ok, well maybe not “on”, but there definately seems to be a lot of missunderstanding and irritation between the 2 groups recently (mostly due to micro-transactions).

Something occured to me the other day while thinking about this, and I think the issues between most devs and publishers is this.

Most game devs see game development as 80% art 20% business.

Most publishers see game development as 80% business 20% art.

(with “art” meaning, doing it for more then just financial reasons).

I think therein lies the problems. Obviously this is not true of ALL game developers or ALL publishers (especially as a lot of game developers also have their own portal), but in general I think the point stands up.

I think both sides can learn from the other. Game developers to continue to develope HAVE to look upon what they do as a business. This is something which took me a little while to learn. It’s fun to try out unique and original ideas, but (unless you get lucky) they won’t pay the bills. As a game developer you need to pay close attention at the market and see what games do well and which don’t.

Likewise I think some publishers can look upon the whole endevour as a money making exercise only. I think this alienates the game developers, and doesn’t make for a particularly good games portal for the players. There is only so many “dress up”, “match 3″, “Casino” games the internet can handle, and I think the best portals are ones that try to push the quality threshold. This although is also dependent upon their particular already established audience.

All in all, we all want the same things. When new tech comes along we need to find ways to embrace it TOGETHER, and find solutions which mutually benefit us all.

Just a quick post about mochi coins and some links for further info. Like a lot of dev’s I’ve been aware of micro-transactions in Flash games for the past year, but havn’t really had the time to get into it. That’s now all going to change with the launch of Mochi Coins from Mochi. It seems there are some very good returns coming from games using them (as well as other payment gateways), with Mochi themselves pointing out that they can make as much in one day then the entirety of the games ad revenue.

Could it be that micro-transactions become the de-facto method that Flash games make their money? I think it could…

I havn’t tested anything yet, but I’ve got a big project in the works that will use mochi coins so it’s going to be interesting to see how all that pans out, as usual I’ll try to post back here about how everything goes! Exciting times!

More links to mochi coins info

Venturebeat article

Mochi coins sign up

Well all the work is finally over with, the game is sponsored and it’s live out “there”. I’m really pleased with the result. What am I talking about? QFP, or “Quest for power” the longest project I’ve worked on so far. It’s got 14 levels each with cool graphics, 7 bad kings/queens to defeat, different soldiers to use, potions and the list goes on.

This is apart from the fact that you can build stuff such as walls and towers, from wood or stone!

Game can be played here

Here’s some juicey screen grabs..

That’s right folks, from now I’ll be posting a lot of my games on here (see “download games” at the top) for you to download and then upload to your own website for your publics viewing pleasure!

Each download is a .zip file which contains the .swf, thumbnails and an instructions file.

If you use one of my games in your website and it drives traffic to your site drop me a line and let me know!

Any issues as well with the games also contact me.

I’ll be posting new games on here every week so if you sign up to my RSS feed you will be kept up to date with what games are newly available!