HTML5 Game Distribution for Publishers and Developers

[austin]

Hey folks, I'm one of the co-founders of Clay.io, a platform for HTML5 games. We're rolling out a new feature that allows publishers to search through some of the 380+ games that have been added to Clay.io. For those familiar with Mochi Media, it's fairly similar to their publisher system - with the added benefit of games that work on the mobile web.

 

Publishers, you can find more information here: http://clay.io/publisher-tools

Developers, you can find more information here: http://clay.io/development-tools

 

To send me your feedback, you can reply here, send me a PM, or email me: [email protected]

[MichaelH]

Is a great idea, lets hope it brings more publishers on board with the HTML5 mobile browser market. Only down side i can see here is possible loss of revenue, most publishers are going to have traffic thats low and will probably wanna work on ad rev deals, ad rev deals are decent but only with a couple of publishers who know what they are doing, the rest earn 0, even like 10 publishers together like this still earn 0.

 

So my issue would be yh, games may get wide spread, but publishers are going to benefit more than us developers as they will be getting content for free yet we won't be getting any return and considering other publishers are paying for licenses and give decent revenue from ads, it makes it unfair on them as well. My thoughts anyway!

[austin]

The goal is to do ad revenue deals overall, and the combined publishers will make it worthwhile. Of course, the small publishers added together still don't make up much, but the cumulative effect of 10+ mid-sized publishers is where it starts to get interesting. 

 

I still fully recommend MarketJS as the option for getting the upfront flat fee sponsors. Publishers can weigh the benefits of paying that fee to fully control the game (implementing their API, logo and advertisements) vs get the game upfront for free, but not have as much control.

 

The same sort of divide has existed in Flash games for a while with FGL providing more-or-less the MarketJS model, while Mochi works with the ad-driven model.

[austin]

I agree that the gaming part of the site still needs work. The reason we're putting this out there is to offer more distribution to games on Clay.io. Even with improvements to the gaming aspect, the distribution is still very difficult to get. 

 

We initially did bring players to the game overview page first, but had a lot of complaints with that structure. At just about any Flash game site you're thrown right into the game - the big difference is they also have the ratings, overview, etc... on the play page itself. 

[MichaelH]

Yh, i agree with what you say, more publishers together and revenue should ad up, difference between flash and Mochi and HTML5 though is that with flash, you can license a game under the primary license terms and then you can add in the mochi ads service and spread the game with the licensee publishers branding within the game. That what the publishers gets a game that is spread virally advertising there site/brand and the developers gets and upfront payment plus ad revenue from the wide spread game.

 

Difference i see with HTML5 is that sort of license doesn't work, you either go exclusive and your game is only available on one site, or you go the non-exclusive route, so you sell to publishers individually for a flat-fee or do a rev share deal with them. I can see how your system would work, but i wouldn't compare it to Mochi, although similar i think the flash market and HTML5 mobile browser market are still fundamentally different in how licenses and revenue is generated. 

 

I do think this could work though, just i think that maybe publishers should be able to prove they have the traffic and revenue generating potential before they are allowed access to developers games for free, otherwise, what i can see happening is all the small flash portals that are out there, they will catch wind of your service and see it as an easy and really cheap way to get a presence on mobile and although its great news to get more publishers moving into the HTML5 mobile browser space, it is bad news if they are taking advantage of what could be a great service to get free content and the developers are getting there game published in more places, but are earning nothing for there work they put in.

 

Hope i aint being well negative lol, i think it would be a great service! Just wanna see it succeed for you, the devs and the publishers and not just the publishers. 

[austin]

@MichaelH, I do see your point. The counter to it is that the "freeloader"-type sites wouldn't license your game either way, so you're not losing customers in that area, and potentially earning something from the traffic all of them have combined. With that model, the only area you might lose a customer would be a site that doesn't have substantial traffic yet, but has capital to spend to grow. Curious though, why do you think the approach of a branded game sponsoring won't work with HTML5?

 

We "officially" rolled this out today, so I went ahead and changed the original post of this thread.

[MichaelH]

@Austin Very true, they are customers is guess we wouldn't have anyway. I like the idea like i said Not trying to put a downer on it, just saying what i think so hopefully the system will become even better over time!

 

As for the branded game sponsoring not working in HTML5, well, with flash and on desktop, its easy to switch from site to site and most users do so when playing flash games, 5min here, they see an add (site branding) in a game, click that and move on. Because of this nature, portal owners sponsor flash games, spread them virally and get traffic from them users clicking, most decent sponsors are bigger publishers anyway so once on there site, it turns into a HTML5 type model where all games have there brand and the aim now is to keep the user on the site as long as possible. This is basically where HTML5 is, publishers want the games on there site/network only with there branding so they keep user retention up have more opportunities to monetize that user, because all the publishers currently want this, there is no way to get a game to spread with another sponsors branding and working how it does in flash.

 

A system like yours could work to change that though, if publishers are getting games for free but it has branding in, well, they can't complain cause its free, if they want there branding then they can pay for it. Maybe having that option on your distribution could be a good way to work, then we could bring the primary license model to HTML5. So a publisher could sponsor a html5 game on a primary license, it would spread across sites via your system and then if a sponsor wants there branding in the game, they can pay for a non-exclusive license. Only thing is, it is soo easy to swap the branding over in a game, that it is going to be really hard to keep everyone in check so people dont just take the games for free and then change the branding to theres.

[AladdinDev]

I have Published my Game in Clay.io and they said that they will see it in a Maximum of 79 hours.

now have more than one month waitting and the game still pending.

I sent them more than 3 emails and they didn't response .

[DarkSpace]

I have Published my Game in Clay.io and they said that they will see it in a Maximum of 79 hours.

now have more than one month waitting and the game still pending.

I sent them more than 3 emails and they didn't response .

Any update on this? I have a scroller I'm finishing up and I was looking at clay.io as one possible option but I have a couple of reservations. The traffic seems a little slim and the site doesn't seem to be built with phones in mind, or at least not my phone which is admittedly kind of old. HTML5s big appeal is cross platform compatibility so I think responsive web design on the portal could go a long way towards getting more users.