SOFTGAMES is sponsoring Casual Connect USA - Meet us at table 611!

[Alexander Krug]

Dear HTML5 games community,

 

I'm very happy to announce that SOFTGAMES - the world's largest HTML5 games platform - is sponsoring Casual Connect USA this year. If you are around, feel free to step by at our booth #611 to meet our CEO Alexander Krug and our Chief of Sales Olga Wese in person We'll further host a panel on 23rd of July at 11am in the main hall ("Mobile Web: To Spree or Browse?").

 

If you cant make it, you can always get in touch with the content team via [email protected]

 

www.softgames.de

 

[ozdy]

Hello Alexander, I'm happy that Softgames business is doing well, however I can't attend as I am far from the USA. 

 

You keep saying HTML5 is a great thing, but from all the presentations it seems that it is a great thing only for your company. The developers that have approached you have growing concerns about dealing with you. I'd be happy if you can address our concerns:

 

1.) Your prices are low and one has to negotiate with you as your initial offers are even lower.

2.) Your sponsorship requirements are too high (API, translations, and for exclusives you also want customizations that are sometimes not agreed initially).

3.) You sublicense to other sponsors without giving the developer a penny, so the dev actually loses money if a 3rd sponsor gets a license from you and not the dev.

[Funkyy]

Those seems as valid questions. I wonder if Alexander can answer them.

[Alexander Krug]

Hello Alexander, I'm happy that Softgames business is doing well, however I can't attend as I am far from the USA. 

 

You keep saying HTML5 is a great thing, but from all the presentations it seems that it is a great thing only for your company. The developers that have approached you have growing concerns about dealing with you. I'd be happy if you can address our concerns:

 

1.) Your prices are low and one has to negotiate with you as your initial offers are even lower.

2.) Your sponsorship requirements are too high (API, translations, and for exclusives you also want customizations that are sometimes not agreed initially).

3.) You sublicense to other sponsors without giving the developer a penny, so the dev actually loses money if a 3rd sponsor gets a license from you and not the dev.

Hi Ozdy,

 

thanks for your questions. Let me answer them below:

 

1. We pay according to game quality, size and other criteria. I strongly believe that SOFTGAMES pays the market average for HTML5 games. We pay extremely fast, our QA is detailed but fair and we offer a lot additional help. Those are some key benefits which are far above average.

2. HTML5 games are actively competing with native games. Therefore and in order to bring HTML5 games to the next stage we need to take care the content we get fits to our quality standards. Further is the HTML5 games market still very young and SOFTGAMES needs to adapt to changes fast. We're operating on the long term and this may result in complex API requirements to update our 250 games strong catalogue easily and fast.

3. We only do exclusive licensing now, so we own all the rights incl. the right to sub-license the content to 3rd parties.

 

Best,

Alexander

[ozdy]

Thank you for your reply, Alexander. However, some things are still not clear.

1. [...] I strongly believe that SOFTGAMES pays the market average for HTML5 games.[...]

 

From your recent presentation (pages 17-18)

* Non-exclusive HTML5 prices range from $500-$5000

* Top 10% of HTML5 developer make $50K+/month per game. Low tier developers make "just" $500-10K/month per game.

 

This is light years away from what you offer. Could you clarify where you got the above numbers?

[Alexander Krug]

This is an example of the average range of what publishers pay for a non excl. license. The price always depends on game quality, size and other criteria as I already mentioned above.

 

The chart is taken from this report: www.developereconomics.com/reports/q1-2014/

[ozdy]

This is an example of the average range of what publishers pay for a non excl. license. The price always depends on game quality, size and other criteria as I already mentioned above.

Then my games and developers' I've talked to should be the worst passable quality to deserve <=$500.

 

Could you link us to a game that you or other sponsors would pay $5K for a non-exclusive, and if possible a game that makes $50K/month?

[Alexander Krug]

Then my games and developers' I've talked to should be the worst passable quality to deserve <=$500.

 

Could you link us to a game that you or other sponsors would pay $5K for a non-exclusive, and if possible a game that makes $50K/month?

As also our competitors reading in this forum, I will not share too much internal information. I hope u understand. Anyway from my knownledge e.g. the HTML5 game "Zombies can't Jump" (http://www.softgames.com/games/zombies-cant-jump) was a huge success either on the web and in the stores.

[ozdy]

As also our competitors reading in this forum, I will not share too much internal information. I hope u understand. Anyway from my knownledge e.g. the HTML5 game "Zombies can't Jump" (http://www.softgames.com/games/zombies-cant-jump) was a huge success either on the web and in the stores.

 

Thank you, I wanted an example of a high end game for your standards. I have some insight in how much that game has made from HTML5 sitelocks. 

 

I'll be diplomatic and not say my opinion about your $5K per sitelock and $50K+/month per game claim , but then again, any developer that has some experience in selling HTML5 games will think like me ...

[Reborned]

Zombies can't Jump is a HTML5 hit. A rare exception. So I think this is the case when a game make "$50K+/month", but it seens quite unrealystic yet. 

[Smrdis]

As also our competitors reading in this forum, I will not share too much internal information. I hope u understand. Anyway from my knownledge e.g. the HTML5 game "Zombies can't Jump" (http://www.softgames.com/games/zombies-cant-jump) was a huge success either on the web and in the stores.

It was popular on web, but not in stores. 10-50k free installs on google play and same situation in appstore and amazon. 

[Neoprofessor]

Well,

 

Back on topic, I hope to see you there.

[OkijinGames]

On 16/07/2014 at 8:19 AM, Smrdis said:

It was popular on web, but not in stores. 10-50k free installs on google play and same situation in appstore and amazon. 

 

On 17/07/2014 at 11:01 AM, True Valhalla said:

 

That's not really a "huge success" either.

Just found this topic while doing some research on Casual Connect and saw my game "success" being discussed about so here you go... one year late!

Zombies Can't Jump ranked 1st in paid strategy games on Windows Phone over a period of several months in 15 countries including the US and China with an average rating of 4.6 on the platform in all combined regions. Zombies TD has now passed half a million downloads on Google Play and the game made thousands in revenue share deals on native iOS and Android stores. Yet, it is an HTML5 game made in 3 months by one guy (me) at that time. On top of that, it generated well over $50K in HTML5 licensing deals. Now if success means millions to you guys... yes it failed :-) By any other standards I am sure that the rest of us in the HTML5 game business would call that a "huge success" to be offered that kind of money for 3 months of work.

One more thing... years back, I had a chat with some dev about publishing games on Windows Phone. The guy told me he would not waste time with a platform that has less than 3% market share in the mobile industry. Why? Because thousands of dollars is bad to take at the end of the day? I can understand why King.com or Rovio or Disney would not bother targeting a 3% market slice, their time is better used elsewhere but I would never understand smaller indie devs talking like the big guys, like if it matters to us that windows phone has 3% or less... that's still million of potential users.

And Windows Phone is just one very accessible platform for monetizing your HTML5 games at the end, you also have the flourishing Asian mobile ecosystem (japan, taiwan) with so many hidden gems marketplaces that generate pretty good money... But you guys know much about success right, so I will leave you with your hugely successful million MAU Google and iOS HTML5 games and wish you good luck in your endeavours. Or maybe you were just being arrogant...

And to finish back on the subject of my research, for those who wish to discuss more seriously about the HTML5 game business and its opportunities then Okijin Games will be at Casual Connect USA next month and we will be glad to meet anyone, publishers and developers to exchange and discuss potential and new business opportunities.

[OkijinGames]

5 hours ago, True Valhalla said:

This topic is practically two years old It's very outdated.

2 years indeed!

What never gets outdated is the sh$t people say when commenting on someone's relative "success". And you know much about that don't you.

[OkijinGames]

56 minutes ago, True Valhalla said:

Just to be clear, I would say the same thing today: that 10-50K free installs is not a "huge success" - and of course, it's relative, but that's my opinion.

Obviously I wouldn't make that same commentary about the game today because it has seen huge success compared to two years ago.

You can see from the AppAnnie screen that the game had already reached 1st in both US and China markets on Windows Phone when that topic was posted by Alexander. When an HTML5 game made by 1 guy lands above "Plants vs Zombies" or other EA and Disney titles on the 3rd mobile platform by market shares (at that time), we can effectively call that a success as Alexander was pointing out back then. 

People comment about things they dont know (wharever their reasons) and that is the point I am making.

[OkijinGames]

I am only correcting wrong statements made about my game which obviously had gotten much more than 10k free installs since it even got top ranking as a PAID $2 game on Windows Phone. 

As for the $50k/m I hope to be the first to reach that if no one else had

On another note, I had a chat with a content manager at Firefox last year and he told me the top publishers here on the marketplace can make average $70k/months so maybe Alexander was referring to that... anyway its probably no more since the firefox marketplace has shut down most of its activities since. But there are certainly many others opportunities.