About the multiple sponsors on one viral version, I’ve seen it discussed a couple of times and I actually think it is a good idea. It would be a matter of having a direct relation between what each portal would pay and the amount of times it was showned because it is not possible to imagine that each portal would pay the exact same amount.

Some have vented to sell time based sponsorships, for instance, a portal buying 30 days of sponsorship. Personally I don’t think this would work since a typical game number of plays fades quite fast.

Your notion of multiple sponsors on other products is well thought, thanks for sharing.

About NEs… if you think they are misunderstood by some new devs, try chatting about it with small portals, to whom, by their size, I would easily sell for way less money (read the traffic part) and make everyone happy.

Kongregate is a great case of publishing because the games they publish are for their portal only, focused on multiplayer, being Kongai the only example I’m aware of. I don’t think that their publishing is pushing viral games though, but if fits their needs and devs projects, it’s a way to go!

About FFG… what can I say really? It’s a real pleasure to read his blog and keep a good open and honest discussion going.

Regarding Primary Sponsorship:

It is an interesting point you make about other industries making deals where there are multiple sponsors on one product or event. I wonder if the primary reason for this is the extreme cost of some of the industries we see this in as well as the multiple facets that make up these heavily sponsored products. In your racing example for instance; we have an industry with many expensive products (tires, engines, lubricants etc) that all have different companies making them. I believe that in our industry a prime difference is that our sponsors are from one facet (portal) and are in direct competition. My point is that I would guess it would be quite rare to see one car sponsored by TWO tire companies. We are likely a bit limited to try and work the multiple sponsorship angle unless we can figure out how to make the sponsors of our products feel that their investment makes sense. I can’t think of the angle right now though unless you would share a randomized time-share of your game.. where you have two sponsors (or more) of one viral version that picks randomly based on sponsorship amount to split between viral views. On one load it shows sponsor 1 and on another shows sponsor 2. Has any one tried this?

Regarding Non-Exclusive Licenses:

I agree with your points here and just want to add the other big reason that the NE buyers see value in is of course what I call “keeping the players in my casino.” It is funny to me that the construct of the primary sponsorship/license has created a new dynamic of the NE. Because the primary branding is normally driving viral traffic back to the primary portal destination an opportunity was created to make other portals charge to remove that pointer. Now as a portal I can purchase an NE on a popular game I want on my site (any amount of time after viral peak and release) and it still makes sense in that it won’t make my loyal viewers get distracted and leave my own portal. I have been having good luck making up developer cost on “the back end” by selling NEs to recoup time that maybe wasn’t fully covered via cost of primary sponsorship. I think NEs are really misunderstood and underrated from a lot of new developers I’ve talked to as a revenue source. They are almost what I focus more time on then the primary.

Regarding Publishing:

I believe some of the larger portals have spoken to this effect. I recall that Kongregate has a section of it’s website where they mention you could pitch a game concept to them and that they would work with you perhaps even with budget advances and such to fund large projects. I’m not certain if this is just sponsorship in advance or pure publishing deal but more likely a hybrid right now. I guess publishing is similar in a few ways to doing freelancing/contract work for hire for someone else’s game.

Good stuff here to think about though. I’m enjoying reading these ongoing discussions between FFG and VG.

Take care,
Dave