Fifteen seconds of fame
It's been a big week for Rob's game. I Googled Panda, Tactical Sniper this morning and came up with nearly 340,000 pages - not all the game, obviously, but certainly all the early references take me to it.
I've just been chatting with Rob in Lille on Skype. In the short time we were talking some 1,000 people started playing his game in different parts of the world.
He explained the publishing process to me. First he agreed a deal with the owner of the Bubblebox.com site. When the game was published there on Monday it was still in "test" and the reactions of people who played it highlighted one or two glitches which were ironed out by yesterday (Thursday) when it was released generally.
The way this works is that some web sites pick it up and put it on their sites while he can submit it to others.
Since Monday the game has been played more than 70,000 times and this figure is probably already out of date by the time I can write and publish this blog. I know that the internet deals with big numbers but the figures for this and other such games are bringing home to me the multiplying factors of the web, particularly among that early teen age group that comprises the "market."
I use that word cautiously since we usually associate markets with financial transactions but in the flash game world very little money is changing hands, one reason why it has been left by the big commercial players to the masses of youngsters who enjoy making and playing games for themselves.
"There is such fast turnover in these games that there is no time for anyone to review them before players move on to the next one," says Rob. Not so much 15 minutes of fame, then, but 15 seconds.
It's like a sophisticated version of children chalking squares on the playground for a game of hopscotch. But revenues are being earned through advertising and these can accumulate to reasonable earnings for the most popular games.
The top games, says Rob, might earn as much as $10,000 through advertising but better money can be earned through a site sponsorship.
One possibility that Rob has not yet explored is earnings through product placement. His game features a well known biscuit brand - HobNobs - but he doesn't have a deal there. Games that do have such arrangements are called "advergames".
No, Rob, isn't going to be able to retire on his gangster Panda but he's learning a lot about internet publishing and marketing. At the design stage he was discussing the potential appeal of marrying the puzzle game format with that of shooting games. That's innovative stuff.
Oh yes, and he's studying maths too, in French, just now. This is not a "full time" industry. It comprises thousands of mostly young people all over the world, like this chap who has done Rob's art work, working in their spare time, rarely meeting with each other co-operating instead through instant messaging. It's a different world.
I've just been chatting with Rob in Lille on Skype. In the short time we were talking some 1,000 people started playing his game in different parts of the world.
He explained the publishing process to me. First he agreed a deal with the owner of the Bubblebox.com site. When the game was published there on Monday it was still in "test" and the reactions of people who played it highlighted one or two glitches which were ironed out by yesterday (Thursday) when it was released generally.
The way this works is that some web sites pick it up and put it on their sites while he can submit it to others.
Since Monday the game has been played more than 70,000 times and this figure is probably already out of date by the time I can write and publish this blog. I know that the internet deals with big numbers but the figures for this and other such games are bringing home to me the multiplying factors of the web, particularly among that early teen age group that comprises the "market."
I use that word cautiously since we usually associate markets with financial transactions but in the flash game world very little money is changing hands, one reason why it has been left by the big commercial players to the masses of youngsters who enjoy making and playing games for themselves.
"There is such fast turnover in these games that there is no time for anyone to review them before players move on to the next one," says Rob. Not so much 15 minutes of fame, then, but 15 seconds.
It's like a sophisticated version of children chalking squares on the playground for a game of hopscotch. But revenues are being earned through advertising and these can accumulate to reasonable earnings for the most popular games.
The top games, says Rob, might earn as much as $10,000 through advertising but better money can be earned through a site sponsorship.
One possibility that Rob has not yet explored is earnings through product placement. His game features a well known biscuit brand - HobNobs - but he doesn't have a deal there. Games that do have such arrangements are called "advergames".
No, Rob, isn't going to be able to retire on his gangster Panda but he's learning a lot about internet publishing and marketing. At the design stage he was discussing the potential appeal of marrying the puzzle game format with that of shooting games. That's innovative stuff.
Oh yes, and he's studying maths too, in French, just now. This is not a "full time" industry. It comprises thousands of mostly young people all over the world, like this chap who has done Rob's art work, working in their spare time, rarely meeting with each other co-operating instead through instant messaging. It's a different world.
Labels: advergames, Bubblebox, gangster Panda, HobNobs, Lille, Panda: Tactical Sniper, Rob Donkin, Skype
posted by Richard Donkin at
9:34 AM
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