Monetization options for WebGL games?

[bbmario]

Currently, what are the monetization options for WebGL games? Sponsorship? Are there are in-game advertising providers?

[mattstyles]

The same as they are for any other type of game.

There are a few threads discussing this open already.

[bbmario]

That was uncalled for. Are you just attacking random forum members because you are unsatisfied with the market? Anyway, they are not the same as any other type of game. They have different rules, different adoption rate, different compatibility across players and this certainly affects the amount of interested sponsors, specially in websites like FGL.

Since not many sponsors are interested in high-end WebGL games, maybe in-game advertising is an option.

[chg]

I don't see an attack here. Possibly there is some misunderstanding? I think Matt is suggesting that the advertising options are largely unaffected; and whether or not you get the same interest from sponsors, it would seem that the same business arrangement options are open to you to pursue if you seek to license your game.

Your followup stipulates "high-end", suggests targeting lesser compatibility, and without saying so hints that you might be thinking of 3D games, none of which I feel is strictly implied by the original post's mere mention of "WebGL" which I feel is worth pointing out as it seems like the majority of HTML5 games requiring WebGL are largely 2D games using frameworks like Phaser and Pixi.js where the dev has chosen not to support Canvas rendering (eg. perhaps they depend on an effect or the performance it provides and hence can not reasonably consider a canvas fallback) - it seems to me that such games have little problem being sponsored.

Anyway I'm seen relatively few finished 3D games mentioned here, and even few mention looking for sponsorship. The exception that comes to mind was Gemioli's posts last year for their games Rats Cooking and Yeti Sensation which I found interesting threads to follow. They were also interesting to me as it seemed like apart from the 3D rendering the games were somewhat comparable to the sorts of 2D games doing well, in terms of polish, simplicity, download size and hardware requirements.

[mattstyles]

Yeah, not sure why you thought that was an attack, it certainly wasn't intended as such.

I just meant that there is nothing special about webGL games, or even 3D games, I can't speak for the decisions of publishers but if there is any opposition to 3D games then its likely to be mostly a combination of market-interest and lack of appealing candidates, both are intricately linked of course. I guess the thing is, if your game is good enough then you'll find someone to publish it, same as any other game. Ditto for gathering your own audience for advertising to be a good avenue.

It almost looks like you want a general discussion about monetisation methods, and I wasn't sure if you'd seen that there are a number of other threads that have started those discussions already.

[WombatTurkey]

Wouldn't the in-game advertisement options be the same since it would still just be an overlay? (over the game) [Game could be 2d or 3d]

I see games starting to throw in adsense / ads on the lobby / re-loading screens now.. if that helps. Although, not sure if that is against their tos. Valhalla and others are more knowledgeable here

[hakir]

Hi all,

I'm also interesting about how to monetize efficiently a game. I saw on a lot of different forum people asking more or less the same question concerning in-game ad. I'm quite sceptical because I've never seen it, I thought it was only reserved for mobile app. You guys have you some examples of game that use this way to make money?