Porter's World

Porter Vs Benologist

Greetings fellow members of the flash game industry. Word on the street is everything this blog has to offer isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Ben Lowry, AKA FlashGameLicense member Benologist, founder of SWFStats, has called me out on my lack of actual work. My perception of our numerous debates, simply put, is that he claims I’m all talk, and no action. Although I’ve created or co-created Stabika 1, Stabika 2, Stabika 3, Dominus Void, Gravibounce, Tower of Greed, Traverse (being released this week by Ninja Kiwi), and a few others that were contract work or not worth mentioning, there may be some truth to that statement. I in absolutely no way work “full time”. Creating flash games is indeed how I pay my rent (with very little help from revenue earned on this site), however I live a very affordable lifestyle which requires very little funds from me. I simply work enough to get by and enjoy a very social life; which is exactly what I’ve tried to accomplish. That being said, I in absolutely no way feel that my lack of releases disqualifies me from sharing (and knowledgeably so) anything on this blog.

So here’s what’s going down; Beno decided that it would be great to give me the rest of the month to come up with something sale worthy. I’m to do everything except for the art, which my partner Andrew will cover. If I’m to succeed in creating a game “sell-able” by April, he’s going to give me $100 USD. If I fail at doing so, he can continue to run his pompous mouth to me about how I never work and I’m all talk, and I’m not to consume any amount of alcohol for 2 weeks. Although I could easily win this bet on a technicality of creating something incredibly simple and “sell-able”, I’m actually going to knock something out of decent quality; at least by the standards of 2 weeks worth of game development.

Before you guys get the wrong idea about the relationship between Benologist and I, let me explain a bit about how this bet came to be. First off, Benologist is a business man. He makes games for money, and almost always no other reason. I almost always make games for fun, unless I’m in need of quick cash, in which case I’ll pull something together to get me some rent money for a few months. Having these different views creates a lot of tension between us during conversation, and very often results in a heated debate. These heated debates generally just die down, with either me or Benologist going back to work, or Benologist choosing a new target within the FGL chat room to badger. Either way, the relationship between the two of us isn’t exactly mortal enemies, sometimes it’s just fun to have a rival or pseudo enemy of sorts. That being said, he does talk a lot of crap about me, and he is an arrogant prick, egotistical, and an ass more often than not, and if I didn’t talk just a little bit of crap about him, this wouldn’t be nearly as fun, so let it begin; compliments to JJWallace for the wonderful art below,

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how the bet turns out, I love proving people wrong when a worthy opportunity arises. In addition, I don’t need that $100, and to prove this, I’ll be framing the check or $100 bill he sends and sharing it with you all as soon as it’s in my hands. Overall, I’ll take this opportunity to not only prove him wrong, but to grab some extra cash for myself. I’ve already got an idea of what I want to do, so it’s about time I stop writing this and get to work. Check back often, as I’ll be updating my progress every few days up until the final day on April 30th. If you’re taking sides, or just have something to say, be sure to do so; can’t ever get enough entertainment.

The Fight Against Time

Organization and planning are key to the success of any project. As far as planning goes, managing your time is a big one. Over the years, I’ve found that every single game, web, or programming task I’ve ever set out to do takes significantly longer to complete than my original assumption. Even with the knowledge I’ve gained that things will take longer, I still seem to exceed the time I give myself. Poor time  management may not sound like it’s going to kill you, and it won’t (at least it shouldn’t, I can’t promise anything), but it could end up costing you thousands of dollars, especially when it comes to selling your games.

Good time management skills are definitely something you’re going to want in the flash game industry, especially if you’re new. As mentioned in my post, Being Your Own Boss, it’s incredibly hard to get started as a member of the self employed world; you better have some money saved, or excellent time management and game design skills. As someone new to the industry, you’ll find yourself looking for help more than you anticipated. Waiting for responses in forums, or looking online elsewhere for help can take a long time, a lot more than most people leave room for. In addition, you likely won’t have any contacts with sponsors, so the sales portion of the job will probably take significantly longer than someone with their foot in the door to the industry.

While on the topic of sales, let’s take a look at that bit about I mentioned about losing thousands of dollars. If you’re not working a second job, or sitting on a few thousand dollars of extra money, you may find yourself needing rent money, and soon. As great as this career path is, the time in which you’ll receive your money for a finished game is very unpredictable. Some sponsors will pay you as soon as the deal is confirmed, others will send it 30 days after they receive the final .swf. I’ve experienced the panicked emotions that arise when you’re counting the days until rent is due and frantically trying to finish a game and get it sold, it’s not a pleasant experience. The last thing you want to do is finish a game, or make a game because you need some cash; you should always be making games for fun, or it should at least be your primary concern (yes fun comes before paying rent). Sometimes games will get amazing bids within just a few days, as shown in this post on the SteamBirds earnings; other times you’ll want to give yourself a full month to find a good deal, sometimes two or three. That’s over 30 days of waiting just from the time you finish your game, and that doesn’t include waiting for payment.

Aside from giving yourself time for a proper bid to come through, you’ll also need time to accept, and be prepared for different types of deals. For instance, I’ve passed up performance based deals that would have earned me another $2,000 had I been able to afford having that money trickle in a bit slower (over the course of a few months). I was unfortunately not able to do so, and had to accept a more upfront payment at the time. If I had been prepared to accept payment at a later date, I could have had myself another couple grand, which would have been great.

It’s rather clear that there is money to be had (or lost) based on your time management skills, so it’s obvious that cracking down on those skills is essential for anyone looking to fully utilize their potential. I personally use Klok to keep track of my time management, it’s an excellent program and is incredibly easy to use; check out my review on that for more information. Hopefully with the above knowledge I can save a few of you a couple bucks, or perhaps a couple grand; feel free to buy me a drink or four if this advice saves you some cash one day.

Sponsors Love Mouse Support

A very simple concept that is often overlooked is the importance of mouse support. As far as sponsorships go, you are far more likely to get a sponsor if your game is fully mouse controlled. A great game will always sell, adding mouse support just increases that chance, as well as the money you’ll receive for your sponsorship.

There’s a few reasons mouse controlled games do so well. The first we’ll look at is why sponsors love mouse support. Having mouse support greatly increases the amount of click-throughs a sponsor receives from your game. This is the entire reason the sponsor pays to put their name in your game, so it’s essentially the most important feature aside from your game being great. Even an amazing game without mouse support will find a lot of trouble getting a sponsor because it simply doesn’t give enough click-through back to the sponsors site. I spoke with Lars,( the Games Acquisition Manager for King.com) about why mouse support was so important and he shed a lot of light on the matter. My recently sponsored game Tower of Greed was a rare exception in Lar’s pickings, he generally only sponsors games that are mouse controlled, however this is proof that a great game can still recieve sponsorship if it’s built right. Although the game is entirely keyboard friendly, we did include mouse support for menus to raise the click back for King as well as make the game more user friendly.

That leads us to the next big reason mouse support is so important, it’s user friendly. Flash game players are not your usual gamers, unlike console gamers, flash gamers aren’t used to using a controller. I personally love keyboard controls, far more than mouse controls. As strong as my liking for keyboard controls is, I grew up playing NES, SNES and so on, and I recognize that. As simplistic as arrows or WASD with one hand ,and two buttons for jump and another action with the other hand may be to many gamers, many flash game players find these controls to be very confusing.

Overall using mouse support is something you should definitely do if you can. If you’re a beginner to the industry I highly recommend you use a game that is fully controlled with the mouse. It’s rough starting out and using the mouse for your control scheme will greatly boost your chance of finding a sponsor while you lack abilities in other areas due to inexperience. In the end, using the mouse for your game’s control scheme is going to benefit you, your sponsor and your players, so be sure to consider such things when planning a new game.

You're Not Done

There’s always a lot of talk about how to make great games. From my experience however, there isn’t too much talk about what to do after your game is completed. Believe it or, there’s a lot of work to be done after your game is completed, and it’s quite possibly just as important as the work done beforehand.

Let’s take a look at the obvious work that must be done after completing your game, as said above, finding a sponsor. It may sound straight forward, but the sponsor you pick goes far beyond the current project you just completed. Picking the right sponsor could be your doorway to a stable relationship with that sponsor and help increase speed as well as revenue earned from future projects. If you own your own portal, you’ll want a splash intro screen that leads back to your site. It’s not he main branding of the game, but if the game does well enough this will get you a considerable amount of traffic. With this in mind, it’s very important to pick a sponsor that has a great distribution program. Some of the bigger sponsors will push your game much further than any of the smaller sponsors could wish to. Spreading your game to as many players as possible helps build you a name, and that name can prove incredibly powerful down the road when you have a few games under your belt.

Moving on from the more known knowledge and diving into the lesser known works of post-completion. Once your game is sponsored and released, there’s a lot to be done. Submitting your game to all the right portals is a must do. Such sites include, Kongregate, Newgrounds, Armor Games, MiniJuegos, AllGamesAllFree and FlashGameDistribution. It’s important that you the developer upload to these sites, because in most cases your sponsor can’t submit them. If possible you should add in medals to your Newgrounds games, and include the API on Kongregate in case Greg picks your game for badges, which is a huge plus.

There is also extra money to be made beyond getting your upfront sponsor payment. Sites such as, Newgrounds, Kongregate and Fizzy all offer revenue share plans to developers, and if you’re game gets enough views this could mean some very nice additional money in your pocket. Another huge plus to spreading your game around the net and getting exposure is the wonderful concept of non-exclusive licenses, or NE’s for short. Sites will contact you to buy a license for a site locked copy of your game on their site, given your game is successful enough. These copies generally sell between $100-$400, and up to $1000 in special cases. These sponsors pay for you to remove all outgoing links and original branding, which in most sponsorship cases is allowed according to your agreement, but always double check before signing a contract. In addition to the above, if you have in game advertisements in your game you can also see an extra chunk of change if your game does well. With all of the above you can be seeing a very nice amount of extra money, one that can sometimes exceed your original payment. I think it’s safe to say that under no circumstances should the above events be skipped before you jump into your next game.

Another hugely overlooked aspect of post-completion is relationship building. Making your sponsor proud to have selected your game is very important and builds a foundation for future sponsorships. Having this kind of a relationship scores you more money in the future, and also saves you time looking for a sponsor since you can directly contact your previous sponsor to pitch ideas or show them a finished product before anyone else sees it. This is exceptionally important seeing as one of the major loses many people suffer is a load of down time between games due to looking for a sponsor.

By now it’s no mystery that the work doesn’t end upon getting a sponsor. There’s reputation to be had, money to be earned and relationships to be created or fortified. The bonuses of having a good reputation help future games enormously, and a bit of reputation never hurt anyone’s ego. The extra money is great, and in cases such as mine can even pay rent between games. Overall there’s a lot of extra work to be done once your game is complete, but it’s certainly not without reward.