The future of sponsorship is the 'Primary License'... at least until we can come up with an even better way to make the developer (and the sponsor) a lot more money! ;)

The offer on 'Rockin to fame' was a primary license and a pretty incredibly offer that my partner Chris coordinated with AddictingGames. It's a shame they were to late with it.

You can read about the
Sponsorship Evolution
and
Sponsorship Terms

on www.flashgamesponsorship.com

The article is very partial.

Although it give a few good tips, it focuses in MochiAds contests, and most tips are specific for it. Note the blog is from MochiLand (which is MochiAd), and Jay is Game contest (the only contest pointed as good besides MochiAd contest) is sponsored by MochiAd.

It seem to me like a big MochiAd contests propaganda.

Kongregate is also a great contest that doesn't cost you anything to enter.
If you know of any others please let us know.

If you have entered or are thinking of entering flash game contest in the future.

You should read this:
How to Be a Winner at Flash Game Contest

You guys might also be interested in this posting

Lump Sum vs. Money Over Time

Hey guys!

You might already be familiar with:

Flash Game Sponsorship - A great resource to learn how the sponsorship process works with lots of tips and advice on how to get the best possible deal.

Flash Game Blogs - Perfect for checking the latest game news/reviews and thoughts of prominent flash game developers. [I'm still accepting submissions]

I'm extremely excited to announce the latest addition to the 'FlashGame' family of sites. Chris Hughes (ch00se) and I have built this site together and are both working hard to make it a success!

Flash Game License - A virtual marketplace to connect portals (or other game buyers) with developers. It supports all kinds of license types (exclusive licenses, sponsorships, non-exclusive, MochiAds, revenue sharing, etc).

There is lot to say about the site but I'm sure the most important question you have is "Does it work?' and I'm happy to say 'Yes. It does."

Between my previous agent services and the start of this new site we have already brokered:

4 Games over $3000
3 Games between $2000-$3000 (1 pending)
3 Games between $1000-$2000 (1 pending)
15+ Games under $1000.

Additionally we have sold over 20 non-exclusive licenses (2 over $500, the rest in the $100-$500 range) and setup tons of API deals ($50-100ish to integrate high scores with a portals site on previously released games).

We have nearly 100 games listed on the site and over 40 sponsors signed up. We are getting new games and seeking out new sponsors every day.

If you have read through FlashGameSponsorship or talked to other successful developers you know that it is IMPERATIVE to get your game in front of as many portals or buyers as possible in order to the get the best price. However, that can be a time consuming process and it's incredibly frustrating to write out 30 emails and only get a few responses back. You can read a bit more here - Flash Broker Services - for examples on how much more a game can receive when it is marketed properly.

FlashGameLicense.com simplifies this process and opens it up to all games big or small. If your game is "top-tier" then Chris and I will also personally email, IM and call the biggest sponsors to make sure they know about it! I can not understate how important this is in getting you the best possible deal.

Currently we are offering service for free although we are requesting a 10% commission from the developer if they believe our help was worth it. So far, nearly every developer has offered this to us after the deal. It is completely at your discretion.

If you are interested in uploading your game we request that you site lock it to www.flashgamelicense.com

It is also best practice to encrypt your game. Only approved sponsors are allowed to view your games but it never hurts to be extra cautious with your valuable IP. Many people will also put a clear 'demo' or other 'branded text' over the top of the game.

You can also upload 'work in progress' and update your build as you game nears completion. Often this can be a way to build interest (and potentially get some feedback) on your game during the development process. This is most value to developers that have already produced successful high end games since sponsors will have more trust that the final 'polish' will be added.

If you still have distribution rights to some of your old games (ArcadeTown and Kongregate sponsorship often allow this) you can upload the game and mark it as only being available for a non-exclusive license. There are a lot of new start-ups with venture capital looking to emulate the success of Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and other popular sites. Many are looking to take quality existing games, add their own branding and APIs, and get a version that is only playable on their site. They often pay between $250-$1000 for this depending the quality and type of game.

Chris and I are both game developers (Asteroids Revenge , Sola Rola , Juggle Trouble) so we have an 'idea' of things from your side of the fence and understand how much work and love goes into creating a great game. Our primary goal is to get YOU the best possible deals and value for your hard work.

Please let us know if you have any questions. I hope we get the opportunity to work with you!

39 game listed now. Thanks to everyone that is helping out!

Past Sponsorship Prices

Hey guys! Sorry its been so long since we have posted any updates. A LOT has been happening behind the scenes.

The biggest news is that Chris and I have merged our sites. So now you don't need to worry about uploading your game to two different places.

If you haven't logged in recently you should definitely do so! There have been a ton of new features added.

Perhaps the most important thing is some the business being done! We have arranged over 10 non-exclusive deals ranging from $200-$750.
A bunch of API deals... basically getting $50-$100 for simply adding an API to your existing game.

We have closed several sponsorship and many more are in the works.
The $3500 deal (mentioned earlier) is nearly complete. There have been 4-5 in the $300-$800 range (many allowing MochiAds). I know Chris closed another $700 sponsorship deal yesterday.

Here a couple bids on games currently listed:
$2500 - Sentinels of Mijil (Now sold.. for over this amount)
$2000 - Legacy of Guy - The Third
$750 - Balls To the Wall

There has been A LOT of interest in non-exclusive licenses. If your previous sponsorships allow you to sell custom branded site locked versions you should definitely build a 'site locked' version for our site and upload it. I know Kongregate and ArcadeTown both allow as their 'usual' agreement. If you are interested in doing this please sitelock the game to both www.fantasticchoice.com and www.flashgamelicense.com. Soon the only domain will be www.flashgamelicense.com but we have a couple network issues to sort out.

More to come in the near future! ;)

FlashGameLicense.com

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates recently. Things have really been going well behind the scenes!

For FlashGameLicense there are

$1000 bid on one game.
$2000 bid on another... which I think will raise come Monday when the final build of the game is released.

Then an incredible deal of $2500-$4000 (depending on the amount of customization the author accepts) for a third game. This one VASTLY exceeded my expectations!

There have been several bites for non-exclusives which I'm following up on.

I will say its been mostly the 'top tier' stuff that has attracted interest. I've got some ideas on this and I'm going to recruit some smaller portals that would be interested in getting some of the other games for in the $100-$500 range. A lot of the bigger sites I'm talking to simply don't have a desire for that 'scope' of game even for a low price.

In the mean time if you have a 'hot' game I'd love to see it Flash Game License and I feel pretty good about getting you an amazing deal!

Once the deals are finalized and all parties are comfortable I'm hoping to release the exact details for everyone's benefits.

Right now we have
42 games (4 more pending approval)
55 registered developers
33 registered sponsors (although a few are multiple people from the same portal)

It's a great start guys. I've had many long conversations with some of the bigger sponsors and have a ton of great feedback on how to make site more usable for everyone!

Adam

At 11/5/07 12:10 PM, xWELSHxDRAGONx wrote: Its hard to express why i think this is a bad idea for developers, I got all the reasons in my head, its jus writing thm down :P

First i put you house auctions. In most cases, a house in auction will sell for less than if it was done through an estate agent. Auctions normally mean quicksales, but lower prices, in regards to outside flash.

Now lets consider flash. Finally the sponsors will be the one chooseing the price - the delopers iwll ahve no choice. If somthing like this picks off, it means there will be lots of option for a sponsor, so they dont have to bid high, jus bid on alot - in some cases other sponsors wont pay more. I cant imagine unless its a really good game, sponsors making a bidding war - they wont go any higher than what they would ahve offered you anyway.

Seems to me the best u can do with this methed is draw or lose - theres no win for the developer.

Okay, now if the sponsor can get all these cheaper games, why are they gonna pay more for private games ? (again unless its very good)

I hope this dosnt take off. I have bad feelings.

An auction is not the only way to sell your game (on either of our sites). It is just one option available to you. Its also a feature I don't have on Flash Game License yet.

Getting the best price for your game generally occurs by getting it in front of many people as possible. Every portal is different, has different budgets, different tastes and perhaps most importantly different needs at different times. Sometimes a portal NEEDS a AAA game because they haven't released one in a while... and they are ready to pay a premium to get one NOW. Other times that same portal might have already spent the budget and won't offer anything for the exact same game.

My idea for FGL is simply to connect buyer and sellers and ideally get as many buyers as possible looking at YOUR games. When I implement an auction (a few weeks out) I plan for it to be non-binding, just like it is now as you bounce bids around via email among interested parties.

It will ALWAYS be the developer who decides if they accept or decline their highest offer. They might even accept an offer that isn't the highest if they feel more comfortable with that portal or they are offering non-tangible benefits.

At 11/4/07 02:25 PM, xXDathDalerXx wrote: no,believe me...i think it's a great idea,but 10% of the auction should be lowered
i can understand 10%+ if the person is hiring you personally to go out there & get him a deal...but not for an automated bidding auction

Yes, its hard to put a value on it but I do understand where you are coming from. And initially both Chris and I are not charging (or in my case giving you that option).

I do intend to take a personal role in the best games to make sure they get the maximum value possible. This includes personal emails, IM's (I have many of biggest portals IM accounts) or even a phone call if I think its warranted.

I've made a lot of great connections this year from building Asteroids Revenge III, Flash Game Sponsorship, Flash Game Blogs and I've been building a great game for Gimme5Games that should be released in next few weeks.

If I see a great game that would work perfectly on AddictingGames getting ready to have a deal made and then I see that Justin (works at AG) never looked it then I will chat him up and make sure he does not miss out on the opportunity. Everybody is busy and in a hurry, its easy to let things slip through the cracks... but if that means $100s or $1000s of dollars lost on a deal its VERY IMPORTANT to take the personal time to get the best possible result.

what you do anybody could do themselves & keep all the money,but hey...if they wanna pay you,who am i to stop them??

I agree that anyone who is willing to devote a lot of time contacting people, building relationship and negotiating can get themselves a great deal.

In fact the Flash Game Sponsorship site linked in the first post provides a tremendous amount of information on how to do this yourself. It also has a lot of information about sponsorships in general and other way to leverage your games.

Some people don't want to spend the time on this 'side' of the business. That is why I offer the agent services and its also why Chris (ch00se) and I have created FlashGameLicense and Fantastic Choice to make it easier for developers to get the best deal possible and spend less time doing it.

that is a ripoff 10% of 5,000 is 500...jesus christ,that percentage should be lowered to 5 or below
with the auctions games would probably get more than they are getting now,but that 10% takes them right back to the current bracket...why not just cut out the middle man & keep your 500 bucks??

As I mentioned its entirely optional. I've brokered several games (4 now) and a few more deals pending. In each case I was able to get vastly more the 10% commission would have worked out. In one case I got a game 4x as much money as the highest offer they were ready to accept.

You can see some example here:
Flash Agent/Broker Services

Hey guys! I'm glad you are excited about the idea!

Currently only approved sponsors can actually view the games. Both Chris and I already have several sponsors looking at the submitted games. As he stated their isn't any reason not to use the sites at the moment.

Both of our sites are currently free but I'm asking for a 10% donation if you accept and find value in the idea. I'm planning to take a personal role in the connections and interest received to help streamline and optimize any deals.

Do you guys know of some great flash game blogs?

I'm mostly looking for blogs from flash developers that either show coding tips and tutorials for games or simply talk about their new games they are making.

I'm also looking for blogs that deal just on the flash games themselves (like reviews).

I will compile the best ones together:
Flash Game Blogs

Please let me know your favorites! (or link to your own) :)

23 games listed now. Thanks to everyone that is sending me stuff!

How much did you get for your game sponsorship

At 10/2/07 06:26 PM, Goat-Man wrote: I'm new to the concept of sponsering games. ive always known that it's been done for most games, but never understand how it worked really. So hopefully im not out of place asking here.

how do you ask for a sponsership? do you give a link or something to a few different game sites, and ask them to see who will offer the most for it? and then, once they make an offer, do all you have to do is put their logo thing into your game?

Hey Goat-Man :)
Those questions are exactly what the site will answer. Probably WAY more information then you even care to read. :)
Flash Game Sponsorship

By just looking at a bunch of prices people start to feel like its really simple to just compare apples to apples. Ah well thats my rant take it with a grain o salt.

Thanks Luis, I agree it is not simple to compare one game to another and things like contests and bonuses make things even more confusing. I do think that having a resource like this for a developer would be better then not having it.

MrGlad, I believe FlashPortal and HallPass both sponsor movies. Although it is generally much less then what they would offer a game.

One idea you might consider is embedding your movie within a simple game.
A good example of this is Brink of Alientation: Sub

Thanks for everyone who responded. I have 15 games listed now.

Also I've spoken with John at CrazyMonkeyGames (and TurboGames). He has given blanket permission for any developer they sponsored to share the details with me (assuming YOU want to). :)

Hope to hear from you!

Adam

Thanks guys!

I have 2 more games listed now. 10 total.

I know this can be a sensitive thing to share... and you should definitely check with your sponsor before doing so. Truly, this information will be incredibly helpful to new developers in determining the value of their work.

If it is private or not depends on the developers relationship and agreements with the portal. I asked John (at crazy monkey games) before posting the amount and he didn't have a problem with it.

DreamworX thanks for pulling those out of the other thread.

I have 8 games listed so far.

One thing that has struck me is the drastically different amount of money that are paid for games. One portal might buy a game for $500 when another would have paid $2500 for the same thing.

As a new developer it it incredibly difficult to have a concept of the 'value' of your game. One thing that would be extremely helpful is a simple list that states how much someone got for a game and from which sponsor.

If you are willing to share please post the games you have gotten sponsored, how much $$ you received for them and from which Portal.

I'll compile a list and post it:
How much did you get for your game sponsorship

Just post you game like
Game [game link] was sponsored for X by [portal name]

I'll start

Asteroids Revenge III was sponsored for $4300 by CrazyMonkeyGames

I've added write-ups from ArmorGames and MaxGames to the www.flashgamesponsorship.com site.

You can see whats new:
Flash Sponsorship Blog

Kongregate will sponsor your game and allow you to keep MochiAds.

Additionally several other sponsors will split MochiAd revenue with you. At least one sponsor is basing payment off of MochiAd (and MochiBot stats)

Here is a thread I recently saw on MochiAd forums with an offer like this:
https://www.mochiads.com/forum-pub/comme nts.php?DiscussionID=194&page=1#Item_11

I'd love to find more sponsors open to this and I can make a "MochiAd compatible" page on Flash Game Sponsorship

Re:Timing - Definitely give it more time. Its hard to realize that people live in 'different worlds' regarding response times and not spending 'all day' on the computer (like myself). Most of the work I do requires constant communication with people.

However there are many people that will check their email on Monday... and then don't need to look again until next Monday. I don't 'understand' this but its true. ;)

At 9/9/07 06:58 PM, NextToNothing wrote: Mochi Ads is great if your game spreads I've heard its about 200k views per 100 bucks and I beleve thats the minimum payout...

Not worth putting in unless you're fairly confident your game will reach the mil or 2 view mark..

Newgrounds doesn't account for very many of a popular games views I might add..

Mochi Ads is best considered as an addition to a "plan" rather then a plan itself. IE. find a sponsor who will also let you use mochiAds or use MochiAds and try to attract people back to your site where you have google or other ads on your page. (and hopefully other games of yours they can play)

Often times a sponsor will not respond if they don't like the game. They want to avoid an argument (or even a discussion) since their time is limited.

I'll be happy to give you an honest opinion on your game. Drop me a note and I'll share my thoughts.

Hey Shinki,

By giving a dollar range like $500 to $1000 makes me believe that you sent the same quote to every other site. So now I know that if I really want the game I should offer around 800 to 1000 for the game where as if I'm just mildly interested I'd offer 500. This also saves me from having to go around and inquire with other publishers what they offered which will only delay you getting a reply from me.

One important thing to keep in mind is that games have a different value to different portals. Some can make more from a game then another. Some might not have had a "good" game in a while and are looking for something great.

Some might have just gotten a boatload of venture capital and can sponsor games at a loss... or thinking very long term.

Many of the portals do talk with one another but ultimately they compete with each other and will only share so much information. Truly the best way thing is

-Make sure you game is immediately fun. If it take 2 minutes before it gets good many people won't play that far. [Helistorm 2 is said to be a great game by many people, most start playing and give up within minutes assuming its dull].

-Send your game to as many people as possible. You want to find the portal that really wants your game (for whatever reason) and the more people you talk to the more likely you are to find that portal.

I ended up getting 6 times more then my first offer for AR3. Granted, the game improved over this time period but if I wouldn't have shopped it around I wouldn't have gotten close to this amount of money.

You can read a lot more details here: http://www.flashgamesponsorship.com

At 8/31/07 10:56 AM, WolfAkela wrote: AdamSchroeder,

Great link! :) Been skimming around, and I wish you could've expanded on this:
Negotiate.
95% of the sponsor's initial replies will go like this "Nice Game. How much do you want?" I believe the perfect answer is something like "Thank you so much for your interest in my game! Honestly I don't know what the game is worth so I'm sending it around to several portals including you." Offering a number puts you a weak position as they might simply accept it. You don't really know what your game is worth. $500 might seem like a lot to you but maybe another portal would pay $1000, $1500, $2000 or more!

If you could give tips on how to negotiate when you don't know what your game's worth is, that would be great. How about trying to see what other sponsors offered you and use the highest price as the starting bid. Well, course, that wouldn't work if all of them asked you how much you want. >_>

Or maybe ask around forums like NGG, but only provide pics or even a gameplay video. I'm sure the vets here can do a good judgement on the price of your game.

Really its as simple as trying to get them to pick the first number. Once you have a number then you just share with everyone else your talking to and let people start making counter offers. :)

Although I wouldn't put much weight behind my judgements (at least at this current point in time) I'll be happy to look at a game and suggest a "Get at least this much for it..." if you want.

Hey Guys!

I've spent a tremendous amount of time over these past months researching sponsorships and other ways to capitalize on your game. I still have a LOT more work to do but I believe it has reached a point where it will have value to other developers. So I wanted to release it now and start getting additional input from people as I more forward.

In addition to my thoughts I also have a writeup from John at CrazyMonkeyGames and Greg from Kongregate. There is also a article from Simon at Ezone.com (a succesful independent game company) that will try to convince you that a sponsorship is not the best approach.

Please let me know what you think of site!
Flash Game Sponsorship

And this was the winning entry.
8:20pm plain as day. :)

At 8/24/07 12:12 PM, liljim wrote: Entries are only eligible for the daily awards if they have been submitted before 9pm on the day before they're chosen. The winning entry was not submitted at 11pm, as you claimed, but at 8:20pm.

Scores tend to fluctuate rapidly after awards have been chosen, given that the entries are back in the limelight again and users tend to treat entries that have won awards more harshly than they would have done when the entries were under judgement.

Thanks for the clarification. Sorry about the times being off, I should verified that again (my memory is hazy).

Really I'm not upset or anything I was just trying to learn more about how the process worked and if there might be a loop hole in it.

At 8/24/07 09:52 AM, ianianian1111 wrote: Its only score, but it needs 200 vots alone, to pass judgment.

So you could submit a game last minute with just enough time to get 200+ votes while you are supplying a large percentage of them?

IE. a game with a 4.2 and 200 votes will beat a game with 4.1 and 1000 votes?

While the next day that 4.2 might be a 3.8 once it has gotten 1000 votes to outweigh the initial skewing?

Any thoughts on requiring a game to be posted at least 12 hours or something similar to be eligible for a daily? You can't game the scores in the long run.

In my case my game was 4.07 that dropped to 4.01 within the last 30 minutes of the day, while the winning game (submitted at 11pm) rose from a 4.02 to 4.07 in those same last 30 minutes. Since that time after many more votes were cast my game has risen to a 4.17 while the winning game dropped to a 3.85 (or something close to that).

It's not a huge deal... but I certainly would have preferred winning the daily. I think this potential for abuse (if thats what happened) could be easily solved by simply requiring the submissions to be available for voting over a longer time period.