Hey, folks: I've been toying with the idea of writing a browser-based game similar in style to Urban Dead or Shogun Wars. I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with the business aspect of these--namely, how to generate revenue. Advertising is nice, of course, but I'm not sure that I see a good, solid revenue stream coming out of something like this. Anyone have any success stories in this field? Thanks, Ed

If it is anything like the HTML browser games I have played, then there are a number of means:

1. Account Upgrade / Supporter Status / Other Enhancement

Allow players to purchase, through paypal most likely, an account upgrade that would give them some additional abilities that are highly desirable but not necessary to play the game. Offering these abilities to players in a free, if hard to attain, manner alongside may keep people happy.

2. Selling Resources / Weapons / Statistics

Some games offer an in-game cash market. This can produce a fair bit of revenue if the game gets popular.

Quote: Original post by Edward Ropple
...I'm not sure that I see a good, solid revenue stream coming out of something like this.

I'm pretty sure your right to start with. Projects like this are a labour of love and will only pay off in the long term if they prove popular. Server costs, bandwidth and the work involved costs money to start with an ads wont generate a lot of money until the user base grows. Not something to undertake if you just want a fast buck. Need to be willing to build slowly.

Quote: Original post by Obscure

Quote: Original post by Edward Ropple
...I'm not sure that I see a good, solid revenue stream coming out of something like this.

I'm pretty sure your right to start with. Projects like this are a labour of love and will only pay off in the long term if they prove popular. Server costs, bandwidth and the work involved costs money to start with an ads wont generate a lot of money until the user base grows. Not something to undertake if you just want a fast buck. Need to be willing to build slowly.

Yeah, that's how I'm looking at it. Not that I'd be opposed to a quick buck, mind you, but this idea is too fun to let sit idly by.

I don't know... Ads can generate some pretty awesome revenue if you manage to find ads that target your visitors well. I used to have a small video game site that got about 1000 views a day. My ads were for video game accessories, and I only got paid for commissions (if people clicked through and bought something within 40 days, I would get 6% of what they spent). I would get about 50 clicks on the ads per day, and about 200 dollars per month on good months... Since my hosting was $10 a month, I was basically taking in between 10 and 20 times my initial investment.

1000 views is nothing... They're not even unique visitors. Imagine a site that gets a million views a month... Obviously you won't become a billionaire overnight, but if your games are good and people spread the word, you can easily quit your day job just by putting those silly "punch the monkey and win an ipod" things all over the place.

Quote: Original post by Edward Ropple
Anyone have any success stories in this field?

CashWars was huge back in the day. I think some people received payouts upwards of US$100,000. I worked on several popular CashWars clones during the dot-com boom/bust. I've been toying with the idea of developing a similar browser game, but I doubt I have time.

If you can gather even a small little community around your game, chances are that ads will be more than enough to support all the server related costs. It won't be enough to cover your time, but as someone else mentioned, even with as little as 1000 page views a day, you can easily cover hosting charges.