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How to sell a webgame to arcades?
Old 11-30-2006, 08:49 PM How to sell a webgame to arcades?
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I have just created my first webgame, written in java. The game is now in beta, and can be played at bubblomania.com. And now I'm wondering how to monetize this game

So these are actually questions to the arcade owners here:
  • How does the relation between arcade owners and game developers work?
  • Do you pay for webgames, and if yes, how much?
  • Are you interested in exclusive games for your site?
  • Would you pay to license my game Bubblomania?

I'm actually trying to find out if making (premium) webgames is a valid business model. The other options are keeping the game exclusive on my site, and trying to get enough traffic to get some ad revenue. And/or create a downloadable deluxe version...
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Old 12-01-2006, 12:41 AM
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Fun game. I got 17,600 in challenge level
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Old 12-01-2006, 01:20 AM
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92 350 on extreme.
Hmm, in terms of advice, I don't know much about selling to arcade, it seems most are free these days. But one thing I would advise, raise some cash and hire a web designer. You site looks like it is stuck in the 90s. With a nice new slick design, some well placed ads I'm sure you could make a lot of money from this game, all it would take is a little viral marketing and your game could really take off.
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Old 12-01-2006, 06:56 AM
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Those are quite good scores for new players!
And yes, web design isn't my strongest point...

Viral marketing seems hard to achieve. Maybe lock a game mode, and make it available if you refer 5 friends?

But I'm still interested in licensing the game to some quality arcades (not those that only have the exact same crappy flash games as the next 684 arcades). So I'd really like to learn more about this business. I'm sure there must be some arcade owners on this forum! And I know some other developers have been able to license webgames for decent money...
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Old 12-01-2006, 09:33 AM
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The vast majority of arcade owners simply buy an arcade script that has a few games bundled on it, as opposed to write the website from scrath and aquiring each game individually. Thus I think it would be hard to approach these individuals about aquiring your game,as they general buy a package of games in the hundreds. Why would they buy your one game over a package of hundreds of well known, well tested games?

The bigger players, such as miniclip, may be interested, I would start with people like them, but again, having no experience in this field, there is little more I can advise on.

Regarding your website, this is my advice.

Hire a web designer, make the site look new, update and appealing, at the moment it looks dated and if I wasn't there because of this review, I may not stay around long enough for the game to load.

1. The game takes a while to load, not much you can do about that, except give them some stuff to do whilst it does load. Add content, something for people to read. But, importantly, do it below the main scroll area of the page (the part of the page that you have to scroll to access) The top part of your site is prime real estate for ads.

2. Your ads are not targeted. The people you are targeting your games to are people who play online games, not people who want to advertise. Remove the "text link ads" advert. For advertising I would suggest a 100% width site, at the moment you are loosing a lot of potential advertising/ content space by having the site centered in the middle, with large columns of empty space either side. Stretch the site to 100% and place adverts in that space. But make them relevant. Get into contact with arcade owners informing them that you are selling ad space.

3. To get more hits, start up traffic exchanges with other sites similar to yours. Do you know any other game developers with games such as yourself? Do they have a site? Then share traffic, put a link to their site on yours and vice versa. Also, do the same with arcade owners. Afterall, your target market is the same - people who play online games.
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Old 12-01-2006, 06:44 PM
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Thanks for the interesting advice! I clearly still have a lot to learn!
I'm going to investigate my options a bit further, and look out for an affordable web designer in the mean time.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Switch View Post
Why would they buy your one game over a package of hundreds of well known, well tested games?
I thought that having original/exclusive quality content would be a competitive advantage for the site in question...
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