Getting Asteroids Revenge III - Crash to Survive, Sponsored

*Update - Oct 3rd, 2007 - X is roughly equal to $750

The “knowledge” and “advice” from this story has already been extracted and organized on the rest of the site.  However, if you are curious for some of the personal details of my experience (and have 5-10 minutes to spare) you can read below.   :)

I got into programming a little over 10 years ago (1996) and I learned it by building games with Macromedia Director 4. I made an asteroids style game called Galactic Warriors (shockwave site of the day) and some other half finished games before I got snatched up into "real" work. Early in 2007 I ran across Kongregate and it compelled me to dig up my old games and post them (sadly I could not find a copy of Galactic Warriors). I received a lot of feedback from the users, it wasn't necessarily good feedback on those old crappy games... but it was fun! I decided to get back to my roots and make a new game... to have a then & now comparison.

So I started work on LazyBox a few hours here, a few hours there. Since I was making LazyBox anyway I figured I might try to make a bit of $$ off it. I was curious how the whole financial side of flash games worked so I started a thread on Kongregate’s forums asking for advice.

I made a fair amount of progress on LazyBox but it got completely interrupted when I saw a newly uploaded game - Asteroids Revenge. The idea of an asteroid fighting back was so compelling that I HAD to make a version of it myself. I quickly put together a “sequel” to the original, posted it and then started work on a more polished version. About midway through the polishing process I sent a note to Greg at Kongregate to ask about a sponsorship. He wrote me back and said while he liked the game it wasn't sponsorship material (he was right). I wrote back and started telling him about all the things it would be once the game was done - no response to this. (Why should he believe me... everyone claims the final game will be better).

I wasn’t worried; I had heard a lot about MochiAds and wanted to try it out myself. I finished the game, added MochiAds and released it. MochiAd's was awesome... repeatedly refreshing the page to watch the pennies roll in! 

Ultimately I was disappointed with the money generated from MochiAds but I’m very glad I released a game this way so I could better understand how it works.With the right kind of game I think MochiAds would be an ideal way to go.

Out of curiosity I wondered if other portals would have been interested in the game. I sent a link to ArmorGames showing them the game and introducing myself.  I said I had already released this game to the web but I was curious how much they would have paid to sponsor it.  Dan (ArmorGames) quickly wrote back and said he really liked the game and that he probably would have paid $X for it and to let him know about any future games I make.

The X ($750) amount was a lot more then I had imagined for the game (and the time I spent on it).  

The main thing lacking in AR2 was a level structure and a power-up system.  Based on Dan's (ArmorGames) quote I figured that if I added these things I would be able to get a decent amount of money for my time.  So I got back to work.

Several weeks later I had implemented the ally control system, the repulse ships, ally power-up and about eight levels of the game.  I sent a link to Dan (ArmorGames) to see how much this "better" game would be worth.

First, let me say that I spent about six hours making the first release of AR and about 10 additional hours (plus time my artist spent on graphics) making the “polished” version.  At this point in Asteroids Revenge 3 I had spent about 100 hours (total) on the game and paid additional $$ for new graphics.  I wasn’t expecting to get 6 times the $$ for spending 6-7x as much time but I was hoping for maybe 2.5x or 3x as much.

The offer I got back from Dan (ArmorGames) was 2x (twice as much) and he defined some things like needing 20 levels and some other stuff I was planning to do anyways.  Honestly if he would have offered 2.5x I would have accepted it.  I thanked him greatly for the offer and said that while I wasn’t declining it I wanted to see if anyone else might be interested before accepting.  I asked if there was a time limit to the offer.  Dan (ArmorGames) wrote back to say that he understood completely and the offer would stay open to me.

I then sent a link to the game (site-locked and encrypted) to ArcadeTown, CrazyMonkeyGames, Kongregate (again), MiniClip, FreeWorldGroup, Shockwave and a couple other places.

I didn’t hear anything for the next 36 hours... and it wasn’t for lack of hitting my send & receive button.  :)

Finally I got an email from Joe at ArcadeTown saying he loved the game and asked me how much I was wanting for it.  I said that I didn’t really know what it worth but shared what Dan (ArmorGames) was offering.

Joe (ArcadeTown) came back with a 2.5x offer which I thanked him for and said I would get back to him after I heard from anyone else.

Within a few hours I got an email from John at CrazyMonkeyGames saying he loved the game and that he knew he could make a great offer if the final version lived up to my promises.  He was leaving on vacation for 10 days and was anxious to see it when he returned.

I quickly wrote back  to share the standing offers from Joe (ArcadeTown) and Dan (ArmorGames).  Then I asked for a general idea of what his “nice” offer would be so I could decide if I should wait for him or go with someone else.  John (CMG) wrote back and said it would be at least 4x.  I thanked him generously and said I would almost certainly wait for him to return! :)

This was a surprising and exciting moment for me. Within 48 hours, without doing anything additional to the game, I had doubled the amount of money being offered for sponsorship.

I again thanked everyone for the offers and advice they had provided me.  I told them I wanted to finish the game so it would be very clear exactly what everyone was buying (and I was hoping the offers would go even higher as I added more stuff).

I should also mention that I got an email from Greg congratulating me on the great offers and that Kongregate would have been interested in a sponsorship but it was getting a little outside of their normal range.

With the interest I was getting I decided to invest even more into the game.  I wanted a fun intro story, more elaborate power-ups, final boss and some other ideas I had considered but couldn’t previously justify the time or money.  I bought some great music, sound effects and even hired Case to do some custom sounds for me.

I’m going to condense a lot of the remaining details and negations to quickly reach the “end points.”

Over the next weeks (and additional 100 hours of development time) I stayed in touch with everyone and would release new builds of the game every few days.  Dan (ArmorGames) was great about steadily and slowly increasing his offer with each build I uploaded.  This was great encouragement to me.

I did one more “mass mailing” to see if any other sites were interested.  I made some nice contacts and even got some bites from the bigger “fish” but my existing offers (and relationships) were better.

Eventually I ended up with offers of nearly 6x (six times what I would have gotten for AR2) from CrazyMonkeyGames and ArmorGames.  ArcadeTown was offering 5x and the option to sell non-branded site-locked versions to other sites.

I was extremely torn on who to pick.  The ability to sell site locked versions was compelling but ultimately I decided to go with John (CMG) or Dan (ArmorGames).  A large part of this decision was based on the tremendous amount of time they both spent with me offering advice and input as the game evolved.

Since the offers were virtually identical and I couldn’t find an objective reason to pick one over the other I decided to have both of them play the final game and I would select whoever got the highest score!  Admittedly, I came up with this “idea” late at night, sent it out and by morning I was regretting it as not a “professional” thing to do.  Luckily, both Dan and John thought it was a fitting and fun way to end a deadlocked tie.

John (CMG) was victorious with a score that was actually better then I had ever achieved… although its nothing compared to what some other players are achieving now.

It was very important to me that I got a good deal for all the effort and love I put into the game.  One thing that really struck me when I started this process was how little information was available on how the sponsorship process worked and what was the best way to go about it.  I spent a tremendous amount of time researching and talking to as many people as possible.

My goal with this site is to share all of my acquired knowledge so hopefully the process will be easier for other developers and you can get as much money as possible for all of your hard work!

[Coming Soon - Part 2, the creation of FlashGameLicense]