This post is long overdue, but it’s finally here! So what’s the verdict?

FAILURE

All of the goals I set for the games failed miserably, the games got played nowhere near the amount of times I had expected and earned nowhere near what I expected. So what went wrong? The short answer is a lot of things, I failed to polish the games, I failed to make the core mechanics fun, I failed at following all the advice that I’ve blogged about in the past, but before I get into too much detail let’s start off this post with some numbers…

Monolith Guardian

Plays: 134,000
CPMStar Earnings: $60
NG Score: 3.81
Kong Score: 2.71

Beyond Escape

Plays: 32,000
CPMStar Earnings: $20
NG Score: 3.57
Kong Score: 2.79

Save The Egg

Plays: 15,000
CPMStar Earnings: $1
NG Score: 3.07
Kong Score: 2.32

Now for the long answer on what went wrong.

Beyond Escape

One of the biggest problems in this game is the User Interface. It’s absolutely awful and doesn’t fit together well at all. Even though the background art is nice it appears as if stuff was just thrown on top of it with no rhyme or reason. This made me come to realization that just because someone is a good artist does NOT make them a good game artist. If your artist doesn’t understand basic game design the game will not turn out well no matter how fun the underlying concept is. This issue plagued all three of the games, but it definitely hit the hardest in this one.

At the base this game actually had some potential with its core concept, but the further I got into it the more I lost sight of the my first vision. Originally the game was meant to be a mix between winterbells and endless migration, but got morphed into just another lame distance game as I went. The game also lacked a lot of polish I gave my normal games, but that was not the main reason for its downfall. It was doomed the second I received the art. (Again I would like to clarify that the artist is amazing, but just didn’t understand the difference between game art and regular art which is completely my fault).

Monolith Guardian

This was the only game which didn’t end up as a complete failure. The one redeeming quality is that the game does contain a fair amount of polish, but you can still feel the disjoint between the art and the code. The failing point of this game was not the lack of connection but rather the fact that the the core concept just wasn’t fun. I tried introducing a unique mechanic of having the enemies move based on where they were shot and bounce of walls, but it simply didn’t work for this type of game.

The game also feels very flat and seems to be missing real content. Despite the fact that I introduce a new type of enemy almost every wave it feels like there is no variation in the gameplay. The main strategy for the whole game is to stay at the bottom of the screen and move back and forth as fast as possible. Variety doesn’t mean having a lot of different types of enemies, it doesn’t mean having a lot upgrades, it means the player has to do something noticeably different every so often to get pass a challenge.

Save The Egg

This game was amazing when I made it and is still amazing in my eyes. It deserved to perform MUCH better than it did. The biggest shortcoming on this game was the amount of polish, had I made everything fit together a little better it probably would’ve done better. The game isn’t really targeted towards the NG and Kong market either which didn’t help as far as getting the game distributed. It probably would’ve performed better if played by more casual gamers on sites such as Mindjolt. It might make for a good iOS port too if I could think of a good control scheme. I really don’t have anything else to say about this game.

So what’s next?

For the sake of redemption I intend of continuing this experiment with another one week sprint of game making in the near future. I really do believe I am capable of getting the kind of results I had originally expected. After this experiment had ended I created a game called Castle Guardian which earned several thousand dollars, caused Agitated Ferret to make some real money, received millions of plays, and was legitimately fun. I did most of the development in about 2 days worth of work.

I’ve been focused on a lot of other projects recently which doesn’t really give me too much time to continue this. Unless you’re interested in following my other endeavorer I’ll be stopping “The Experiment” after my next one week sprint. You may have also noticed that I didn’t mention the website that I advertised with these games, but that’s due to my lack of data on the subject. I messed up while implementing tracking, but the money I made from that was pretty small.

Since the whole artist thing seems to have finally blown over I’ll probably return to blogging on a much more regular basis. Writing these things help me realize my mistakes and learn from them. Hopefully they’ll help you to not make the same mistakes I have.

Happy Holidays!

Alright, so the development portion of the experiment has just finished yesterday. I have managed to get three games to point of where I want them so those are the three games that will determine how I fair in the contest.

Other Games

As for the other 4-5 games I developed during the contest time frame, they will be finished, but not included in this contest as far as scoring goes. These games include: Avoider, Dodger, Runner, Clicker, and Defense. (Yes, they will all get real names once art has been added to them). It should take 1-2 hours to implement art and polish to each game when I get back around to them. Unfortunately many of the artists I contacted did not respond so I was unable to get everything needed.

Completed Games

Now let’s do a quick breakdown of the three games I manged to complete. I did not record time that it took to implement art so I’ll try to make a reasonable guess for all of the games.

Beyond Escape (Used to be Jumper):

Game Size: Large
Game Type: Distance
Game Length: 30 – 60 minutes
Total Dev Time: 12 hours 30 minutes
Art Costs: $430

Monolith Guardian (Used to be Shooter):

Game Size: Large
Game Type: Shooting
Game Length: 30 – 60 minutes
Total Dev Time: 9 hours 15 minutes
Art Costs: $220

Save the Egg (Used to be Dropblock):

Game Size: Small
Game Type: Avoiding
Game Length: 1 – 2 minutes
Total Dev Time: 2 hours 0 minutes
Art Costs: $70

So that’s $720 in total art costs which starts me off at -$360 for this contest. I have fairly large expectations as far as performance goes for these games. If my guesses are correctly I will have earned that back on ads alone in a matter of days. My competitor managed to complete 6 games during the allotted time, with total art costs of $150 starting him off at -$75 for the contest.

Expectations

I enjoy making guesses about how my games will perform so I’ll list below expectations for the first two months. After two months have passed, I will go back and analyze actual performance to expected performance.

Beyond Escape (First two months):

Expected Plays: 3,000,000
Expected CPMStar Revenue: $3,000
Expected CTR: 20%
Expected NG Score: 4.00
Expected Kong Score: 3.75

Reason: This is a fairly unique game that has a whole atmosphere incorporated to make the game very enjoyable; this is something I haven’t tried doing before. It has stellar graphics along with a large amount of content so I expect it will fair well as far as distribution goes. No matter how this game performs, I’m very proud of how it turned out.

Monolith Guardian (First two months):

Expected Plays: 2,000,000
Expected CPMStar Revenue: $2,000
Expected CTR: 25%
Expected NG Score: 3.80
Expected Kong Score: 3.60

Reason: This game turned out to be a fairly generic space shooter aside from a twists which will hopefully keep it interesting for users. It’s a well built game, but I don’t feel it stands up to the others as far as the wow factor goes. Despite this, I still think it will spread well due to it’s outer appearance.

Save the Egg (First two months):

Expected Plays: 500,000
Expected CPMStar Revenue: $500
Expected CTR: 10%
Expected NG Score: 3.80
Expected Kong Score: 3.40

Reason: This game actually deserves to perform better than I expect it to, out of the three games this is a close second to Beyond Escape in terms of my favorites. The concept for this game is very simple, but I’ve managed to turn it into more of a novelty. I’ll wait until it’s released to tell you more .

Analysis

If all goes according to plan I should $5,500 pocketed from this 7 day frenzy, and a nice 1,150,000 clicks to our website. The long term revenue should be closer $10,000 and 2,000,000 clicks after 6-12 months if expectations hold. Hopefully I’m not being too ambitious with these numbers, but they’ve been estimated based on the success of my previous games.

The clicks to the website should earn approximately the same amount as the ad revenue so that would mean all the revenue statistics posted here should be doubled. I also intend on selling a couple non-exclusive licenses to give all this revenue a nice boost. If my numbers are correct that means I’m worth about $1000/h as far as coding goes!

In my next post I will include the swf files to the game both prior to and following art implementation. Hopefully some of the games will be released as early as tomorrow. The follow-up to this post should be coming in the next few days once I’ve released everything.

Stay Tuned!

Despite having never self sponsored a game before, I feel this is something I should have taken advantage of the past and other developers should take advantage of in the future. Let me break it down.

The general consensus among sponsors is that 1,000,000 plays is worth $1,000. Most sponsors will try to guess how many plays the game can bring in and then make an offer accordingly. Fortunately for you, if you self sponsor, you can actually earn more than $1,000 per million plays.

CPMStar

Alright, first things first. Go to CPMStar and sign up for both a sponsor account a developer account; This will allow you to earn 75% of the profits your game makes from ads as opposed to the normal 50%. This may not seem like much, but it can be difference between $20,000 and $30,000 if your game turns out to be a success.

Play Button Now on to how to actually implement advertisements for maximum revenue. The most common placement of advertisements in games is in the pre-loader. This placement generally gives the highest eCPM, and is the most accepted among players so let’s focus on it. The first thing you need to do is make sure that after your game has loaded it does not immediately jump to the menu screen. In order to do this you need to have a play button that appears after the game has fully loaded (or not, more on this later). Several sites block in-game advertisements by overlaying their own advertisements on your game while it is loading. Adding a play button forces users to at least see your ad and give them a chance to click on it after the game has loaded. Placing your play button in an awkward spot or making it hard to see will also increase the chance of players to click on the advertisement; this, however, is more shady than I like to go.

Make a game that’s 10 megabytes… Alright, you don’t actually need to make a large game, but you need to make it look like it is. Make the game take 10-30 seconds to load regardless of whether your game is 10 Megabytes or 10 Kilobytes. Forcing a load gives the player a chance to observe the ad and click on it. Fast computer can load games that are under 2 megabytes before the CPMStar ad even displays, this is of course, would be otherwise lost revenue for you. Players will have no way of knowing the game isn’t actually loading so it won’t make any difference to them as long as you don’t go overboard.

Game Over Put an ad on the Game Over or Game Complete screen. After a player has finished your game, they often want to go play something else. Placing an option in the middle of their screen can often help their decision making. I would advise against inter level ads due to their low eCPM and annoyance to users.

With these strategies you should be able to earn at the very least a $1.00 eCPM.

No More Waiting

A normal sponsorship generally takes the follow course:

Place the game on FGL
Wait 2-3 weeks until you receive a bid you’re pleased with and accept it
Spend 1 week+ Implementing sponsors links and logos exactly how they want along with other requests
Release the game exclusively on the sponsors site for 1 week
Release the game around the web

Time As you can see this process can take over a month, as a result this distracts most developers from starting on a new project (We’re all guilty of obsessively checking new bids, emails, etc…) With self sponsoring you don’t have to deal with any of that. Once you’ve finished developing a game you can implement branding and exclusive content how you want and release the game in the very same day.

Your Rules Another great benefit to self sponsoring is that you don’t have to abide by a sponsors rule. No being forbidden from selling non-exclusive licenses, no being forbidden from implementing ads in your game, and no being forbidden from releasing the game immediately. Non-exclusives and ads are a great source of revenue. Sponsors that don’t allow them take away from your potential profit.

Advertising Your Own Site

A lot of this stuff will overlap with my previous article “Making the most from your game (Sponsors Edition)”

Sponsors Let’s look at why sponsors sponsor games for a moment. They’re expecting to make more money than they’re paying you by implementing links and logo’s that go to their website. If you create your own website you can have all of this traffic, and more, to yourself. I’ll warn you up front that your first few games will probably not make as much money off of this as a large portal could due to the fact they already have an established user base. Assuming you stick with it, your own user base should grow and you’ll be making as much as the big dogs in no time. Look at Ninja Kiwi and Nitrome.

What’s Needed There’s a few things that you will need in order to make this a viable option. You will have to develop (or hire someone else to develop) a web portal that’s somewhat up to date with the current competition: Comments, Ratings, Walkthroughs, etc…. If you have more money to throw around you can make advanced systems such as Badges and User Submitted Content. You will also need to create a splash screen and a logo.

Maximizing CTR The standard sponsorship consists of A Splash Screen, A Play More Games Link, and Logos Scattered Through The Game. While these things are all great, they probably won’t get you a CTR much higher than 5%. In order to get into the 10% – 50% range you will need to implement some of the following items: Highscores, Badge Incentives, Exclusive Content, Walkthrough Links, or a Level Editor. Highscores are a great way to get players to your site after they’ve finished playing your game, but they need to be incorporated into your site somehow. Instead of a Play More Games Link (or even in addition to) you can have a Play This Game With Badges Link which should be much more appealing to many of today’s flash game players.

Exclusive Content Exclusive content is a great way to increase your CTR. This traffic is even more valuable than a click on say the splash screen. Not only does it encourage the user to visit your site so they can obtain bonus content, it also encourages them to continue returning to your site every time they want to play the game which can easily turn them into a regular. This also goes along with having a level editor on your site to encourage user interaction with your game and get them more involved (On your site nonetheless).

Walkthroughs Lastly, Walkthrough Links are another great way to increase the amount of traffic to your site. With the proper game and proper implementation it is possible to get a CTR of over 50% from this alone (Jmtb02, I’m looking at you). Converting Walkthrough clicks into regulars is harder than most of the other types of clicks, a good way to increase your chances is to commonly mention the exclusive content your website has in the game while you’re telling the user how to beat it.

Ps.
When I release my next large game, assuming I don’t get an amazing offer, I’ll self sponsor and blog the results.

This post is going to be a little different than most since I will be focusing on helping sponsors rather than developers, but hopefully they will still find it interesting. Alright, so you’ve just sponsored a flash game for $X and you’re trying to at least make it back, what do you need to make this happen?

There are several different strategies used to maximize how many people get to your site from the game you’ve sponsored.

Basics

The Essentials The standard things in every sponsorship include the Splash Screen at the beginning of the game, a More Games link on the menu, and Linked Branding throughout the rest of the rest of the game. These will get you a decent amount of users to come to your site, but nowhere near the amount if you were to implement ALL of the suggested items.

Branding You should have branding on every single screen of the game, and all the branding should be linkable expect in the actual game play. This won’t result in many direct plays, but it constantly plants seeds of your portal in the back of players heads which will make them either likely to visit it on their own or be more likely to click on branding next time they play a game sponsored by you. You should also have Play More Game links on both the game complete/game over screen and the shop/upgrade screen if the game has one.

Advanced

(These may require you to create things for your site)

Exclusive Content This is one that can bring in a huge amount of visitors and force players to continue returning to your site if they want the full experience of the game. This can range from anything as a small aesthetic item for the character to several levels being locked at the sponsors site. Try not to go overboard with this and only ask for some non-essential items to be exclusive (A level editor would be a great example). Make sure it’s advertised clearly in the game.

Badges If your site has badges, take advantage of them! Players love gaining achievements, a lot of players refuse to even touch games before they land on Kongregate because they don’t want to waste time playing somewhere else when they will have to do it again on Kong. A link in the menu should be enough to advertise this feature.

Highscores If the game is relatively short and score based this is a great one to implement. Unlike MochiScores which are all in game, your scores should be located on your site. This forces players to see the sponsors site after they click the submit button. Although this many not transfer to many return visitors, it can be a nice source of traffic.

Walkthroughs A large amount of hits can come from here. The click through rate on walkthroughs can be extremely high assuming the game is fun and has at least one point where the user will get stuck and not know what to do next. I personally end up clicking around 75% of walkthrough links for games that I play for more than 3 minutes. Make sure this is widely visible at all points during the game. If the game is good, this should be able to bring in more plays than any of the prior suggestions.

Other

CPMStar Ads While these won’t drive traffic to your site, they can help you earn a decent amount of money off the game you sponsor. Correctly implemented ads can earn you eCPM’s of $.50 – $1.00 with CPMStar. Placing them both at the beginning of the game, and at the game over screen with a forced action to change screens and a forced load time will result in the highest eCPM possible. If you happened to sponsor a really successful game for a reasonable amount, you can earn your money back from just these.

Performance Based Deals This will probably end up costing you more money in the end, but hopefully it will pay for itself. This type of sponsorship encourages the developer to distribute his game all of the web trying as hard as possible to get on every last portal. Some games are able to reach almost every large portal in existence from just viral distribution, but for the majority of games an extra push from the developer will help the game earn a lot more plays.

Now get to sponsoring (preferably my games).

I’ve added up every game play all of my games have ever received to date. I rounded everything to the nearest 50,000 for simplicity.

Mochibot on Medieval Rampage – 3,250,000
Armorgames for Medieval Rampage – 2,200,000
Estimated other for Medieval Rampage – 500,000 (Messed up a version of the game and some hits were not tracked)

Mochibot for Cell Warfare – 2,000,000

Armorgames for Cell Warfare – 500,000

Mochibot for Smiley Collapse – 500,000

Armorgames for Smiley Collapse – 450,000

MochiAds for BS – 1,450,000

Mochibot for Double Dodge – 650,000

Mochibot for Icy Evade – 1,000,000

Mochibot for Shodge – 500,000

Mochibot for Mech Slayer – 1,650,000

Mochibot for Bubble fighter – 350,000

Mochibot for Colloid – 450,000

Mochibot for Gravity Mouse – 2,300,000

Mochibot for Burst Cannon – 150,000

Penguin Massacre – 11,050,000
Armor
Kong
Other

Between The Lines – 4,500,000

Road Rage – 1,900,000

Medieval Rampage 2 Armor – 1,000,000
Medieval Rampage 2 Mochi – 5,300,000

Estimated total – 41,150,000

Pie graph of plays per game: