Surge in HTML5 interest on FGL

[ch00se]

Hey Ozdy,  as of now, I don't think we've done any exclusive HTML5 deals.  I didn't dig to look, but if we have any, there aren't many.  I could see it be an interesting option though, if the prices were right.

[ozdy]

I would expect sitelock sales to be dominant, so it's not surprising you made no exclusives. That is what attracts me to the market, actually - you can start selling immediately sitelocks at prices better than Flash for lower quality games. I don't see myself putting html5 games for bid soon, but I am sure I'll use the gameshop in order to reach new sitelock clients.

[tumira]

Hi

 

Just submitted my first game to FGL . Will update if got any good news. Though, one question is when registering my web app, they also asked for an apk file if I have it. Does this mean HTML5 game wrapped with CocoonJS ? Anybody tried it ?

[agulenin]

Its good to hear that the guys at FGL are truly trying to improve the FGL HTML5 experience, we should of course give them feedback and all the help they require, but let's not loose our politeness.

[Pixol Palette]

Will also inform on how i do, as i submitted my first game as well on there today. Though its only Web license.

[haden]

I submited my game "ConnectMe" for some time now, the reviewer asked if I could add audio to the game, I did so (it did took some time to get it working). The game got a review note of 7, 26 sponsor views for now but no one contacted me yet.

[Uknownxl]

We just uploaded our Html 5 game to FGL just as we do our previous flash games. I was a little surprised that the game was rated like any other game but it wasn't really a big deal. It was just mildly annoying due to the obvious issues with Html that are currently well known. (that the reviewer complained about, such as audio) We made some of the suggested changes and are now awaiting approval again. We got a 7 rating prior to approval so hopefully with the changes we get a solid 8. 

[blackmoondev]

I have three Html5 games over FGL. There was some interests from the sponsors - but I'm afraid the flash sponsors don't really know how they can make money with those games (they asked me about making an app out the games etc.) Adding the games to FGL is pretty painless, so I don't see why you shouldn't do it - but the chances for a sale are rather small imho. 

[Aduros]

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.

 

Please send me more info on this. I have a cross-platform social game written in Haxe. I also maintain the Flambe game engine and am active in the Haxe community, so I might be able to send some developers your way.

 

Bruno

[email protected]

[Phil]

I feel, audio, no matter how buggy, is a must. I do have one question for Chris, are FGL looking to support android too? just with an user above mentioning an apk request.

[Uknownxl]

Yeah we new a lot of people left out audio but its not our style especially when we have an audio guy who is a valued part of our team. I just hate the obvious audio issues that seemingly have no fix. 

[ch00se]

@Phil we do support android!  If you "add new game" then select "mobile" you'll have an option to upload an APK.  Then publishers can use our FGL mobile app to play the game directly on their phone and bid on it.

[benny!]

Hi,

 

I just encountered the following issue with HTML5 games on FGL.com using latest Firefox (version 24). The HTML5 game does not load automatically if the game is hosted on a non SSL secured page. Since FGL.com uses SSL encryption and most of the listed HTML5 games not - the game page therefore consists of mixed content concerning the security level.

 

That's why the user needs to disable that security manually before the game loads properly. Technically it's explained here:

http://blog.mozilla.org/security/2013/05/16/mixed-content-blocking-in-firefox-aurora/

 

This seems to be only the case for HTML5 games which are embedded via an iframe. Flash games seems to be hosted by FGL itself - so the problem does not arise.

 

This could explain why a lot of publishers do not even see the game. You cannot expect from a publisher to manually change the security settings of the page.

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

Note:
I have already contacted FGL about this issue.

[Antriel]

I told them the same thing but apparently they know nothing and keep telling us it's our problem. I cannot imagine how they don't have this solved by now.

[benny!]

Yup. It's a bit frustrating.

 

Guess the only proper solution is that FGL.com hosts the HTML5 game or disables SSL encryption on the game-detail page.

[remvst]

It's plain to see: FGL just don't care about HTML5.

Well one of them came here and created this thread. I guess they do care.

 

Short-term memory loss, uh?

[ch00se]

Yes, we definitely care.  I don't see where it would benefit us to say we care if we didn't.  

 

It is interesting you bring this up because we just had a meeting about it, actually.  This is not something that was a big problem just a little while ago, but both Chrome and FF released updates that made this a requirement recently.  So, a sort of hacky short term fix is that we're going to suggest developers upload to an https site so we can avoid the issue.  One option is to upload your game to dropbox which uses SSL.

 

Also, this may be a good idea anyway as a portal or other source may be running under https as well and thus you won't be effective on 100% of the sites if they are iframing your game.

 

Eventually our plan is to find a way to host the game files ourselves, we just have a very strict security policy that is making it a bit of a challenge.

[sbat]

Chris - this is not very good workaround, I have to say. Dropbox often is disabling contentType for HTML files per account or even per region, to prevent people from hosting static websites with them. They also limit outbound traffic.

 

Also, this will NOT be a good idea in general. There are NO web sites that are iframing our games from our own sites. We specifically prevent this from happening.

 

Very few site will employ iframes. It just does not make a lot of sense for mobile browser games.

 

The proper solution is to open the game in another tab/window one way or the other. People need to test our games on tablets and phones. They cannot do it if the game is iframed. 

[ch00se]

Thanks sbat, as usual, great advice.  I'll relay to the team and make sure we keep this in mind as we build out.  Also, I heard that dropbox has banned a large chunk of Russian IPs!  So those would be completely walled off by this solution as well.

[sandy234]

FGL wants to enter the html5 market but they are trying to get people who are not interested in html5 to buy html5 games. For these they want a good amount of content on their website. Thats y this topic here was created.

Lot of advice/information was given to fgl on how to go about html5 out of which not even a single one was accepted. They want to make html5 game sales in a flash environemnt/system. Which is never gonna work.

You wont make a sale through fgl unless they change their approach which is not gonna happen.

If you use the 5mins that you use for putting game in fgl to emailing one sponsor you would still have more chance of making a sale.

[sbat]

Content grab ≠ caring

 

You keep telling about content grab, can you clarify what you mean? 

 

FGL limits access to their web site and games (to registered sponsors, who demonstrated that they have a popular gaming website and/or made an escrow of $500). FGL games are not shared outside of their site. You set the price/conditions for game shop game license on your own, and you are free to turn down the deal which you don't like (although it is rare for game shop deals). 

 

They do have certain issues when it comes to handling HTML5 games. They may not have too many customers now for HTML5. Finally, fixing this all might not even be their top level priority easily. 

 

But I just fail to see "content grab" elements here.

[sbat]

They want to make html5 game sales in a flash environemnt/system. Which is never gonna work. You wont make a sale through fgl unless they change their approach which is not gonna happen. If you use the 5mins that you use for putting game in fgl to emailing one sponsor you would still have more chance of making a sale.

 

Big chunk of HTML5 buyers are in fact Flash portals with HTML5 sections. That's how I sold half of my licenses - by approaching my previous Flash partners.

 

Also, quite a few people already made a deal through FGL on HTML5, so this indeed happens. 

 

My approach is very simple: you have to knock to every door. You don't know, which one will work best half year or a year from now. I've made $30K+ on non-exclusives (Flash) on FGL and ~$20K on primaries. If they help me make fraction of that in HTML5, it will well justify 5 minutes per game of upload time. 

[blackmoondev]

Sbat - apart form Yepi, I don't know any "Html5 publisher & Flash portal" combo. 

Also - FGL is (was) great for selling Flash games (no question about that - I've sold plenty of games over there). But like Sandy said - you can't sell Html5 games the same way you sell Flash games. And I'm not so sure if FGL would like to invest resources to change part of their service just to enable selling of the Html5 games. 

[ch00se]

I do understand why there is hesitation and disbelief here.  There doesn't need to be though.  I'm openly admitting that we have some issues with displaying HTML5 games.  They aren't as bad as some think though.  Really, I think the problem is quite simple:  none of us at FGL is "up to date" on HTML5.  We've done a lot of reading and asking questions.. but we're still behind on things.  I think every engineer on our team is a game developer.. we have built games in Flash, Unity, java, Lua, and maybe other languages I'm not aware of, but none of us has built an HTML5 game.  And, if I ever find time to build games again, I'll be sure to try it so I get a deeper understanding.  But right now all we can do is listen to ideas and make tweaks.  

 

It's also hard to explain this part:  we are open to hiring an HTML5 dev to actually build this part out.. but we're not really in a place where we can work that in (both financially and "training up" wise).  So, I think that's why we've looked like we don't care.. the reality is, though, that we're just much slower because we're gathering info, discussing it internally, then trying to figure out how to pull it off.  But we're definitely interested in the HTML5 market and helping you sell games.  We may go about it clumsily at first, but that's not due to our lack of interest.

 

All that said, the bottom line is we ARE making sales.  In fact, based a recent chat with one of our clients desires I'll pose a question to everyone: How do you feel about revenue share?  Usually, what I say is if a company isn't interested in paying something up front, they are saying they don't believe in your game and/or their product.  The exception being large markets with proven traffic and revenue streams.  But, I thought I'd ask here to see if there is a different school of thought with HTML5 games in the current market.

[benny!]

chOOse,

 

First I want to say that I really appreciate that you are open for discussion and asks for our opinions. That said - I think it's of course in your own interests to keep up with the latest technology with casual online games. The demand of publishers for HTML5 games will increase in the future for sure.

 

Yes, we definitely care.  I don't see where it would benefit us to say we care if we didn't.  

 

It is interesting you bring this up because we just had a meeting about it, actually.  This is not something that was a big problem just a little while ago, but both Chrome and FF released updates that made this a requirement recently.  So, a sort of hacky short term fix is that we're going to suggest developers upload to an https site so we can avoid the issue.  One option is to upload your game to dropbox which uses SSL.

 

Also, this may be a good idea anyway as a portal or other source may be running under https as well and thus you won't be effective on 100% of the sites if they are iframing your game.

 

Eventually our plan is to find a way to host the game files ourselves, we just have a very strict security policy that is making it a bit of a challenge.

 

As sbat already mentioned - this is not the way to go IMHO. In addition, you seem to have similar problems with your sponsor pages, too. Have a look at the following URL:

 

https://www.fgl.com/sponsor_pages/twune.php

 

I understand that technical changes need time and should be well executed and not rushed. But honestly, I would really think about doing some changes on your side instead of asking all sponsors and developers for work-arounds.

 

Best,

benny!