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Making A Fortune From Casual Games

Posted by Zonk on from the big-bucks-in-bobble dept.

hapwned writes "In yet another interesting article from the Escapist, Allen Varney has a piece on the ludicrous amount of money you can make from small, downloadable flash-type games that most Americans play. From the article: 'Which American designer personally made the most money last year from computer games he or she designed? Not the most money for a company, mind you, nor for a studio or licensor, but individual, take-home, taxable income. Was it a famous game god? John Carmack, Will Wright, Sid Meier, Warren Spector? Probably not. It was probably some guy you never heard of who wrote some little shareware game you never heard of. Those "casual games" - the puzzles and Mahjongg tilesets and card games and Breakout clones and match-three Bejeweled-type things - are downloaded, and sell, in numbers some game gods only dream about. Over the lengthy life of a successful casual game, the independent ("indie") designer can make serious, serious money - high six-figures and low sevens. Personally.'"

16 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. I'd get into making SWF games, but.. by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm currently a homebrew GBA game developer, and I am considering trying the SWF platform. Is there any decent SWF authoring software that's less expensive than Macromedia Flash and suitable for developing games?

    1. Re:I'd get into making SWF games, but.. by Txiasaeia · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Alien Hominid, which was originally just a flash game and has now been released for all three console platforms.

      --
      Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
    2. Re:I'd get into making SWF games, but.. by startled · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Depends what you're doing. For most casual games, you need a web-playable version, so you don't lose 50% or more of your potential audience because they don't want to download a demo. If you're targeting a different platform or niche, these requirements may be different (preinstalled on a mobile phone, downloadable on XBox Live, downloadable on Steam, whatever).

      Java's a bitch because everyone's got whatever old version of the VM came with Windows, each version of which has its own bugs. The bugs aren't horrible, for the most part, but you'll end up with a bunch of VM installers on your box to handle bug reports. Java also doesn't give you much for free for game development, and any decent libraries for it will just increase the size of your download, but it's a possibility.

      I want to check out the Popcap framework as soon as I get time, because my experience with their plugin from a gamer standpoint has been great. It was a quick, smooth install, and the games look nice, so if it's easier to use than Flash and more reliable than Java it may be a winner.

      If you go downloadable, you can get stuff like Torque 2D; my post and a response are here:
      http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155159&c id=13009806

    3. Re:I'd get into making SWF games, but.. by KMcG · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you are a university student then you can get a discount rate from the school bookstore or http://www.journeyed.com/home.asp. I got my copy for $99 this way.

      Of course you can only use the license while you are student and can't make any money from your projects made with it...It's a great learning tool for non pirate types.

    4. Re:I'd get into making SWF games, but.. by castlec · · Score: 2, Interesting

      hey man, i was in the same boat as you two years ago. don't worry about the loans for now; just get somewhere and get some experience. i moved to prague. the economy here is great and there is a constant demand for developers. i'm returning to the US for a while but i can put you in contact with people here that can help you. don't expect much money (i don't make much more than 1000USD per month rigth now), but you'll set the foundation for a future career wherever you choose to be.

      --
      When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
  2. Not suprised by MBCook · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Makes sense to me for two reasons. First is that we all know how much money it takes to make a new Mario or Halo game. When you take a little game like the ones PopCap makes (my favorite place for such games) it's easy to see why that's true.

    But the bigger reason is accessability. My mom has purchased a couple of these games. They are simple, not twitched based (the ones she buys, she's not good at that kind of stuff), and easy for her to find and buy online. She can play them for a quick few minutes, or spend more than an hour playing them. In every way they are more accessible than a big console game.

    And these are basically the same kind of games a cell phone games which are also exploding (and what do you expect when many of them cost $5 A MONTH to play here in the US).

    I've tried my hand at it, and I intend to do it again. I'd love to be the next person to make a little game that goes BIG to become the next Bejeweled or Snood. My little game is on my website, and you just need Java 5 to play it, if you're interested.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    1. Re:Not suprised by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Gave your game a quick spin. Nice foundation, with additions and lots of tweaking you could definitely have yourself a Popcap-type game.

      The only negative (sorry if I'm telling you anything you already know) is the game being keyboard-controlled. One of the defining features of a Popcap game (and one of the reasons for their success IMO) is that it's controlled exclusively by mouse.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  3. Mobile gaming next by Bogtha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems to me, small, simple time-wasters will be just as big a market for people on the go soon. Mobile phones and PDAs are just as capable of running this type of game, and you can play them when you are stuck on the train or whatever too.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  4. Classic "Long Tail" play. by zentinal · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Sorry about using the currently overused new business / new economics buzzword, but this seems to me to be another variation on "The Long Tail" (see: Wired, Chris Anderson, Wikipedia), where you build a business based upon selling many different things with relatively low demand at relatively low volumes, instead of a small number of blockbusters at huge volume.

    While this makes horse-sense to me, I'd still like to see some numbers. There have to be some examples out there. I wonder if ringtone sales work the same way?

  5. Quick math! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Time to create graphics and gameplay for a simple arcade clone:

    I've done it in 120, lets be extravagant and say 320 (2 whole months).

    Set a cheap price: $5

    Set a goal for wages: $50/hr

    So the amount of money you want to bring in for your game, disregarding the tiny amount of advertising you might do, would be about 320*$50. At five dollars a game, thats just 3200 copies.

    Sell 3000 copies of a game people already love for dirt cheap and make $50/hr? Sign me up!

  6. Exactly! by blueZhift · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Forget about going head to head with EA, or Ubisoft! If I can just make beer money with little flash games, I'll be quite happy. Seriously, with little overhead and some quirky, addictive games, the small timer can do quite well picking up quarters that the EA's cannot really afford to reach. That's what I mean by conquering the world one pixel at a time. Now if I could just get those titles finished!

    --
    To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
  7. I'd love to do this. by BigZaphod · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've thought about trying to enter this world for a long time, but I frequently run up against two problems:

    1) lack of long term attention span
    2) artistic ability

    The closest I've ever come to a functional game is demonstrated by the stunningly cutting edge and innovative game, PigShooter. (I use the worlds "stunningly", "cutting edge", "innovative", and "game" somewhat loosely...)

    --
    Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
  8. Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2 by mbourgon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IIRC, totally written by one guy. And sold at least several hundred thousand units, spawned what seems like a dozen sequels and expansion packs. Chris Sawyer.

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
    1. Re:Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2 by Attrition_cp · · Score: 1, Interesting

      He was also the creater of the less-successful, but still loved Transport Tycoon of the early 90s. He still does all his own coding, and employs a artist and a musician only. Not bad if you ask me..

      --
      Touched By His Noodley Appendage.
  9. Small games, "big" money... by cr0sh · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Something that I have found interesting is the following game/game engine (note, it only works with IE currently):

    TRIGLAV RPG

    This game (and the engine behind it) utilizes some really nice DHTML footwork to create something real close to the isometric look and feel of Diablo and similar games.

    Another game I found while looking around:

    DHTML Arkanoid

    This one appears to work with all browsers, and even has nice sound effects.

    Both of these examples show that you don't necessarily need to have Flash or know Java to create these types of games - it is possible to do them using only browser-based technologies and/or some server side work.

    Just to throw in another "buzzword" - AJAX-based gaming!

    --
    Reason is the Path to God - Anon
  10. Fluff article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That article is just fluff. That's why they put those large pictures in the background. To distract you from the fact that the actual article is barely informative.

    OK, I'll switch rails here and get more specific: The article makes it sound like:
    A. It's easy
    B. EVERYONE gets rich.
    C. EVERY independant and/or casual game sells crazy numbers.

    This is so far from the truth. And the writer avoids the key reasons WHY some casual games are huge hits: MARKETING. It's quite easy to sell huge numbers of a game like Bejeweled when it's featured on SO MANY (All?) casual game websites.

    Now if Joe Shareware writes a game that's got ALL the key points a good original game requires, does that guarantee the same sales as Bejeweled?! Of course not! No one will buy Joe's game if no one has heard, seen, or played Joe's game!!! This is true of any commodity. Making the public aware your product exists is half the battle.