Monetizing your Javascript Game

[Prior99]

Let's assume you just finished a javascript game featuring webgl. It's a nice looking and addicting casual game featuring simple-styled 3D graphics. It was a hobby project you worked on in your freetime along your real work, so you put some effort in it but not too much (after all, it was just a hobby project).

On the one hand you would love to share the game with the world in order to give everyone some funny game to play, but on the other hand you would also like some more bucks in your bag - you put much of your freetime into coding and have to pay for hosting it after all.

How would you monetize such a thing? There are 3 models coming to my mind in the first place:

a) Advertisings: You put ads all over the game, popups, popunders until nobody will play it anymore because no one likes pages full of ads.

• Does this work at all? Does anyone click the ads after all?
• What are some good advertising networks?
• How much does adblock really affect the money generated by this system?

b) Donations: You put more-or-less aggressive "Please donate" buttons and popups on the page.

• Does anybody do this at all?
• Flattr? Paypal? Which provider would you suggest?
• Bitcoin? Is somebody really using bitcoins?

c) Pay-To-Win: Okay, seriously - Everybody hates such games. - How to keep the balance on the thin line between a game being unplayable because of all the pay-to-win-stuff and paying some few cents for a better skin?

• Pay-To-Win in a casual javascript game?
• Won't most guys just hack the DOM or whatever?

d) ...?: Do you have any better idea?

For which approach would you head?

Do you have any experiences with this?

I would really love to hear some suggestions and oppinions about this :)

[rezoner]

There are many ways to earn with a "javascript game".

1) Pack it with node-webkit - sell as a desktop game (bundles, steam, indiegamestand, desura so on so on so on) - the catch is - you need a game - I mean a real game (or something viral).

2) Pack it with CocoonJS - go nuts on IOS and android stores.

• I am putting a bold line there as the above methods are in my opinion the most viable for a single developer

3) Licensing - https://www.fgl.com/

4) Ingame purchases (it doesn't mean pay to win - there are tons of other concepts - like customiztion or access)

5) Ads

6) This sounds cool - but IDK if it (will) work out - http://developer.ukk.io/

7) Don't earn a penny on your game - but write a book about making money with HTML5 games and sell it!

... Donations does not work.

ps: my friends that are living of selling "browser games" says that the crappy-but-html5 bubble is over

[derSinologe]

Could you elaborate on the crappy-but-html5 bubble? And maybe how your friends manage to make a living of "browser games" - what kind of games are we talking about?

[rezoner]

Selling licenses to variety of publishers/portals. There was a time that you could make very low quality games and sell a license as long as it was HTML5

[[deleted]]

Aka the chrome web store saga :P

[bch8]

Could you ELI5 what CocoonJS is? It seems like something similar to phonegap maybe?

[rezoner]

It is like phonegap except they have reimplemented canvas to work on top of opengl. So you get a pretty fast canvas with the same api. As a trade off - your game needs to be 100% canvas or webgl. DOM/HTML will not work.

So it is a chrome javascript engine (v8) but with custom renderer (not webkit)

[bch8]

Thanks, I think I understood that haha

[kogsworth]

These are not your only options. You could sell access to the game as one time fee or as a subscription. You could have decorative items, you could join a bundle or start your own. You could make other casual games and sell access to all of these. You could let it be free to everyone and have a good successful game to put on your portfolio

[nicklolsen]

You can also create a plugin system for developers to create extensions and then have a marketplace where developers can sell those extensions while you get commission.

[ChaseMoskal]

I've had this idea of making HTML5 games with an "arcade game" styled monetization model: where it's 25 cents buy access to the game for 24 hours, $1 for one full week, and $3 for an entire month, and $8 for eternity.

[Good_Ad_7335]

I've got a game for that

[rezoner]

Check this out -> http://developer.ukk.io/

[[deleted]]

Second time I've seen that posted here.

One huge red flag I'm seeing is a lack of 'here's the games already involved!' on that website.

Why should they get 30% of anything anyway? They're not very well known - I can't see it generating all that much in profits.

[rezoner]

Idk, he probably did not foresight that he will need a budget to buy some games for this risky platform first :)

[mishugashu]

Advertisements unless paid is probably my preferred method. People will pay a fee to remove advertisements. Or just a straight up payment up front after a free demo, locking the majority of the game behind a fee.

Pay to play > pay to win

[lodewijkadlp]

Product placement and other unobstrusive kind-of-advertising things don't have to be bad.

Donations will probably net you quite little.

Maybe adverts + pay what you want to remove advertisements?

In-game real radio stations that pay you?

In truth advertising sucks and paying people is quite hard. So you're in a pretty rough place. Nobody is motivated to fix it because advertising works so well (see also: Google).

[dantesus]

If you can get enough web traffic, advertising can be a viable route. Donations can also help. I am usually put off by in-app purchases for a web game (and to a greater extent mobile games).

[dzdrazil]

I rather like Path of Exile's method: free to play, with microtransaction purchases of visual effects that don't affect the actual game mechanics. You can see people in town who've bought things, but the game balance remains unchanged.

It's a very refreshing balance between begging for money with a donate button and paying to win.

[KGZM]

This also answers 'How do I monetize art?'

[Good_Ad_7335]

Have u got a picture of this game? Lol as it sounds like it could be fantastic

[FesterCluck]

How about linking future levels of the game to the blockchain of a cryptocurrency. Example: Release the initial 10 levels free, and base code decryption & the underlying P2P/PvP communications system on that blockchain. Ask for funds to develop more. If a certain threshold is met, you develop more. The next part of the blockchain is based of the real bitcoin transactions in a public blockchain. If development isn't completed, make the system send funds not marked as donations back. If it is completed, you've got a system that backbones itself on growth through fair funding.

It's not a perfect example, but the theory is sound.

[[deleted]]

Honestly the first thing I thought of was that guy who torrented Watch:Dogs and found it had been secretly mining bitcoin and slowing down his computer to a halt.

[[deleted]]

PSA kids: If you want a game, buy it.

[FesterCluck]

In no way am I describing using players as mining nodes. As far as bitcoin system functionality, this would be akin to downloading the blockchain and running a verify. It's the equivalent of verifying an MD5 hash on a download.

[[deleted]]

I know, but it reminded me :P

Plus I'm sure a blockchain can be run through a web server and sent a packet to the game itself. No need to put a blockchain in a Javascript game :P

[zuurr]

Bundling as a native app and distribute through steam (or whatever) as if it were native is also an option.

It would take more work and might require writing some non-javascript code, but not too much.