Rat Maze 2, which took them a month to build.

"We got $5,000 in upfront money which we thought was great at first," says Tilmann, "until we realized that that was all the money we were ever going to see from the game. And that $5,000 for two people working a month wasn't going to keep the business going."

The two quickly recognized their business model needed modifying. The resultant strategy of using multiple revenue streams was what made their game Dino Run their most successful, even though it took them seven months to build.

"We went from zero advertising and all donations to sponsorships to our present strategy," explains Tilmann, "which incorporates three separate revenue streams, none of which we could get by on alone. But, together, they support our business quite nicely."

PixelJam Games' Dino Run

Stream one involved micro-transactions. While Dino Run is free to play, a small donation gives gamers a code that enables them to customize their dinosaur, perhaps change his color or put a hat on him. Some gamers send a penny, others have sent as much as $100. "We let people decide what the game is worth to them," comments Tilmann. Micro-transaction donations generated about $4,000, lifetime to date all told.

Step two involved advertising -- a combination of Google ads on the PixelJam pages (generating about $4,000 in total thus far) plus pre-load ads from MochiAds (generating about $1,500) and revenue shares with other sites (generating about $6,000).

The third -- and most successful -- revenue generator involved licensing, which brought in about $22,000.

"For games the size of Dino Run, licensing is the best way to go," notes Tilmann. "They are paying you for the right to put your game on their site and you have the ability to sell as many licenses as you'd like. In fact, we got two really good deals through FlashGameLicense.com."

Bottom line: The three revenue streams have brought in approximately $40,000 for seven months' work with more still trickling in.

"We chose not to go the proprietary sponsorship route," says Tilmann, "because we couldn't secure one that would cover the seven months it took us to build the game.

Sponsorships tend to make more sense when a game only takes two or three weeks to make."

 
Article Start Previous Page 2 of 3 Next
 
Comments

Jake Romigh
profile image
Step 1: Learn Flash.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: License games.
Step 4: PROFIT

But seriously, this is a really interesting article detailing what kind of money is out there for indie developers and how they might get their hands on some of it. I'm glad websites such as the one they discuss in the article are out there.

Chris Hughes
profile image
Step 2: Make a great game and put it on flashgamelicense.com

;) a bit biased, I know.

Honestly, though, this is the best article I have read about Flash games and how to earn money from them. I have read other articles after being interviewed and thought that this industry may be a little too complicated to fit into a short article, but Paul has proven that you can definitely get the gist across in at least 3 pages.

The major benefit to being an indie web game developer is the fact that you get to retain your IP. Being able to 'sell' a game and keep the rights to all of your characters and story lines etc is something that is hard to attain in other industries and it allows you to leverage your brand in the future (Sean points this out well in the article).

Ephriam Knight
profile image
After reading the article, it appears that making money off of flash games is pretty much the same as making money off of anything on the web. First you have to have a brand that people like and will come back for more. Next you have to create multiple revenue streams. Just about everything here is what you would normally do for any kind of web development.

Ads are everywhere and the biggest and easiest form of revenue. It may not be the most profitable unless you have tons of hits every day.

Merchandising is quite profitable if you have a recognizable brand. t-shirts with fans favorite games and characters are a great way to make money. Posters, mouse pads, hats etc, call all make you money. But only if your brand has a following.

Licensing is a pretty new one for me. General web development doesn't lend itself to licensing like games do. I like the idea and have toyed with it for some game ideas I have. Certain genres of flash games lend themselves more towardsthis than others.

One that wasn't really touch but briefly in the article is advergaming. One can make a fair amount of money by marketing yourself to the advergaming crowd. You may not be able to build brands and franchises from it, but it can provide a steady revenue stream, especially if you have a good network or businesses.

Caleb Garner
profile image
Yea the service Chris and Adam offers is great. Being a developer who has worked with them first hand, they were very helpful to us beyond just brokering the deal.

The site offers a lot of opportunity for community feedback as well. You can get feedback from other developers if you like and ultimately help make your game even better and thus more likely to bring in greater revenue.

Shawn Yates
profile image
Good article, it's good to learn about some of the licensing options out there for Flash developers. I was totally unaware of FlashGameLicense.com. Great to see some success stories of independent developers.

Colm Larkin
profile image
Nice article- interesting that the guys making serious money are all using multiple revenue streams.
I'd like to see some of these 'casual' flash game brands make the leap to a maple-story-like persistant game. They do pretty well out of microtransactions after all.

Tõnu Paldra
profile image
While this is well written article, I have a feeling that by focusing on few extremely successful developers it may give pretty skewed image of Flash game markets. There are thousands of game made every month, thousands of developers all hoping to make the next big hit. Yes, many of those games are not even very good but there are countless examples of really good games that practically do not gain any money. Because the Flash games are so easy to make, so many people are jumping in and trying it out and when they dont get sums mentioned in article, Im afraid they may feel cheated.

Its like writing a article about music business featuring Madonna, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. The theme: look, you can make money with music! Yes, thats true but honestly, how many artists in reality are gaining such mountains of cash?

juice uk
profile image
Essentially, it sounds like the flash game industry is a low-margin, high-turnover market - and it's fairly high-risk to boot, as you have to commit resources up-front and continue to drive for revenue post-launch.

Overall, there's distinct parallels with the music industry - specifically the singles market. By themselves, singles rarely make much money: the key is to get them picked up for radioplay (aka loaded onto portals) and have them picked up for use in adverts, TV and movies (i.e. embedded advertising/branding).

There is one key difference: the cost of producing music has stayed fairly static - and even dropped, thanks to the evolution of computer-based tools. The cost of game development has risen dramatically over time, thanks in no small part to the cost of producing the assets - and for all that flash games are relatively low-cost at present, the need to remain competitive amid a sea of "free" games means that those costs will rise...

Ben Maher
profile image
This is a great article. Now there are just three things standing between me and low 6 figure sums:

1) I don't know flash.
2) I haven't got a noteworthy game made in flash to market.
and
3) I don't know flash.

John Petersen
profile image
There's cash in just about everything, depending on who you sleep with.

chris eepor
profile image
Terrific article! It's interesting to see the different revenue models available, you can make good money doing just about anything these days

Kandi Harper
profile image
Im making my own flash game on the side -- since it is so out of my field, it is quite challenging for me, but I love it...
It is interesting to see that as an indie web developer i could pull out good money

Michel Carroll
profile image
Great article. I myself is trying to break into the flash game developement industry. I've always had great game ideas, ever since my early childhood.

This article gave me a good idea of what kind of marketing I should do.


none
 
Comment:
 


Submit Comment