Browser MMORPGs | Thoughts

Yeah I actually bought the script to one of those games when I started out naive and wide eyed. Was about $300 like you said.

Turns out it was a big ass waste of time and money. They're so cookie cutter they're 1000s of them around so if you want to succeed you have to reskin and redesign it to the point you should have just started from scratch almost. And then the uphill battle to convince users to play your crappy game begins.

It's ultimately like most things once you put a lot of time and effort into it and get it just right to the point that you are making people happy and helping them (providing entertainment here) then yeah you can make some cash and you can even make a lot. But the same can be said about most any sort of website/service or whatever it is you do. Focus and hard work and a little luck makes the dough.
 


$300 for a license for a crap shoot game out of China seems believable. Though I've never priced them myself, so I couldn't be sure.
 
unrealalex said:
Ok yea I must be retarded. I guess I completely imagined the game I described. Must have been a dream or something. You gurus know everything. The game consisted of: join crew, train, perform actions to get money, buy stuff, fight. Unique? Not at all. Successful ? Very. Had zero flash, simple graphics. How many developers? One dude, not even full time. Marketing budget = most probably zero. If you'd like I can pm you the link and you can see for yourself, though I dont know how it looks now/how popular it is now. But at least for a year it was extremely popular, and if certain people spent as much as a grand you know he made bank considering he had over 50,000 players.
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Use your fucking brain. Could I clone his game for $300 and then just spread it on forums and get 50k members and make loads of money? It's not that simple. If you think it's that easy why don't you do it?

You said in your earlier post that most browser games you see are from people posting about them on forums, and how do you think those people found out about the game in the first place? Because large amounts of money have been spent putting that shit in front of their eyes. This isn't 2005 where there are only a few big browser games and just by creating your own you could instantly get recognition - there are a lot of players in this space now with massive marketing budgets.

Of course one man operations do create massive games which spread virally, but moreso in the past when the competition was low. At this moment in time the browser based games market is dominated by massive companies spending millions to get members and make sure their game stays ontop.

If you want to make impressive amounts of money out of a game these days there is no way you're going to do it by buying a $300 Mafia Wars clone and spreading it on a few forums. I'm certain you could make money like that, but your time is better spent elsewhere. Maybe my idea and your idea of 'serious' money is different.

PS. How the fuck am I a 'guru'? lol...
 
Games cost a lot more money than $300 to start, run, operate and retain members. I have a friend that runs a moderate sized game that has 8 full time employees running it and keeping it going.
 
I am in the works of creating a turn-based rpg, contact me if interested and I will provide more information. It is going to be a huge guaranteed money maker if I can find the right team. Need long-termers.
 
newest mmorpg off the factory:

http://j.mp/9FUiNf

how many thousands you guys think this costed?

answer: Not even one. 6000CNY = $878 USD. and it's actually a 3d client-based game.

what i'm trying to say. anyone looking to step into game development and Ownership, instead of pushing random $1.50 offers 10 hours a day as an affiliate... this is the time. or you can just "not believe it" and wait until Asia cornered the industry with 98% market share.
 
fufanux said:
I am in the works of creating a turn-based rpg, contact me if interested and I will provide more information. It is going to be a huge guaranteed money maker if I can find the right team. Need long-termers.
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^ This guy looks legit.

Good thread overall, am following closely.
 
evelynds said:
newest mmorpg off the factory:

hiderefer.org - Dereferer Service

how many thousands you guys think this costed?

answer: Not even one. 6000CNY = $878 USD. and it's actually a 3d client-based game.

what i'm trying to say. anyone looking to step into game development and Ownership, instead of pushing random $1.50 offers 10 hours a day as an affiliate... this is the time. or you can just "not believe it" and wait until Asia cornered the industry with 98% market share.
Click to expand...

I don't think anybody actually considers development the most difficult part. It's probably more about running the whole thing, monetizing correctly and not being fucked over by hackers/exploits/whatever.
 
evelynds said:
newest mmorpg off the factory:

hiderefer.org - Dereferer Service

how many thousands you guys think this costed?

answer: Not even one. 6000CNY = $878 USD. and it's actually a 3d client-based game.

what i'm trying to say. anyone looking to step into game development and Ownership, instead of pushing random $1.50 offers 10 hours a day as an affiliate... this is the time. or you can just "not believe it" and wait until Asia cornered the industry with 98% market share.
Click to expand...

And to get it anywhere they are going to need a large marketing budget.

Assuming the game actually cost $900, do you really think someone from WF right now is going to buy a similar game for $900 and then maintain and promote it without spending a lot of money? That could of worked 3 years ago but there are much bigger people in this right now.
 
xentech said:
And to get it anywhere they are going to need a large marketing budget.

Assuming the game actually cost $900, do you really think someone from WF right now is going to buy a similar game for $900 and then maintain and promote it without spending a lot of money? That could of worked 3 years ago but there are much bigger people in this right now.
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Noted earlier:

evelynds said:
All in all, the cost of these games themselves has become negligible. Development costs or academic qualifications are no longer the essential barriers to having the actual mmorpg in your hands. The real question- can you market it?
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Aren't people on this forum 'ballin' ? They're marketing visionaries, in any case. Aren't they spending thousands a day on X traffic medium? If these were facts, then quantitatively shouldn't they be glad to know the products they are already now reselling... can be bought, owned and marketed by themselves, with their existing methods, with money they [apparently?] already have and/or spend anyway ?

That could of worked 3 years ago but there are much bigger people in this right now.
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www.gameforge.de - Games why do those guys call themselves GameForge? that's right -- the games are mass-produced as if they're French Toasts! The casual/browser game scene right now, comes down to proper niche and/or IP (intellectual property in other words an existing fantasy setting/story without existing virtual presence) targeting. creating the ###th RPG will be a futile investment. creating the ##th RTS will be difficult. creating the first ? is what it's about.

game players themselves beg for new IPs each day. they're just as tired of playing orc/elf RPGs as the bloggers and journalists covering them.

Marketing capacity + creative insight is all that's needed today. The game you develop afterwards will have costs that are essentially negligible. The plan around it has become the entire deal closer.

PS: cost-wise, this is of course assuming fully-Asian (Chinese) development and support teams. 1 western Texture Editor hires 12 of the same in China. So yeah, of course it's impossible here.
 
evelynds said:
Noted earlier:



Aren't people on this forum 'ballin' ? They're marketing visionaries, in any case. Aren't they spending thousands a day on X traffic medium? If these were facts, then quantitatively shouldn't they be glad to know the products they are already now reselling... can be bought, owned and marketed by themselves, with their existing methods, with money they [apparently?] already have and/or spend anyway ?



www.gameforge.de - Games why do those guys call themselves GameForge? that's right -- the games are mass-produced as if they're French Toasts! The casual/browser game scene right now, comes down to proper niche and/or IP (intellectual property in other words an existing fantasy setting/story without existing virtual presence) targeting. creating the ###th RPG will be a futile investment. creating the ##th RTS will be difficult. creating the first ? is what it's about.

game players themselves beg for new IPs each day. they're just as tired of playing orc/elf RPGs as the bloggers and journalists covering them.

Marketing capacity + creative insight is all that's needed today. The game you develop afterwards will have costs that are essentially negligible. The plan around it has become the entire deal closer.

PS: cost-wise, this is of course assuming fully-Asian (Chinese) development and support teams. 1 western Texture Editor hires 12 of the same in China. So yeah, of course it's impossible here.
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You sir are a bit misinformed. You do understand that Gameforge has more then 200 in house developers? That companies like bigpoint have more then 600?

I've been in the gaming industry for over 10 years, have several titles out and all of them cost far more then $300.

Do me a favor, and please do a bit of research before posting garbage like this.
 
i noted the philosophy behind current mass production, which is found back in company names and ideology. i didn't say a word about their staff or revenues. i did say it's impossible to do in the west, what asians do in china and otherwise. afaik gameforge is western too.
 
I think all of you guys posting how much money it really takes to create a game are completely missing the point here. How much money does it take to steal a landing page?

How much money would it take to copy a game when you are using the exact same engine and maybe even the same original source and employing cheap labor? How about if said cheap labor made their whole living stealing source code and repackaging it and all you did was work on marketing.

Saying how much does it cost to make a game is the same as saying how much does it cost to make movie. The answer is as much as you want to spend, including nothing if you do everything yourself. I bet half of these browser games are created without a single programmer writing original code, because they are just modified games that already existed, and by modified it might just be models, text, and names.

People saying "it takes a lot more than $300 to make a game" really mean, "it takes a lot more than $300 to make an original game or a unique game", I'm sure $300 could get you a month of someone's time in China, and if all they do is rip and re-release, thats all you would need.

TL;DR you guys are missing his whole point.
 
conv3rsion said:
I think all of you guys posting how much money it really takes to create a game are completely missing the point here. How much money does it take to steal a landing page?

How much money would it take to copy a game when you are using the exact same engine and maybe even the same original source and employing cheap labor? How about if said cheap labor made their whole living stealing source code and repackaging it and all you did was work on marketing.

Saying how much does it cost to make a game is the same as saying how much does it cost to make movie. The answer is as much as you want to spend, including nothing if you do everything yourself. I bet half of these browser games are created without a single programmer writing original code, because they are just modified games that already existed, and by modified it might just be models, text, and names.

People saying "it takes a lot more than $300 to make a game" really mean, "it takes a lot more than $300 to make an original game or a unique game", I'm sure $300 could get you a month of someone's time in China, and if all they do is rip and re-release, thats all you would need.

TL;DR you guys are missing his whole point.
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Finally someone steps in, this could last for ever.

"it costs $300 to make a game"
"no it doesnt"
"it costs $300 to make a game"
"no it doesnt"
...
....

conv3rsion said:
TL;DR you guys are missing his whole point.
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lols
 
conv3rsion said:
I think all of you guys posting how much money it really takes to create a game are completely missing the point here. How much money does it take to steal a landing page?

How much money would it take to copy a game when you are using the exact same engine and maybe even the same original source and employing cheap labor? How about if said cheap labor made their whole living stealing source code and repackaging it and all you did was work on marketing.

Saying how much does it cost to make a game is the same as saying how much does it cost to make movie. The answer is as much as you want to spend, including nothing if you do everything yourself. I bet half of these browser games are created without a single programmer writing original code, because they are just modified games that already existed, and by modified it might just be models, text, and names.

People saying "it takes a lot more than $300 to make a game" really mean, "it takes a lot more than $300 to make an original game or a unique game", I'm sure $300 could get you a month of someone's time in China, and if all they do is rip and re-release, thats all you would need.

TL;DR you guys are missing his whole point.
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took a while, but someone manages to see the fine print.

case examples:

Lordcraft,Online games,Fantasy Browser Game

Kingory: Real-Time Strategy Flash Multiplayer FREE Web Game Based On The World's Most-Played Game Genre - Romance of Three Kingdoms.

different text, models, names. 10 years of experience with 200 staff and $mm development budgets? Big No.

PS: compare in-game shots between each before replying.

and remember, there's 1-2 new games coming out every other month now.
 
it costs a lot to clone a game. evelyndes. stfu and get to making ur magical browser game. im sure it'lll be great success. why r u even posting all this crap to try to enlighten us how awesome it is to make browser games?
 
Stuff browser games...

Runes of Magic is the example to follow. Basically a WOW clone but it a good game. The monetize the players right at the end, when they're high level and addicted.

1. hook the players
2. make ingame currency hard to earn
3. monetize the currency
4. laugh at chronically addicted players while in pile of money

But seriously, these companies are missing the point that one quality product is better than 500 pieces of crap... Just look at runescape.
 
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