Monthly Revenue

[Mufasa]

Thought this might be a good topic for fellow game owners to compare game styles and revenue. This might end up being controversial and people may not want to contribute, but I thought it might be a good resource and open up good conversation regarding monetization.

So, what is everyone seeing monthly? What state is your game in? How are you monetizing? what are you spending on traffic?

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[Mufasa]

Oh duh, I didn't post anything haha. Well Prisonblock is my second game (first was pimpsstreet, but I wasn't a fan of the format so I set it to auto-pilot and left it). It's not mafia/gangster based, but it is a mature game in that it takes place in a prison.

I launched it back in july of 09 and up until about October no advertising was done aside from a couple small promos on project-wonderful (which has a not-so-wonderful setup IMO). Traffic mainly came from referrals and from clicks on the flash games I produced and seeded on the internet.

The game did about 6-700/month for those few months (300 for July, which wasn't bad for half a month online!)

Rev comes from in-game currency and account upgrades, no ads. I did produce a few flash games that are out and about on the internet and they bring in pennies from the in-game ads.

Rev is obtained with PayPal as well as various offers/survey companies and a few txt/call micropayment companies that I can go into detail on if anyone is interested

[zolacat999]

Blimy I never knew there was so much money in this

[Mufasa]

Well, building games is undoubtedly fun and rewarding, but to be honest, there would be no point in keeping up with it (especially dealing with some of the players and the problems they bring) if there were no revenue in it. IMO anyway

[JGadrow]

I should point out, that the key here for these games is that they have a player base that find the game to be fun and a worthwhile monetary investment.

So, while it may appear to be lucrative, that's only if you make a game that is fun and if you manage to get a player base for that game (which usually takes either an advertising budget, or willingness to do a lot of leg work self-promoting). Some games just aren't fun, some games just don't get players. So, you can't go by how much someone else makes from their game as a basis for how much you will make.

[Mufasa]

I would imagine that's all a given no? Isn't the goal of everyone here to make FUN games that players will actually enjoy playing?

[JGadrow]

lol Definitely true. But, I've learned that as soon as some people start seeing dollar amounts all they can think is, "Wow! I can make $x from making a browser game!" When, in actuality, the answer is, "No, you can't." lol Unless they're willing to work at it.

[Mufasa]

too true, though I thought this forum was filled with knowledgeable BB peeps (compared to say, makewebgames) so didn't foresee that. So yes, anyone reading this thread, know that games take a CRAPLOAD of work, and the rev you eventually bring in will take time to actually pay off the energy you actually put into it

once the ball is rolling though, things do get better. Startup is always the hardest

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[zolacat999]

I know that you are not guaranteed and currently im just enjoying create and learning about creating my game but it does show that there is potential although i suppose i may have to build a few games before i get anything good, ill post a few screens of my game soon in my project thread 

[Chris]

Gangster Nation is, as the name suggests, a gangster themed text based game. Apart from the odd exception, £0 is spent on advertising or anything like that.

Revenue is on average £1,500 per month but can vary from £1,000 to £4,000 depending on the state of the current game round.

With 350 total accounts and less than 30 new players a day!? How did you make such huge amount of money per player?

I can not post my exact earnings, but these are not higher than yours. But... my game has 130k total accounts and up to 2700 daily players...

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[zolacat999]

Well its even more exciting now there is potential to make a good chunk of money from doing this, although its gona be hard but if others can do it i suppose there is no reason why i cannot

[Chris]

as well as players who will pay £20 daily on a recurring basis for almost every day of the round.

How you managed to maintain gameplay balance? It sounds as if they should have enormous gameplay advanage that is breaking the whole system and making the final round score a feast of donators? Or maybe players do not mind?

[Sunchaser]

It's a shame nobody else has posted their on-going earnings / costs yet, I love a good nose and it gives me something to be inspired by - motivation is key !

Most earnings blackswordrpg has made were 70-100$/month, hosting cost is 10$/month but we never advertised the game, neither we did good referral or voting system; although i consider the game mechanics not bad at all.

About motivation, your revenues really motivated me, i wish i will get this figures some day.

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[tellmore]

Some games are just made to earn a profit.
Those games are much different than those witch has been made for fun, but later offered premium services.

Games that where not made for profit in the first run are more fun.
I like em better.
And not hard to tell if a game was made with profit in mind, or not.

[Xavier]

Some games are just made to earn a profit.
Those games are much different than those witch has been made for fun, but later offered premium services.

Games that where not made for profit in the first run are more fun.
I like em better.
And not hard to tell if a game was made with profit in mind, or not.

Do the games that were made for profit earn more than the games that weren't
but deliver more fun? What do you mean by profit oriented design? I'd like to read
some more of your thought about it.

[Mufasa]

Some games are just made to earn a profit.
Those games are much different than those witch has been made for fun, but later offered premium services.

Games that where not made for profit in the first run are more fun.
I like em better.
And not hard to tell if a game was made with profit in mind, or not.

I completely disagree. You can make a quality game and also hope to make a profit from it as well. They are in no way mutually exclusive (as profitable games with many happy players can attest).

[tellmore]

Some games I had experience with and have absolute profit oriented designs DO allow you to have a good time playing. For around a few weeks, but no more. Then, you hit limitations that make sure non-payer players will never defeat those who are paying. One of those games -can't tell the name, i'm not about to make bad market for them- allows you to recruit units around 3x faster than non paying players. The price is really cheap, so it ain't a big cut. Still, unless you pay, you can only have fun for a short time.

Other games where profit was not in the mind by design offer account upgrade like ads disabled, better game interface, or something else that does not affect balance of players.

This is not about unbalanced game, those games that where designed fr profit have nasty tricks too.
Say.. You can not use X item if you don't get to lvl Y. You are fine with that, you gain xp a bit slower than payers. Now comes the twist, when you reach lvl Y, and would like to use item X, it will just say that sorry, but only available for premium membership. Up until you get to lvl Y, nothing says You won't be able to use it unless you have premium account.
This is a dirty trick, and since you gain xp slower than premium users, you do spend a lot of time to get to lvl Y. So, you don't want that time to go into waste, no way. You upgrade. Thats fine, call it marketing. A game like this is ment to produce profit. And many do hate it, not because you have to pay, but because many would not had invested the time to get to lvl Y, IF they where told its useless unless they pay for premium.

I may have failed to express my self clearly, this is the limit of my english knowledge
Hopefully its clear that some games are un-enjoyable without a premium account, they where ment to be like that. While others can give you a good time without premium, while surely premium gives nice things to help you in the game. A game like that was not designed to make profit, but was made for fun.

[Chris]

People... We live in a world where doctors are being paid to save lives and you are talking about moral aspects of taking money for entertainment!?
I find it radiculous, if I were a doctor and accepted each month my paycheck no one would say anything, but when I'm a game developer they say it is immoral for me to accept my paycheck
It's not like players will die if they do not pay (unlike hospital patients in many countries)

A lot of the people who purchase credits a lot actually don't rank high but do it for the killing and to raise the kill points score, so they're used in various ways and normally players without credits can keep up by putting in a bit of extra time.

You mean donators get something else than score/power? I'm not very familiar with mafia games and how these work...

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[Chris]

So bullets are bought by killer style players ( http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/jawapet/102008/2712_Bartle-Test-why-players-need-to-take-it ). Do you sell many bullets compared to other not killer stuff?

Are bullets used only as mean of eliminating competition or has it other benefits/uses?

In my game I have a problem since I have spending limits. Everyone can spend $20/month max. And that's it. The effect is that some complain the game is unfair and some complain that they would want to pay more (yes, they do, it is crazy but I have a substancial number of players that want to pay more...)
I'm looking for some system where there would be no spending limits and the game still is reasonably balanced.

I'm not actually a fan of this style game myself any more

Getting old, aren't we?

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.