Surge in HTML5 interest on FGL

[ch00se]

Hey Everyone,

 

Chris from FGL.com here.  I wanted to let you know that recently we've had a surge in the number of publishers interested in HTML5 games on FGL.  So, if you have some complete, or nearly complete, games it would be a great time to get them on FGL.

 

Also, if you happen to build your games in HaXe be sure to let me know, we have one buyer who is specifically looking for HTML5 games built with HaXe.

 

And, feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

 

Best,

 

Chris

[totor]

Maybe you should have mentioned it in the FGL newsletter i just received.   I do have one question regarding multi target games : when i make some game with haxe, i can target both flash and html5 (and others too) but from a sponsor perspective, is it interesting ? i mean will he pay a licence for html5 (like the non exclusives in flash) if the flash version has gone viral or is that two markets clearly disjoint ? Thanks

[-AAG-]

Thanks for the news! If you haven't done so already, please add a mobile link to the games page, besides the embedded game, since most sponsors who look for HTML5 are really interested on them working on mobiles and tablets. They can't really appreciate scaling and other mobile specific features if the games are embedded.

[ozdy]

I have also heard from devs that FGL is not valuable for HTML5, but I'd say you don't lose anything from giving it a shot 1-2 months after you've e-mailed sponsors directly, so you'll only then have to resort to giving commission 10% if anything happens through FGL.

 

 

A recent HTML5 game I uploaded to FGL got an incredible 88 views.

 

 

This is actually very good by FGL standards. A decent Flash game that I just sold through FGL via bidding got under 80 views in over a month before I sold it! The price was far from great though, hence I'm giving html5 a try

[sandy234]

This is complete waste of time. There is no surge or anything

Be ready for your game to be compared with flash quality.

If your game doesnt have sound like mine did then be ready to get low scores.

My game got 6 or something have very few  sponsor views and no sponsor views are added daily

My game made 2k in sales till now outside fgl.

If they expect developers to be serious on fgl they should either dont rate html5 games at all or have a separate rating system from flash.

Seriously how can you expect to make a sale if you get no sponsor view in 1st place.

[benny!]

Thanks for all the comments. It seems like you pointed out some good points.

 

I just gave it a try with my game Picshift 3D It's currently in review. Will see how this turns out.

 

Wondering what option you guys choosed: 

 

Bidding and/or GameShop

?

[fatalfluff]

If FGL is truly serious about HTML5 (which I hope), they need to sort out a few things.

 

1. The current state of HTML5 audio makes a lot of devs produce "silent" games and sponsors to be happy with that. It is my (humble, personal) impression, that the FGL reviewers are unaware of this. 

2. It seems that (again, this is my personal impression) FGL reviewers are generally unaware about HTML5 games being produced specifically for mobile purposes for now and thus must and should be tested on mobile, touch-enabled devices. If not, the reviewer must be aware of the caveats and have a deep understanding about how mobile games work, what concepts work less well on "one finger" interaction devices etc. 

 

To put it less politely, right now it seems they don't have a clue what they are doing, and are rating mobile HTML5 games like bad flash games.

I do hope this will improve considerably, because FGL has been quite a market force for flash content in the past, and I would very much like this to be available to HTML5 devs.

[nem0ff]

ch00se:
From  FGL Developer Newsletter, September 2013:

Sell Web and Mobile Licenses
Games selling both mobile and web licenses together sell 4 times more than web games alone.  We encourage developers to focus on games that work on both platforms.

 

What do you mean by "mobile licenses"?
Do you mean mobile apps or HTML5 mobile-ready web games?

[K1kk0z90]

Nice to know that on FGL publishers are looking for HTML5 games!

Anyway, like others already said, probably it would be better to have a separate rating system from Flash games.

[GrimPanda]

I'll be excited for this if the above issues are sorted. I always get a little excited when I see an FGL newsletter hoping something about HTML5 will be mentioned. 

 

This is something I think FGL needs and we could all benefit from if it is done correctly.

[NeoBird]

Hi Chris,

 

You mentioned a buyer that is especially keen on games developed with HaXe - As this is exactly what we do could you either connect me with him or give me some advice how to make him aware of our company.

 

As a backgrounder: Until the end of last year the members of our studio - www.neobird.de - have been part of a company that was a wholly owned subsidiary of a major game publisher/portal owner from the Netherlands. By that time our focus was on realtime multiplayer flashgame development. We have moved on to mobile / cross-platform games from there under our new NeoBird wings.

 

Best regards

Florian

[email protected]

www.neobird.de 

[ch00se]

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for the replies!

 

First, I want to be very open.  FGL has not done the best job of presenting HTML5 games.  There are some good points here.  Also, it is correct that we've struggled to sort out how we rate html5 games alongside Flash, unity, and other games.  One thing to keep in mind is that it's not just us, though.  Ultimately what we try to do is most accurately inform publishers how good/fitting a game is.  Here's the problem, most of them expect HTML5 games to match up with other games.  So, if a game doesn't have sound, and we rate it alongside other html5 games, instead of Unity or Flash games, so that the overall rating is not affected, we start hearing from sponsors that our ratings are horrible.

 

To combat this, what we've started doing is two things:

 

1) we have a special filter for html5 games

 

2) we are manually reaching out to publishers interested in html5 games so that we can educate them and manage expectations etc.

 

But, we always appreciate feedback here... any other suggestions are welcome!  One really hard part is trying to support html5 on the site itself is really hard (which is why we iframe) due to numerous issues (security, the different ways you can build and display html5, etc etc...) this is another area we're open to suggestions on.

 

To the question about what do we mean by "mobile licenses" in the newsletter.  There we mean mobile apps, however, that's not to say it couldn't be html5 mobile games... we just haven't seen that many so far.

 

Also, I can definitely say there has been a surge in interest.  There are numerous companies that have come to us asking about html5 games.  The biggest problem, as I mentioned is that their expectations are way out of whack.  They want games that work flawlessly on web and mobile with no changes and with higher quality than Flash, etc etc... My hope is we can get them enough of a selection of games to show them what a high quality and fun game on html5 looks like, and let them know that it is still something that gamers enjoy, so that they'll start to understand reality, and then license a lot of content.

 

 

[ch00se]

Hi Chris,

 

You mentioned a buyer that is especially keen on games developed with HaXe - As this is exactly what we do could you either connect me with him or give me some advice how to make him aware of our company.

 

As a backgrounder: Until the end of last year the members of our studio - www.neobird.de - have been part of a company that was a wholly owned subsidiary of a major game publisher/portal owner from the Netherlands. By that time our focus was on realtime multiplayer flashgame development. We have moved on to mobile / cross-platform games from there under our new NeoBird wings.

 

Best regards

Florian

[email protected]

www.neobird.de 

 

Hey Florian, 

 

I sent your info to Matt, who handles our non-exclusive content and is working with the company interested in html5 games built in HaXe.  Expect to hear from him

 

Chris

[sbat]

But, we always appreciate feedback here... any other suggestions are welcome!  One really hard part is trying to support html5 on the site itself is really hard (which is why we iframe) due to numerous issues (security, the different ways you can build and display html5, etc etc...) this is another area we're open to suggestions on.

 

Chris, I think the best way would be:

1. Keep the iframe that you have, this works fine for test on a desktop. 

2. In the "HTML5 warning" that you have right now, give an option to open the game in a link in a separate window directly. This way sponsor can open it on their own Safari/Chrome on the phone through tab-sync feature. Possibly even consider generating QR code to easily open _content_ of iframe on mobile device. Or option to e-mail direct link to open game on their phone/tablet.

3. More prominently stress that they game is meant to be played on tablet/phone. For example, show the game screenshot (provided by developer) in a mobile browser screenshot. Overall, make your "HTML5 warning page" less scary.  For example, do not show browser warning if user is testing on a "good" chrome or safari browser. 

[sbat]

1. The current state of HTML5 audio makes a lot of devs produce "silent" games and sponsors to be happy with that. It is my (humble, personal) impression, that the FGL reviewers are unaware of this. 

 

This is where I would disagree slightly. Starting from iOS 6.0 (1 year+, and iPads are huge part of HTML5 gaming market) and August release of Chrome on Android, WebAudio is well supported in both worlds. Multichannel sounds, looping, no delays. 

 

I am personally going to provide both music and sound for my games on desktops and up-to-date mobile devices. On HTMLAudio-only devices I will fall back to only music (or silence, if looping would not work to my satisfaction) . 

 

It is a matter of several months that sponsor expectations would grow accordingly. I think it is fare that editor rating reflect that my newer games are better than my older games in this regard. 

[PKrawczynski]

Also, I can definitely say there has been a surge in interest.  There are numerous companies that have come to us asking about html5 games.  The biggest problem, as I mentioned is that their expectations are way out of whack.  They want games that work flawlessly on web and mobile with no changes and with higher quality than Flash, etc etc... My hope is we can get them enough of a selection of games to show them what a high quality and fun game on html5 looks like, and let them know that it is still something that gamers enjoy, so that they'll start to understand reality, and then license a lot of content.

 

Im not convinced. Sorry but sponsors have terrible expectations with flash right now (1k $ for game that clearly had enough effort to fill 2 person team for a month) and you say its even worse for html5?

 

I might add some html5 game later on fgl but there is nothing that makes me feel like I need to.

[CKS Games]

Listed all my HTML5 games in FGL for about 1 week. Get about 5,6 views on average only. Depressing ...

[ch00se]

Listed all my HTML5 games in FGL for about 1 week. Get about 5,6 views on average only. Depressing ...

Yes, that was to our GameShop though, and I think after approval most games have been up less than a week?  Regardless, our GameShop will have less views, but each view has a much higher chance of being a sale.  Also, all of the interested parties looking for HTML5 games are a little more maintenance at this point... I have meetings this week and next with some of them to go over games they've checked out on the site.  If they haven't seen yours yet, I'll be sure they do!

[remvst]

My game just got postponed because I used an alert(), and because I have to put it in the GameShop because I set it to "widely available". What's the point of leaving the developer the choice if moderators ask you to change it?

[ch00se]

I can't speak to the "alert()" as I'd have to see how it was used (I'll check on that).  For GameShop, the truth is that if your game is already widely available that is where you're going to find the most traction.  The bidding area is mainly for publishers looking for games that have never been released.  However, if you would like to take your chances there anyway, we don't have a hard rule against it.  So let me know and I can  move it, but I do think the best option is the Game Shop.

[ozdy]

Are there any primary/exclusive sales of HTML5 games, Chris? HTML5 games don't spread like Flash games, and it's all about sitelocks and contracts, I hear.

[sbat]

Ozdy, I can't speak for FGL capabilities to bring you one, but I did get several offers for exclusives for my HTML5 games. They were higher than you can expect for a Flash game of the same quality. But below what you can get for great Flash game nowadays. 

 

Obviously, primary at the moment does not make much sense for html5. 

[ch00se]

Yeah, as sbat says.  Exclusives make sense because the site can get a game no one else has.  But since the viral spread component isn't there (at least yet) a Primary wouldn't really work.  Though it is possible you could work out a time-limited exclusive.  For example, maybe the game is exclusive for a month or two on one site, then you can sell to other sites.

[Bluevessel Games]

Do you have any iframe limit like iframe dimensions? I have a game ready but already released on other html5 portals, can this be a problem for a future FGL submission?

[ozdy]

Yeah, as sbat says.  Exclusives make sense because the site can get a game no one else has.  But since the viral spread component isn't there (at least yet) a Primary wouldn't really work.  Though it is possible you could work out a time-limited exclusive.  For example, maybe the game is exclusive for a month or two on one site, then you can sell to other sites.

So, as I asked previously, how many exclusive HTML5 deals were made through FGL?