[Sayid Ahmed]

I had no idea where to post this topic, since it's about a scripting related topic but it isn't about writing code at all.

I am curious to know other people's opinions on the browser game 'industry' out there, whether it be text based, 2D or 3D game. Me and my mates occasionally played games like Utopia, CyberNations and the like, but the trouble is as we get older and more cynical we realise how immature and lackluster a lot of these games can be. I've been meaning to make an browser game, coded largely in PHP - I'm a hobbyist when it comes to coding so I only work on it occasionally. I want to make it innovative and yada-ya but that's not we're discussing here.

Does anyone think there's still a (potential) demand for these kind of games? I looked up eRepublik which raised around €2 million from investment and selling of virtual currency. Articles report it to have millions of visits each month during its peak in ~2009. I checked the game out and it felt like a pile of cack - a great concept with poor delivery - and I started to wonder who the hell decided to invest so much money in such a venture. I checked its traffic on Google ad planner and it was in the 20,000s for monthly traffic.

I don't expect to make any money from a future browser game, I just want to know if there's any point in making one.

[modi123_1]

Quote

I don't expect to make any money from a future browser game, I just want to know if there's any point in making one.

If you are happy not making money then yes... the point is programming experience, cohesive group work, and web dynamics.

Oh, and http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

[Sayid Ahmed]

modi123_1, on 13 February 2012 - 08:38 PM, said:

Quote

I don't expect to make any money from a future browser game, I just want to know if there's any point in making one.

If you are happy not making money then yes... the point is programming experience, cohesive group work, and web dynamics.

Oh, and http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

Lols at KoL.

True but I would like to get some result from hard work and imagination. I would like to have a sizeable cohort playing the game. Almost like how Supremacy 1914 has got its own niche following now.

[modi123_1]

Oh.. so not so much the money but the notoriety and fame. I see.. I see.

If that is your only criteria to attempt a browser game then I would think "yes!" to the endeavor. People like the internets. People like using browsers on the internets... People like free fun games... I don't see those areas slacking so why not? Well unless this whole "internet thing" is just another falsely created bubble that is about to burst.. that would suck.

[Sayid Ahmed]

modi123_1, on 13 February 2012 - 09:46 PM, said:

Oh.. so not so much the money but the notoriety and fame. I see.. I see.

If that is your only criteria to attempt a browser game then I would think "yes!" to the endeavor. People like the internets. People like using browsers on the internets... People like free fun games... I don't see those areas slacking so why not? Well unless this whole "internet thing" is just another falsely created bubble that is about to burst.. that would suck.

No it's not that, I just look at the most 'popular' games and they're pretty poor and unimaginative, which begs the questions whether these specific browser games are crap, or browser games are just generally crap.

But yes, building a little online community of fanatic followers users would be fun indeed.

This post has been edited by Sayid Ahmed: 13 February 2012 - 03:52 PM

[modi123_1]

Then it sounds like you have reached your conclusion.

[Sayid Ahmed]

nnope i do not know whether I'll need to create demand for a browser game like mine or if the audience is already there and already large enough. see what i mean?

[modi123_1]

No I do not know what you mean. If you want notoriety on any endeavor you will need to create demand. That's a given.

I have no idea if your audience is there or not. I do not know jack (or squat even) about your game. Hell it might some variant of the cat themed MMO ChatChat or it could be some Oregon Trail clone.

I have yet to see a downside of building the game out of you.. you don't want money, you would like someone to appreciate it, and you do enjoy learning and having new experiences... so what is this downside?

[WolfCoder]

It's mostly just fun. I actually wrote a browser engine in JAVA once. You literally write an HTTP server in JAVA with server-side SID cookies and basic account management and you have a browser game engine. Some basic security and load tests (telling your friends to hack it and LOIC yourself) should be fine, you only need TCP anyways so its easier for DoS defense.

[Sayid Ahmed]

modi123_1, on 14 February 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

If you want notoriety on any endeavor you will need to create demand. That's a given.

Not if I steal bored users from other browser games; if that happens then the audience and demand hasn't grown at all as a result of my game.

modi123_1, on 14 February 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

I have yet to see a downside of building the game out of you.. you don't want money, you would like someone to appreciate it, and you do enjoy learning and having new experiences... so what is this downside?

There is a downside, as I mentioned above. I could make this game and it can flop. Hence I've made a thread like this to help investigate the possibilities.

If you go back to my OP, I want to know if browser games become successful, or are the reports about games like eRepublik all false? Otherwise I will have to be extra innovative and make more people play browser games.

This post has been edited by Sayid Ahmed: 14 February 2012 - 12:21 PM

[lordofduct]

So what if it flops? ANY project you partake in has a potential to flop... there is never a guarantee of any return of any sort. Awesome things sometimes flop just because... crap things flop because they're crap... sometimes even crap things succeed despite their being crap!

Do it because you want to.




Also, browser based games is still a HUGE market. Just go on facebook... people sit around and play browser based games constantly. And there is money to be made with them, through advertisements, microtransactions, and other profit generating mechanisms.

(finding the right one for your game that doesn't deter your client base is another question completely and requires a SKILLED investigation by whoever does your marketing. Don't expect a forum to give you this information, or at least give you information you can actually bank on. There are highly skilled people out their whose sole job is to do market analysis of this kind of crap because it isn't something you can really do from a damn couch cushion!)





On a side tangent, my buddy and I actually did a 24-hour game jam on Sunday in which we gave ourselves 24 hours (actually more like 14 hours considering sleep and other work we had to do) to make and deploy a game. We used Unity3D which has a web-player built in. I posted it on my website just after midnight Sunday night:

Blog about it:
http://www.lordofduct.com/blog/?p=529

Actual Game:
http://www.lordofduc...lbug/index.html

It's not really a full fledged game, but it was a fun learning experience. We didn't do it to make money, or get fame, or any crap like that. We did it for fun, and we didn't NOT do it just because it had a potential to fail.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 14 February 2012 - 12:30 PM

[modi123_1]

Sayid Ahmed, on 14 February 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

modi123_1, on 14 February 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

If you want notoriety on any endeavor you will need to create demand. That's a given.

Not if I steal bored users from other browser games; if that happens then the audience and demand hasn't grown at all as a result of my game.

I meant for your game... to get people to play your game, and thus feed your need for notoriety, you need to create a demand for your game... then that allows your to "steal bored users". I am guessing you are talking about the browser based games as a whole.. as if you were going to shoulder the responsibility and burden of driving the massses back to the BBGs. That would just be silly.

Sayid Ahmed, on 14 February 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

modi123_1, on 14 February 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

I have yet to see a downside of building the game out of you.. you don't want money, you would like someone to appreciate it, and you do enjoy learning and having new experiences... so what is this downside?

There is a downside, as I mentioned above. I could make this game and it can flop. Hence I've made a thread like this to help investigate the possibilities.

Flop in what sense? That no one plays it? Even a flopped game has benefits. You learned what to do, how long to do it, how to operate in a team, built experience, discovered pitfalls, and generally hitched your wagon to a star. You said you didn't want money out of it then fine - the only loss is time but that is a plus since you were learning as you went.

If you are going to be a negative nancy and not see how hobbies, personal projects, and so forth provide fun then I will have to say "No do not gamble away time, experience, and better shot at notoriety than the status quo to build this game.".

Sayid Ahmed, on 14 February 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

If you go back to my OP, I want to know if browser games become successful, or are the reports about games like eRepublik all false? Otherwise I will have to be extra innovative and make more people play browser games.

You didn't link any articles for me to back check their validity of the author and such so I am not sure what you are reading though it does not seem out of the realm of possibility that a site could have millions of hits a month and still not appeal to you.

Some of the traffic stats estimate they are at a quarter of a million hits a month (now)... and if this is after their peak why the hell couldn't they have had a million hits a month?

I have half a mind to think you might be trolling me on this one whole... *hand wave* shebang.
----
Ha... @LOD - work blocks your blog as "This Websense category is filtered: Web and Email Spam".

[lordofduct]

heh, probably because some comments on the blog, randomly people post spam comments. I delete them, but its so seldom I really just ignore it.

[modi123_1]

You know you can totally set up a filter for that right? Hell just kill the comment completely!

[lordofduct]

I like having the comments on

that, and I'm lazy. Like I said, it's actually very seldom that it occurs. I had 1 in the last 6 months, it's just it took me 6 months to see it because I hadn't logged into the control panel and saw that I had a comment for review.

My site doesn't get a whole lot of traffic.



It had to be that that caused your thing to block it. There's nothing else on the website. I have no ads, and it's just a bunch of blogs from 2 years ago of mine. Unless the topics I talk about are stuff web-blockers don't like. My being the social rebel that I am... rar!

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 14 February 2012 - 01:14 PM