The YouTube of Games? (Question Mark?)

By: ARelativelyHotGirl

On: August 18th, 2007

Gamasutra has a Q&A with Jim Greer, one of Kongregate’s founders, on its plans to invest millions in independent flash games.

We’re funding developers as an advance against royalties on the microtransactions anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000, depending on the scope of the game. We’re looking at development cycles of 4 to 6 months with teams 2 to 3 people – some even less – in development, but we want to keep the initial experiments contained. And we’re guaranteeing the developer, “you’re going to pay all your expenses and make a little profit on these advances. But then if the game does well, you can keep 70% of the back end.”

Could this be the XBLA of independent flash games?

Or is it just tears. In the rain.

DISCUSS.

(but only if you wanna)

  • ARelativelyHotGirl

    My opinion is that it depends on the games. Maybe if they can launch some unique wonderful game on it, it’ll make an impact?

  • http://www.webofthemind.com limousinedriver

    I would think that one of the biggest worries I have is: can they keep it up?

    I don’t wanna get you guys down, but the independent games aren’t much different from any other media; 95% crap, 5% diamond in the rough.

    Seems to me they could end up funding a whole lotta failures by accident if they don’t pay attention. Because in the end, it really is about making money regardless of what they say.

    They should hire Derek Yu as a consultant. >.>

  • raigan

    who is going to pay for flash games?! that seems a bit stupid.. the whole point is that they’re simple and free.

  • ARelativelyHotGirl

    Oh, snap!

  • http://www.fadupinator.com lariusprime

    Here’s the biggest thing: there already is a “YouTube of games,” it’s called Newgrounds. In fact, YouTube could be called the “Newgrounds of video clips.”

    Just like YouTube, 90% of submissions are crap, but the occasional awesome thing that is there rises to the top.

  • ARelativelyHotGirl

    …and you don’t have to pay for anything. :)

  • http://www.webofthemind.com limousinedriver

    Yeah, Larius makes a damn good point. I didn’t realize they were talking about buying *Flash* games.

    I guess if the game was of super-high quality it…might work. No it wouldn’t. What the hell are they planning? :S

  • ARelativelyHotGirl

    One can only imagine… I think they’d really have to come up with some incredible experience that you can’t find anywhere else for it to work.

    Yet made with flash.

  • bitbot.cc

    Eh, Flash is the same as any other language; the barrier between crap and excellence is just as thick.

    What is really the difference between Actionscript, Python/SDL, C/DX, C/OGL, MMF, and GameMaker, for anyone that assumes paying for Flash-based indie game is a ludicrous idea? Or is it just that paying for -any- indie game is a ludicrous idea, to some?

    It just comes down to quality in the end, and what a talented developer can do with what the tools at hand, regardless of the tools, in my opinion.

  • Calanctus

    Geez, I can’t imagine little indie Flash games making much profit at all, nevermind in the range of $20,000-$100,000. This scheme has “future bankruptcy” written all over it.

  • Eudaimon

    I think the main thing about Flash is that it makes it simpler to create a game. While that is a good thing for a lot of reasons, it also means that, in general, there is a lot less dedication in the making of a Flash game than one made through more complicated means.

    Combine that with the rapidity of the internet, and you get a trend of people making cheap, crappy, throwaway games in Flash.

  • Mazapán

    There’s only ONE problem with flash and that is that the .swf fileformat is open, meaning anyone could (more or less) easily decompile months of hard work. This is what turns “serious” developers away, not the other BS suggested.

  • oNyx

    >I didn’t realize they were talking about buying Flash games.

    It’s more about unlocking stuff for *very* little money.

    With Amazon FPS even 1-5 cent transactions will be economically feasible. So you can for example make a game where you can buy one extra credit for 5 cents. Doesn’t sound like much, but if 1% of the players would actually buy a few credits this way, you would make cubic shitloads of money.

    A *lot* more than you could do with advertising.

  • http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

    I LUV KONGREGATE!

  • Lazer

    Doesn’t this also (much like the wayward Indie labels of the music industry) completely and entirely defeat the idea of the word INDEPENDANT?

    Cause ya know, indie sorta means “no publisher” or “on their own” or “with their own money” or something like that. Taste that irony.

  • Calanctus

    Words change meaning, dude. Strictly and originally, sure, “indie” music used to mean any band that wasn’t signed to a major record label. But now it refers to a certain kind of sound and aesthetic, like what happened to “alternative” in the 90s. Likewise, there are games out there made by small teams on small budgets for small audiences, and they generally have the kind of gameplay and design choices you wouldn’t get in major commercial titles, but nevertheless they’re getting published via major portals or getting ported to XBLA or whatever. These games arguably still embody the indie spirit (whatever that is), which is the important thing really, so there’s no point in quibbling over technicalities.

    Basically, don’t be one of those dicks who insists on your prescriptivist version of language because you have problems with changing situations.

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  • Indiepedant

    Lazer: don’t you mean independent?

  • Anthony Flack

    I think he meant indepedant.

  • http://www.g4g.it FireSword

    wow.. didn’t have idea flashgames had so much money potential in them, still i am skeptic..

    Raigan got a point there.

    Any idea how to make games with flash? There is a particular tecnic? Do you need some special library? Is coding required? The tool(which so far i know is the same for making movies) for making games is free?

  • Mazapán

    It makes me sad every time I read these misconceptions about flash. Hell yes it requires coding. AS3 is a fully OO-language and is interpreted from bytecode at runtime kind of like Java (JIT). You could use Adobe Flash but there are free compilers too.

  • Guesst

    I’m trying to compile a list of games in my head that would justify this sort of venture, flash games that launched a major title. So far I’ve got:

    o Alien Hominid

    And that’s it. Mind you I’ve seen more than a few flash games that I thought would makea good commercial release, but Alien Hominid is the only one I know of that actually did.

  • http://www.g4g.it FireSword

    Misconceptions???

    U talk about free ‘compilers’ which are?

  • http://www.g4g.it FireSword

    Cold fusion is 1299 dollars…

    Woot!!!

  • Mazapán

    MTASC, haXe and Flex are the ones I know of.
    Guesst: Don’t forget N! Also, this proves my point, Alien Hominid is a very special case, it was released converted to C++. The actual .swf is not available anywhere and thus can’t be decompiled.

  • fucrate

    anytime you play a flash game online, you have to download the .swf to your hard drive. it’s in your temporary internet files dir, and this makes it extremly easy to decompile the code and assets.

    and as far as the profitability of the venture goes, the jury is still out. no one has ever really tried to make for profit flash games largly because copying them is childs play and there’s really no protection possible for a sp game. Kongregate’s aim is to go for multiplayer games, which can add some security through online verification… dont know if it’ll work.

  • alillm

    Flash gets a lot of bad press that it really doesn’t deserve. Yes, there are many very badly made flash games, but the only reason they are made more obvious than the equally bad games made in other languages, is because they are easily accessible online, and can be submitted all over the internet. This however is also flash’s biggest strength as games get far more publicity than downloadable games (I’m sure that many of the not so good flash game, are seeing far more plays than some of the better downloadable indie games).

    For this reason I don’t see why the concept of flash games generating money is such a laughable idea. There is already a huge market in advertising surrounding flash games.

    Of course I’m not saying it would be that simple. This issue of security has already been raised, but I’m sure Kongregate has thought of that.

    Also just to back up what others have already said, Actionscript isn’t some sort of beginners language, in fact other than being more accessible, its really no easier to make a game in flash than it is to make one in say C++.

    Ali

  • http://www.fadupinator.com larsiusprime

    Just to clear up a misconception – I’m an experienced flash developer, been working with Flash since version 4 and I absolutely love it. It is a great platform.

    The problem is you are working against the established mentality that your medium is crap. That’s because so much of the flash market IS crap. You honestly have to bill your game as a game first and a flash game second. You need to develop a title of such high quality that people are like,

    “WOW! You did this in FLASH?” or you have no chance of success at all.

    But yeah, Newgrounds was around before YouTube. So why do we even want a “YouTube of games?” Does YouTube even make people all that much money? All you really get is ‘exposure’ and eventually I’d like to be compensated with more than just “exposure.”

    Good luck to Kongregate though I think it could work. I just think aspiring to be the “YouTube” of games is a bad model to follow.

  • http://www.g4g.it FireSword

    Flex2 is a sdk.. that means they don ‘t give u a free compiler.. or not?

    Haxe is a compiler, without the front-end editor of flash, so u have to write the flash-program the old fshioned way.. bah..

    Same as MTASC, but this looks more interesting..

    In other words does exist an equivalent to gamemaker(Mark Overmars) to make flashgames? free of course.

  • BenH

    No, there is nothing similar to GameMaker that creates Flash games. You either make them in Flash, or through with something like Flex.

  • http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

    Well I think Kongregate is doing awesome things and I wish them luck!

  • http://intuitiongames.blogspot.com torncanvas

    I think everyone, in their bitterness and bickering, is missing an important point here:

    **Kongregate is handing out money.** *Millions.* Up to 100k per game. Have you ever wanted to make games for a living? I have. And Kongregate is giving people like me a chance to do just that. I could care less about the politics of this platform or that; it’s the *opportunity* that is important I think. I just want to make some freaking games all day long. What opportunity do I have to do that starting from scratch? This is one of a couple. I’ve looked around for the last couple years, and so far you simply can’t get a better deal than **100k funding, 70% royalties, and keeping your IP.**

    People should be dancing in the streets, not grumbling. This represents another opportunity to start a game company in less than 6 months.

  • http://intuitiongames.blogspot.com torncanvas

    Yeah, so upon review, I guess everyone isn’t bitter and bickering. My bad. But you get my point! This is a good thing, folks. :)

  • http://josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

    agreed

  • http://egoant.stumbleupon.com EgoAnt

    The way I see it is if Kongregate pays for Flash games and then offers a premium level subscription based service they could really pull this off. GameTap is a great example. I can go to a thousand different sites and download, for free, about 98% of the GameTap library.

    But they have crafted a great interface around it, and put in some premium games that are subscription-only.

    They also keep the cost low enough and update often enough that I don’t feel ripped off.

    So far I really like what Kongregate is doing, and I honestly think they can make this work.

  • http://mooktown.blogspot.com/ papamook

    So far I’ve got:
    o Alien Hominid
    And that’s it.

    Samorost1&2
    and most of nitrome’s games

  • http://mooktown.blogspot.com/ papamook

    line rider …