- This topic has 19 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 10 months ago by
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Here’s a question for you business-heads. How can I make my Star Wars Flash game pay for itself? With over a quarter of a million unique visitors in the last month, I need to find a way to cover (or at partially cover) the increasing bandwidth costs.
Naturally, there are complications. Namely that it isn’t my intellectual property to begin with! It may be that I need to take the hit on this, and then develop something entirely my own from scratch.
One of this forums subscribers has suggested this course of action, and a ‘pay per play’ model. I’d like to try ‘pay per play’ with THIS game, or my next Star Wars title (in development). Might that bring the wrath of the Lucasarts heavies down upon me?
Open to ideas (publicly or privately).
Lewis
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chargeing for playing is a bad idea.. one its illegal (for you star wars game), but 2 i don’t think people like to pay for flash games…
i think google adds are the best way to go
http://www.google.co.uk/services/adsense_tour/page2.htmli don’t know how much money google adds will get you, but i think they are the best of the a schemes
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It’s illegal? Really?!
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make a game that isnt star wars, and use the existing traffic to sell it? Set up a paypal account and as for donations, telling people the more donations you get, the quicker you can get the next game up and running?
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you would have to get premission and Royalties. infact even free fan games like yours are illegal, but they never get into trouble (useally).
having said that some fans where doing a free remake of Chrono Trigger, called Chrono Resurrection, but Square Enix Co., Ltd gave them a Cease and Desist letter
http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/i really think google adds is a good idea for you, just have a add at the sides. dcemus host network uses it (and its a big nextwork)
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Lucas Films are big into their Cease and Desist letter, the only case I know were there intellectual copyright has been used by an outside team is the Troopers mod for UT2k4 and from what I gather that was under heavy restrictions….
Donations is probably your best bet.
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you should look into Alien Hominid, recently released on PS2 and a winner of several awards at this year’s GDC indie awards. It started out as a Flash game with – get this – 10 million downloads!
don’t know if it was free or paid for downloads, but you should look into it, Lewis
What you could do is give away one level free, but pay to play further
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Set up a paypal account and as for donations, telling people the more donations you get, the quicker you can get the next game up and running?[/quote:b0c47dbbe4]
Nice idea. But at the end of the day you are counting on the goodwill of internet folk……
I think the best thing to do Lewis is to create a few of the free games(ie: the Star Wars ones) and then use the exposure these games give to promote and release something wholely original and then CHARGE!! :D
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I think your best bet ( for any browser based game, including Flash or Shockwave ) is to use the previously mentioned Google banners to surround the game area, and maybe get some indirect revenue from click-throughs.
People don’t really like banners, but also web game developers don’t like not getting paid for their work, so it’s a reasonable compromise that a lot of people use.
Check out http://www.shockwave3d.com for an example of google ads being used.
Also, the Google ads would very likely give interesting Star Wars based links, so it’s not like they’ll be for non-relevant items.
Mal
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having said that some fans where doing a free remake of Chrono Trigger, called Chrono Resurrection, but Square Enix Co., Ltd gave them a Cease and Desist letter
http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/[/quote:c0d6610900]
i heard square hired them after this, right?
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As an author of the odd cease and desist letters on occaision, even using the Star Wars game as a teaser to selling your own game could get you in legal hot soup. You are using the goodwill and reputation of Star Wars to cross-sell the game.
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As an author of the odd cease and desist letters on occaision[/quote:c959ece63b]
boo, hisss :wink:
like i said any use of the star wars material with out premission is illegal, its just how far they allow to go. SNK have for along time allowed (not officaly) poeple to make Fan-games.
as for the chrono team, i have no idea what happened to them
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What can I say? I’m a hired gun for the dark side from time to time…
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As an author of the odd cease and desist letters on occaision[/quote:9389e5d271]
ah now…solicitors! tut.. tut..
as for chances of gettting permission from lucas I reckon more chance of hell getting a cooling system.
As for paying to play flash games? Would someone actually pay to play them?
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ah now…solicitors! tut.. tut..
<Gritting teeth and trying hard not to jump to the bait.>
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ya one of your type sent me a letter the other day saying they’d see me in court over an outstanding 455 euro bill to esat broadband (or send heavy’s round to drag the money outta me) which i cancelled over a year ago. so much for try for 3 months and if you dont want we’ll take it back no questions asked…
i rang up and told them i was going to hand the matter over to COMREG and those biys will sort ye out and that must have struck the fear of god into them, coz they rang and apolgised and are sending out formal letter of apology. (although i know its not the solictors fault here, but felt good to give them a good telling off … :)
so ppl beware when they plan to get broadband.. or more so when they cancel. make sure they remove all trace of you off the computer.
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All the talk of legal action has fairly given me the willies.
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one of your type[/quote:e4cdc1307b]
That’s cold man, so cold. Solictors are people too, you know…cold blooded people I’ll grant you but still people:joke:
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hahah.. true true..
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Hiya Lewis,
Well your advantages over others in the same boat are fairly obvious:
1.) You have access to a quarter of a million unique visitors every month (for a limited period)
2.) You have proven that you can create compelling gameplay with relatively simple tools (flash) and can get a team together and actually finish a project.
So the key now is how to turn that opportunity into your next online game and make some money from it. If you go with your own IP this time around, you will at least maintain the option of making money from it, if not now maybe later.
You have one leg up on anyone else making an indie web-based game, which is access to a relatively large audience. Try promoting your new game there and you’ll learn very quickly if there’s any chance of making some money from it! Like others have said, another demo with some pay for play levels, people like the content then it might just work! I think you should have a go! ;) But I would say that eh!
And there’s also http://www.shockwave.com/ as an additional route to promote your game!
Good Luck!
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