Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Business Model… the missing link…

I have to say I’m still doubtful if I should address this in our blog. I will not go into the details of what a business model is what it is not, how it influences strategy and all that stuff. For that a Wikipedia link to Business Model is more than enough.

As I think it notices in other posts in our blog, I still feel that developers are not fully aware of where they are positioned in the flash game market. I’m not 100% sure but I think that what I spoke most with other developers was about business. I admit I feel quite comfortable with the business side of things and I understand that with the average age and work experience of most flash game developers, business is not something they feel comfortable or knowledgeable.

On the other hand there’s the problem of developers that feel they have a life of experience because they sold one game for $100. They use the word “noob” like there were no mirrors left on Earth. I would add to these a significant number of developers that advice others not to do something that they haven’t tried.

And where does a business model fit into this? Well, most of what defines a business model is well known by developers. What is relevant to discuss, in my opinion, is what are the options available in terms of activities and revenue. Many developers ask me how did Vortix achieve this or achieve that. How do we do it? How much do we earn… stuff like that… I can only be theoretical about it because I’m not fully aware the most sensitive piece of information: THE DEVELOPER!

You need to know yourself, you need to understand, not business but your business and you need to neglect all opinions that are negative in nature to what models, activities and revenue streams that are available to you as a flash game developer.

In the next few days I’ll address Sponsorship and Licensing, Collaborative Projects and Contract Projects as activities and their revenues but I feel that what is important is how do these activities affected us at Vortix so you can relate to your own business model. Because there is no perfect or good business model, there’s only YOUR business model.

Our actions don’t affect us because we are not professionals

Rant mode on…

Saying you believe in your own potential and in the quality of what you do or create is a huge measure of your own success and value. The rest is proving it. This is true when you want to improve everyday of your professional life and it is damn difficult to prove it. Bottom line is that no one takes your word for it, you have to prove it by showing your potential and quality, therefor your success and value.

Nothing is more a reflection of this than it’s exact opposite. If you say you don’t believe your own quality and potential people around you will take that for granted! No one needs prove of the lack of value, quality or success of someone that says it! Everyone will take your word for it!

Now transpose this to a reality where money is involved, let’s say, for some reason, I’m talking about the flash game market reality. The portals want to buy content at the lowest possible cost, which is only natural. The developers want to sell that content for the highest possible margin.

Portals do their best to have a professional behavior. Portals excel at saying they are good and to prove it. Obviously if it’s proven, we all know they are or at least they do their best to be.

But I just read that developers are not professionals said by a developer and the context of this is unprofessional behavior. What I read (and it’s just my opinion) is that the developers as a whole have a low potential, low quality and that they do it for the love of games. A developer said it… no need to prove it.

Even if one developer thinks that his unprofessional behavior won’t affect him because he is not a professional, it will, hard but I’m not worried at all. What worries me is that it is extended to the whole flash developers present in that community as if it was cool not to be professional. The value of the whole community will lower if that mentality spreads, thus lowering the potential for margin. Professional developers will do their best to prove they are not part of the pack, and probably will manage to do so, but the idea that actions don’t affect hobbyist developers will at least affect all hobbyist developers, some of them amazingly talented.

Rant mode off…

Player.IO: A Huge Step Forward

Are you into developing multiplayer games? I bet you are! Have you been through the headache of supporting it? I bet you haven’t!

In the beggining there was darkness…

Most developers dream of adding multiplayer games to their portfolio and the less wise or experienced often run to embrace a multiplayer project from any tool that offers a tiny bit of ease of use and more than often they either fail or face the fact that their game is not half of what it could be and already took twice the amount they thought it would take.

A good idea: Nonoba’s MP API

Sometime ago Nonoba offered a great API for multiplayer games. We tried it and technically we loved it. It was easy to implement, server-side code was written in C# (which brought tears of happiness to our eyes) and we did a rather small but entertaining game in a couple of days. Enough to say that from a technical point of view, Nonoba proved its point.

Unfortunately from a commercial point of view this API was not interesting for developers such as us, that want to license games. All multiplayer games powered by Nonoba’s MP API showed Nonoba’s branding, which is only natural: they support the servers, they have the service, so if we want it, we have to stick with it, after all, it’s free! All in all Nonoba’s multiplayer API is amazing for developers that do it simply for the love of it with no commercial interest.

So I must say that for all this time we were on a strange position: we love the technology, we hate the branding! Good thing about Nonoba is that they have people that want to hear from developers and believe me I wasted a lot of their time explaining why that didn’t work for us, hoping Nonoba would understand that if it didn’t work for us, it wouldn’t work for many developers.

Player.IO: A Huge Step Forward

Someone once told me:

Do you know what really works? McDonald’s! Everyone can go home, make a big burger and eat it! But for $1 you can eat the burger, without having to cook it and without having to wash dishes.

Let’s translate this to multiplayer game development…

For a given amount of money I can code multiplayer games without having to setup and maintain infrastructure… makes sense? Good, let me present you Player.IO!

All I’ve mentioned above regarding the technical aspect of Nonoba’s API probably stands. I say probably because we haven’t done any code with it for a long time, but I believe that if it’s any different, it’s because it’s better, not the opposite.

The good part is that no branding is present, at least no portal’s branding. As we speak, the free version (yes, there is a free version) will show Player.IO branding, but that’s not competition for any portal, so it’s ok I guess. Moreover, if you sell a license for your game, you’ll probably should consider a plan.

We haven’t touched Player.IO, we just have an idea of what we’ll get from it because of what we tried from Nonoba’s API. What I really like about all this is not the technical part or the branding being gone, but the great feeling that someone was smart enough to hear from developers and take a huge step forward with a strong commercial offer that can fit pretty much any development need.

Player.IO looks very solid and promising, we’ll try it as soon as possible and hopefully confirm it.

Microtransactions, a triangle of trust

So all the hype is now in the flash microtransaction deals. It looks like it is the next big thing. Everyone wants to get in. Well, what will happen is one of two things: everyone will get in and it won’t work or some will get in and it will work.

I used the expression “triangle of trust” a couple of days ago while discussing microtransactions has a new possible model opposed to the current sponsorship model. That triangle is made of player, portal and developer.

The player

The player must trust the portal because to the player’s eyes, the one selling something is the portal, not the developer. A player that trusts the portal and enjoys the game will be the target of the deal.

The portal

The portal must trust the developer and the content the developer creates to allow their game to go into their service, thus generating revenue.

The developer

The developer must trust the player is loyal enough to the portal and willing enough to put money in his game.

If the trust crosses the triangle, microtransactions as a model are very doable if the provider has very strict quality control standards. Content must be of excellence, implementation of the system must be obvious, clear and trustworthy for the player. This means a lot of hard-work from everyone involved.

So we need to come forward and close this triangle of trust between the portals that work with us and the players that play games in these portals. An extra mile is needed by the developer to have something that is worth playing and worth spending money on.

I don’t believe that this is the next big thing. I do believe it’s a fantastic value added to our poll of monetization resources, one that is struggling for fresh air.

Vlad out!

The Perfect Deal

Is there an ideal flash game sponsorship? According to our friend blog Freelance Flash Games, yes there is.

A good and honest debate started sometime ago on a comment in FFG’s blog, moved later on to a FGL chat, then to a post here and the circle closed with The Ideal Flash Game Sponsorship.

I hope it does not end here, honestly. I’m a strong believer that developers, portals and services should be closer and agree that we must at least have a wider discussion about our industry.

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