Beginner
Level
by Jon(Updated on 2015-10-17)
GAME Earn real money with Pipstycoon Pipstycoon is a new strategy game by the cashtowns admin, in which you have the possibility to convert your virtual currency into real money. It is an online browser game, therefore you don't need any other programs installed in order to play.
- While Long Game can be a fun way to gamify your savings and earn some extra money by playing games, it’s worth considering the opportunity cost. Many online savings accounts offer interest rates.
- If looking for good, durable and free browser based online games to try and make real money, they are a good place to start. They give the opportunity to earn money while playing free strategy and economic games. They are light MMO games played in a browser, that run on computers, laptops and They are played daily.
This article is based on a blog post that Michael 'damijin' Gribbin wrote for us in 2010. The market has changed a lot since then, but the basic principles are still relevant. Michael is a successful indie game developer who's currently working on mobile games.
For tips on monetizing mobile games, view our article on that.
Contents
- Introduction
- Ads
- Sponsorships
- How to Find a Sponsorship
- Non-Exclusive Licensing
Introduction
Making money off a web game is quite doable if you put your mind to it. With a Flash game, there are clear, established ways to make money, and for certain kinds of games, you can generate more revenue than going through a mobile App Store.
Besides creating games to make money whether it be for a living or for profit, it forces you to put more effort into what you’re doing. Creating a finished product and shipping it - the “last 10%” is something that can only be taught by doing it.
You’ll learn how to market your game, how to roll it out to testers, how to think from the user’s perspective, how to negotiate and get that sense of independence from knowing what you’re doing, which opens the doors to bigger and better opportunities.
Ads
Ads are a default way to make money, but unless your game is wildly popular or has already been sponsored, you aren’t going to see very much.
The amount you get from your game can be measured either in CPM (how much you get for every 1000 views of the ad) or in CPC (how much you get from a clickthrough). CPM varies depending on the quality of the ad, which in turn is dictated by the quality and size of the audience. It's more common for games than CPC.
Roughly speaking, ads fall into 2 categories.
- In-Game Ads
- Portals (Revenue Share)
CPMStar is one of the major players in the world of in-game advertising. CPMStar is an invite only network, so while its reach is a little smaller, its rates are better than the norm.
With Portals, your best bet is Kongregate, which shares between 25 - 50% of revenue (through banner ads and pre-game ads) depending how integrated your game is with their API and exclusivity to them. Their CPMs are decent because of the relatively high quality of the games on the site and the focused, gamer-centric audience.
Bottom Line: All in all, ads are at best, a supplementary form of revenue that can tack on a little extra to a game that’s popular or sponsored, but they are rarely a primary source.
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are in general, the best way to make money with web games.
Sponsors are game portals who purchase exclusive rights to market and distribute your game on their site and other portals. How do they make it back? Through attracting players back to their portal, which drives in ad revenue for them.
Sponsorships vary widely in payment styles and terms. Generally speaking, they fall into one of 3 categories.
- Lump Sum
- Performance-Based
- Hybrid of Both
Lump Sum
In lump sum arrangement, the sponsor pays you a fixed amount to buy exclusivity to the game indefinitely or for an agreed upon period of time, before the game “unlocks” and can be distributed on other portals.
What’s the range? From as low as $100 all the way up into the $10,000+ range. The median is somewhere around $500 for the average sponsor. For higher end sponsors such as Armor Games, it's still possible to receive a couple thousand.
This all depends on your ability to negotiate, your prior portfolio, the terms, the sponsor, and of course, the quality and potential of the game.
Performance-Based
In a performance-based arrangement, you are paid per click back to the sponsor’s site or per plays on their site.
Hybrid
Put the two together, and you get a model where you get some upfront payment and payment upon reaching certain milestones. For example, Armor Games could offer you $3,000 base but $150 for every 100k plays on their site and $200 for hitting the front pages of Kongregate and Newgrounds - all milestones that our best games regularly hit.
In the very best circumstances, a well-performing game may receive an offer to port the game over to iOS. ArmorGames did this for Kingdom Rush, and it’s opened up a new frontier in the world of sponsored games.
How do you find a sponsorship in the first place?
Two ways.
- Contacts / Your Network
FlashGameLicense (FGL)
FGL is essentially an eBay for sponsored games. For a 10% cut (as of this writing), they practically guarantee that a decent game (by their definition - they rate you from 1 - 10, with 8 being the magic number) will receive bids from sponsors. Some developers have voiced concerns with FGL, but for most developers, it’s still a great way to get noticed for the first time.
My advice is this: do your research and make sure you’re not getting screwed by the sponsor. Don’t automatically accept the highest offer. Think it through and go with your gut instinct.
Networking
The second way to snag a sponsorship is through contacts and people you know. I can’t coach much on this because it’s a natural cycle - if you know good game developers or have prior contact with the owners of sites, it’s relatively easy to snag a sponsorship that way. Building a reputation for making great, well-performing games will land you in this spot over time.
Non-Exclusive Licensing
Not all sponsors allow for non-exclusive licensing, but the better ones do. The idea behind non-exclusive licensing is that you can sell a version of your game to a specific website, such as AddictingGames.com, and you re-brand the game for their website so that it shows AddictingGames’ logos instead of your primary sponsor's logos.
Check out Pyro II on Kongregate...http://www.kongregate.com/games/damijin/pyro-ii
Versus the one for AddictingGames...http://www.addictinggames.com/pyroii.html
Damijin's primary sponsor was Kongregate, and they paid him for his game, so why would they let him do this with a direct competitor like AddictingGames? Here's what he had to say.
The reason is that some portals (like AddictingGames in particular) will NEVER under any circumstances show your game on their site UNLESS it is branded with their logos. That means AddictingGames will either have your game wearing their logos, or they will just not show it at all.
Kongregate knows this, and they know that they will not benefit from AddictingGames in any way because of that policy. But they also know I'm a starving developer, so they allow me to do a deal with AddictingGames where I got paid $750 to basically just change my logos and add a little site-lock code.
Non-exclusive licenses have been my second largest form on income behind sponsorships. Most tend to be around the $500 range for me, but I've done them for as low as $150, and as high as $1100. They tend to make up around 25% of the revenue for most of my games.'
Stencyl Games that won Major Sponsorships
All of what's been said about making money would be for naught if we didn’t have games of our own to back up our words. Many more Stencyl games have received sponsorships (or found overall success) than listed here. These are the highlights among them - the best have brought in over $10,000 USD.
| Game / Author | Sponsor | Screenshot |
|---|---|---|
| Skullface (Greg Sergeant) | Armor Games | |
| Kreayshawn Goes to Japan (Beth Maher) | Columbia Records (Sony) | |
| Traitor (Jonas Kyratzes) | Newgrounds | |
| Making Monkeys (Greg Sergeant) | Armor Games | |
| Gyossait (amon26) | Newgrounds | |
| Balls in Space (Michael Gribbin) | mofunzone |
Summary
- It’s possible to make some money creating web games.
- Go for a sponsorship if you want to make money.
- Protect your IP (intellectual property) - don’t sign away your rights, unless you don’t intend to use that IP again.
11 Comments
I agree with the author. My brother makes money with playing. He plays as different online games such as Dota, Gold Farm, 777spinslot.com as different mobile apps. He want become a game tester.
0
You'll earn more money by selling the game than trying to earn from ads if you try it to distribute it on your own.... But it's hard to sell it these days..
There are exceptions though. I got this game for approx 200 dollars (unbelievable isn't it?) http://www.crazyscarygames.com/mons ter-games/my-monster-xs/ and within 3 years it earned at least 5 times more from ads.
0
Pls can anyone tell me how to add CPMstar ads to my game?
0
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I'm not sure I understand. Isn't there some way to sell the game directly to the user, say a certain fixed price per user?
I thought that was what places like the Chrome store were for.
The sort of revenue from ads or sponsorships that you mentioned seems ridiculously low for the months of effort
that goes into creating a quality game.
0
Hello everybody. Please, could you provide me with useful information about where I should add mochi ads(the best placements and how many?) and what I should do after I have posted my game on their website? I mean, they only supply me with advertisemnts and the rest of the things I must do myself or it will be on their website and bring me some money? Please, maybe somebody have a 'step by step instruction' or video? Or firstly I should upload it on mochi and after that I can use a Kongregate portal in order to publish it there? And is mochi only for in-game ads?
1
i have some questions:
if you put your game in a portal,kongregate for example and it gets a lot of views, how do they pay you?
can you put google addsence in your games?
what is API?
thank you, i really like the article it is very helpful
0
Wait, wait, just to make it clear(this is only my second year in Canada). If I sold my IP to Company A, Company A has the right to edit more levels or change the music of my game and I couldn't do anything right?
1
thanks, Judgie375!
0
IP is intellectual property. Example, Megaman is an IP. If Capcom sold Megaman to EA, then EA could do anything it wanted to with the series, and if Capcom didn't like what EA was doing, Capcom couldn't do anything about it. So protecting your IP means, when you put your work into something, unless it was a one shot with no further use for any of the content, be careful with the deals you make, as you could stand to lose the work in return for the cash.
1
They give the opportunity to earn money while playing free strategy and economic games. They are light MMO games played in a browser, that run on computers, laptops and mobile phones. They are played daily. When checking the news in the Internet, desk working, chatting or boring waiting, they suit perfectly.
How it works:
Like most modern games, these 4 games are 'Freemium'. This means, that they are free to play with options for upgrades, that are paid. Just like most Facebook games. Upgrades include artifacts, boosts, bonuses, time saving and all kind of gadgets. Then the game developers share a small part of their income from upgrades with all players. This mean, the best player gets the biggest prize.
How to proceed:
You may think for these games like they are Pets or Tamagotchi. They will need growing and care. They will probably bring joy and anger. It is a world of recreation and devotion, that can bring some long term reward. The key to enjoy the money making games, is patience, perseverance and minimum emotions.
What to expect:
You will probably not get rich, but the games are cool and worth trying. Depending on the game style and time spent, free players can make 3-10 euro/month, after the first year of development. Depending on investment, players who pay for upgrades, get more.