It's great to see that web gaming is still thriving. I used to make Flash games over 15 years ago and remember how easy it was to reach an audience back then, compared to now when the market is much more saturated.
Thanks for the info. Great video by the way. You 've convince me to try to publish on Poki. I've been a PC game developer and it can be draining to work so much time to see the results. I like the idea of spending one month on one small web game. I think It can be a good way to improve the game design skills.
Wow! Best of luck Pascal, I keep looking at getting back into web game development too so I understand the temptation 😁 I'm always put off by the low eCPM I keep seeing these days. I know it should stack up with multiple games and I'm sure you've done your research though! Good luck, I look forward to seeing what happens! I hope it all turns out for the best
Feel like the ad market issues & game design constraints are similar for both web & mobile. But mobile has other ad-types that pay out better (or so I hear - never did ads). Could use web as a quick-and-dirty testbed, and port the successes to mobile, so long as the web-platform doesn't demand a cut 🤔
Thank you for sharing these web gamedev experiences! - I miss the fun and flexibility of sharing my Flash games across the world, and my kid's Flash games. RIP Mochi Media once Shanda bought them. Twas amazing to see all the international players checking the games out. Different era. :/
I think how you can take a look on future possibilities in a clear way and test them is crucial. I suppose from business point of view (and real life, not hobby) is mandatory to stick on current revenue stream and test new one, with small experiments :D
I'd be interested in what you learn about "one IAP to unlock the full game" model on mobile. Loop Hero (Devolver) and Slice & Dice does that - but I haven't heard anything on the results. For me, it seems like the best model, as I will already have to make a demo for Steam, and I don't have to do game design for IAP.
I am making almost the same amount or more from my HTML5 games than my Steam apps. Getting on Poki can be very challenging, I guess. They reject a lot of games and some devs don't even receive a response. Best of luck!
I guess this episode finally explains this trip down memory lane. Digging up the past in the hope of bringing something back to life for a modern age. Web games are risky business, make sure you are developing your business and not the platforms.
Hmm... web games do have a huge audience, but... is it profitable? Keep us posted will ya. I would really like to know if you can make it work. (Don't forget to advertise your other projects in those games. Might as well use that exposure.)
Thank you for this video! I make web based games (using an engine that's optimized for HTML5). But I don't know much about distribution on these web platforms (such as poki). I might give it a try!
@@orangepixelgames I don't! Haha I was planning to distribute via steam. I use electron to make then into a desktop app. At least that was the plan with my last game (before it was refused by steam).
A major drawback of web games is that others can quite easily steal your game. I've read about many developers experiencing this-someone stealing their game and simply publishing it on another website. I'm not a web developer or a game developer, so I could be wrong... Maybe there are ways to protect your code, but as I understand it, these types of games primarily run their code on the frontend.
@@Simon-ik1kb That happened to us constantly with Flash games when on Mochi Media on non-English sites that weren't distributing from Mochi, and we never got any ad revenue. I just tracked the sites our games showed up on and added them to the total plays.
Yeah, it's a problem, although they can do that on mobile too. They rip your app, and link up their own ad providers, so you made the game, but they reap the profit.
Just file a copyright on main game assets every time, it costs just 80$ to protect 10 assets. Then with this you can take down the game easily from any other platform. Small platforms you don't care but if it gets somewhere large you can take it down and replace by original from yourself.
I was not able to get into Poki yet, maybe I will try again :) I would be interested in seeing a video on sales once you get in. I think I only ever saw one video on poki sales and they said it was suprisingly good. I am assuming a unity webgl game would be fine for that site but im not certain (I know you dont use unity just thinking aloud). Good luck getting the back catalogue on there!..
@@orangepixelgames Made a free edu-game in Unity WebGL for my thesis. There are settings you can adjust, but honestly it was a 3d game with almost no optimization and it downloaded just fine (WebAssembly, all assets in build - didn't use streaming). Playing at first-launch in about 20sec, and less than 8sec on subsequent launches (browser caches games locally). Only issue we saw was my advisor's quite old MacBook on an iffy network connection. She also had issues just running Zoom + anything on that rig though, so I don't believe it was entirely down to the game 😅 You might consider having some testers on very low-spec rigs and crappy internet - that's a big chunk of the market for web games.
You know what used to be great? Brands used to sponsor making games that would feature their products. I made games for automotive companies, for toy companies, many more. Our first Unity game was for an eyeglasses company. Everybody wanted to make a game because of the high engagement rates compared to running ads. They were fun to work on and provided a relatively steady income without super-long development cycles. Flash was great for enabling that.
I made some giraffe basketball for toysrus and cars playing soccer for Continental (tire company) , was good times, released around 10 mini games in flash. Nostalgia 😆
@@orangepixelgames Monetization seems to follow the market (and genre, to some degree). Some places really can only afford those micro am'ts, and some genres do (or don't) lend themselves well to being interrupted for say, an offerwall. NewZoo just dropped their big FY24 global report, which should include some info on genre, market x monetization strategies, even in the free version. AppAnnie also has had some good articles on this topic, might want to check those out (I think they changed their name, but still useful).
some devs release two version in the same marketplace freemium and premium other releases depends on the platform , if it's iOS they release it as a premium if it's android they release it as a freemium but beware chinese will steal the apk modified and release it on their stores PS: your videos are awesome
Thinking about trying web games again for a living, sounds like a good place to be (like it used to in the flash days). At least to get some side money. I was wondering if have you thought of other web portals besides Poki? I am thinking of CrazyGames or CoolMathGames as an example in particular, but I'm not sure if there are more with direct developer access. But also on classic portals like Newgrounds, or maybe Gamejolt possibly? I don't know if you can even make actual money on Newgrounds or Gamejolt, though, audience and notoriety are more likely on those I think.
Well, adaptability is your proven strength, so this move will at least open up potential new channels for you, no matter how immediately profitable. Feel like web-game players are very much into themes and familiarity, so you might do some research & assess if any of your games could be reskinned to suit your platform. (Or find a Poki-run platform that already matches your theme 🤷) Still looking forward to seeing that Switch port of Gauntlet of Power - Nintendo fans as a whole are more intune with retro-styled games, I think. Good luck!
Yup rewrote my game framework in JavaScript. And then it's a matter of either porting each java code class one at a time to JS.. or just write new games from scratch in JS
@@lisovyy Vampire Survivors was originally a Phaser.js made game until they went coop multiplayer and moved everything into Unity. The teams I worked with at a former job used Phaser too for client projects, as it was easy to use if you are a programmer in mind and heart (I am not).
Yes, but I then need a LOT of games to keep people coming back, and I need to get people to visit my site! So long term that would be an idea, but not at this time
I believe they've built the brand name over many years by both doing strong SEO efforts (which costs a lot as well) and paid ads, for making players know them, and now there enjoying a lot of direct visits. Very good execution by that small Netherlands team (I think they're like 10 to 40 people in size, forgot exactly, but small team)
@@babyfox205 no explanation unfortunately... My games usually fit between 1MB up to 3MB (brute compression on images and JS), the (only) biggest one is 10MB. I think they didn't liked the mechanics of them. =(
And people call LLM's as "AI", while you could say it has nothing to do with "intelligence", it's just a text parser algorithm that vomits out an average input. 'Average' meaning 'most common' string of text when confronted with other string of text. And what people call "neural networks" has nothing to do with "neurons" nor "networks" LOL. It's literally weighted algorithms that take various inputs and spit out some output based on those input values. Biological brains work in analog mode and are a lot more complex than some math equations. Neural networks and neurons ("biological neural networks") couldn't be more distant from each other. The question is; What is your point? It seems like you have none. You make no point. It's like a silly trivia information that someone will forget about at the party in 5 minutes lol.
@@Sourusophyexe Their point was to correct what they thought was an error. But, it wasn't an error. (You can stop rubbing it in now, we have all been educated sufficiently. Thank you.😉👍)
I understand why you like web games. All the things that you say is true about web game. They made for fun only. No need to worry if you did not win the game. Just open the game and enjoy it.
@@jasonl9266 I agree that most games ads like PlayStore are really bad.But with Poki i played like 20+ games and the Ads/rewards are decently well implemented.
You don't sell webgames, they are free and there are ads surrounding the game canvas or in game ads, or distributed to partners like telecom companies and other community sites.
Every platform is different, with diff core audiences & expectations. Web games are for the "looking for time-killers" audience, who for whatever reason is not on mobile. Group 1- they don't have (or want) smartphones, but do have desktops or other web-enabled devices. Group 2- they are not in a place or position where playing on a phone is acceptable, like while doing office work. Group 3- they come to the same web-games platform all the time as a habit, maybe they chat or play with online or IRL friends. Group 4- the web-games feature a beloved genre that isn't done much elsewhere (not all Flash genres made the leap to smartphone mobile). It's a small, but persistent, slice of the market. Not quite sure they're all looking for OP arcade-style games, but if there's like a retrogames web-portal, that would be great!
Yeah, the problem with games made for inferior systems and imported to PC is, if you're making a game for mobile or console, it's never gonna be a great PC game for most experienced PC players. Simply because most people I know play PC games instead of console because they have more depth of gameplay. You're never gonna get the depth of gameplay that a PC is capable of with some game you made for console or mobile or inferior device. If I see a game that is obviously ported from those platforms, I don't even give it a look, no matter how interested I might have been otherwise. As a PC game player I want a quality game with depth and decent gameplay features. That's why I don't play console or mobile. PC gamers generally want a lot more than the bare minimum that can run on console in a game, at least the PC gamers I know do - that's why they're on PC. They're looking at a ported game that is supposed to be for PC and seeing something without the depth of gameplay and features they're used to seeing from a PC made game. That might be why you get the heat from PC gamers. Yeah, they should realise it's just an inferior ported-to-PC game and move on, but you're expecting them to play a game on PC made with less because it's imported from a considerably inferior product, right? So they're judging that game against other games they know - and those games are made for PC with PC specs in mind, and with a lot more features and gameplay that is made with a keyboard in mind instead of a joy stick. These games stand out like a sore thumb as bland with minimal functionality to PC players. Some PC players might like these kinds of games if they're looking for something casual, but PC gamers that I know, just don't. It's an unfair comparison, sure, but from the player's view, they're comparing what should be like products, side by side. No offence intended for other device players (play on the system that right for you, right?), but that's just the facts. That's probably why your PC players are expecting a lot more - because with PC made games, they generally get it. PS: Good luck with your future plans, btw.
It's great to see that web gaming is still thriving. I used to make Flash games over 15 years ago and remember how easy it was to reach an audience back then, compared to now when the market is much more saturated.
@@TheUnsupported gDevelop and Newgrounds have a ton of HTML/JavaScript browser games. Newgrounds have Unity engine made browser games too.
Thanks for the info. Great video by the way. You 've convince me to try to publish on Poki. I've been a PC game developer and it can be draining to work so much time to see the results. I like the idea of spending one month on one small web game. I think It can be a good way to improve the game design skills.
Awesome video! Looking forward to checking out your web games!
Gimme some time, and they'll be up! (Somewhere 😅)
Wow! Best of luck Pascal, I keep looking at getting back into web game development too so I understand the temptation 😁 I'm always put off by the low eCPM I keep seeing these days.
I know it should stack up with multiple games and I'm sure you've done your research though!
Good luck, I look forward to seeing what happens!
I hope it all turns out for the best
Let's hope the amount of players and playtime makes the low eCPM worth it!
Feel like the ad market issues & game design constraints are similar for both web & mobile. But mobile has other ad-types that pay out better (or so I hear - never did ads). Could use web as a quick-and-dirty testbed, and port the successes to mobile, so long as the web-platform doesn't demand a cut 🤔
@@mandisawyes but players on mobile are hating the ads which forcing them to install another app. That's why they're more playing Poki now.
Thank you for sharing these web gamedev experiences! - I miss the fun and flexibility of sharing my Flash games across the world, and my kid's Flash games. RIP Mochi Media once Shanda bought them. Twas amazing to see all the international players checking the games out. Different era. :/
Yeah it's kinda exciting to be digging into all this.
Nice idea keep the good work friend. It not easy and your right on steam.
💪
I think how you can take a look on future possibilities in a clear way and test them is crucial. I suppose from business point of view (and real life, not hobby) is mandatory to stick on current revenue stream and test new one, with small experiments :D
I'd be interested in what you learn about "one IAP to unlock the full game" model on mobile. Loop Hero (Devolver) and Slice & Dice does that - but I haven't heard anything on the results. For me, it seems like the best model, as I will already have to make a demo for Steam, and I don't have to do game design for IAP.
It's an interesting journey you embark on! I hope it leads you somewhere nice :)
I am making almost the same amount or more from my HTML5 games than my Steam apps. Getting on Poki can be very challenging, I guess. They reject a lot of games and some devs don't even receive a response. Best of luck!
I guess this episode finally explains this trip down memory lane.
Digging up the past in the hope of bringing something back to life for a modern age.
Web games are risky business, make sure you are developing your business and not the platforms.
Hmm... web games do have a huge audience, but... is it profitable? Keep us posted will ya. I would really like to know if you can make it work.
(Don't forget to advertise your other projects in those games. Might as well use that exposure.)
We'll find out if it's profitable! 😁
How do u make the art for your games?
He uses Gimp !
@@KolLeviathan i thought he hires people for that
I really admire your work ethic and your ability to just jump platform and rewrite stuff instead of being stubborn!
Thank you for this video! I make web based games (using an engine that's optimized for HTML5). But I don't know much about distribution on these web platforms (such as poki). I might give it a try!
Crazygames is another paltform
So where do you upload/distribute your games now?
@@orangepixelgames I don't! Haha
I was planning to distribute via steam. I use electron to make then into a desktop app.
At least that was the plan with my last game (before it was refused by steam).
A major drawback of web games is that others can quite easily steal your game. I've read about many developers experiencing this-someone stealing their game and simply publishing it on another website. I'm not a web developer or a game developer, so I could be wrong... Maybe there are ways to protect your code, but as I understand it, these types of games primarily run their code on the frontend.
@@Simon-ik1kb That happened to us constantly with Flash games when on Mochi Media on non-English sites that weren't distributing from Mochi, and we never got any ad revenue. I just tracked the sites our games showed up on and added them to the total plays.
Yeah, it's a problem, although they can do that on mobile too. They rip your app, and link up their own ad providers, so you made the game, but they reap the profit.
Just file a copyright on main game assets every time, it costs just 80$ to protect 10 assets. Then with this you can take down the game easily from any other platform. Small platforms you don't care but if it gets somewhere large you can take it down and replace by original from yourself.
I was not able to get into Poki yet, maybe I will try again :) I would be interested in seeing a video on sales once you get in. I think I only ever saw one video on poki sales and they said it was suprisingly good. I am assuming a unity webgl game would be fine for that site but im not certain (I know you dont use unity just thinking aloud). Good luck getting the back catalogue on there!..
Many games at poki are using Construct 3, AJ Ordaz does YT poki
Think unity webgl might be bloated in filesize? Not sure. But key will be a small download and quick start.. or these players move on!
I also have a hard time getting on Poki, other HTML5 sites are much easier, but don't have that nice ad revenue share system..
@@orangepixelgames Made a free edu-game in Unity WebGL for my thesis. There are settings you can adjust, but honestly it was a 3d game with almost no optimization and it downloaded just fine (WebAssembly, all assets in build - didn't use streaming). Playing at first-launch in about 20sec, and less than 8sec on subsequent launches (browser caches games locally).
Only issue we saw was my advisor's quite old MacBook on an iffy network connection. She also had issues just running Zoom + anything on that rig though, so I don't believe it was entirely down to the game 😅
You might consider having some testers on very low-spec rigs and crappy internet - that's a big chunk of the market for web games.
You know what used to be great? Brands used to sponsor making games that would feature their products. I made games for automotive companies, for toy companies, many more. Our first Unity game was for an eyeglasses company. Everybody wanted to make a game because of the high engagement rates compared to running ads. They were fun to work on and provided a relatively steady income without super-long development cycles. Flash was great for enabling that.
I made some giraffe basketball for toysrus and cars playing soccer for Continental (tire company) , was good times, released around 10 mini games in flash. Nostalgia 😆
@@babyfox205 Good times indeed!
Great video, Thanks!
It makes me wonder how will you figure out the monetization on mobile? Where will you do the research? Who will you ask?
Other developers that have done more recent releases then me 😅 my main question will be if Premium games are still viable or not
Oh, perfect! When you get to know, we will have someone to ask that question. 😅
@@orangepixelgames Monetization seems to follow the market (and genre, to some degree). Some places really can only afford those micro am'ts, and some genres do (or don't) lend themselves well to being interrupted for say, an offerwall. NewZoo just dropped their big FY24 global report, which should include some info on genre, market x monetization strategies, even in the free version. AppAnnie also has had some good articles on this topic, might want to check those out (I think they changed their name, but still useful).
some devs release two version in the same marketplace freemium and premium other releases depends on the platform , if it's iOS they release it as a premium if it's android they release it as a freemium but beware chinese will steal the apk modified and release it on their stores
PS: your videos are awesome
Not just Chinese stealing APK's 😁 that's a global problem that has been around since the 90s
@@orangepixelgames i just gave an example not really targeting a specific nation
Thinking about trying web games again for a living, sounds like a good place to be (like it used to in the flash days). At least to get some side money.
I was wondering if have you thought of other web portals besides Poki? I am thinking of CrazyGames or CoolMathGames as an example in particular, but I'm not sure if there are more with direct developer access.
But also on classic portals like Newgrounds, or maybe Gamejolt possibly? I don't know if you can even make actual money on Newgrounds or Gamejolt, though, audience and notoriety are more likely on those I think.
Well, adaptability is your proven strength, so this move will at least open up potential new channels for you, no matter how immediately profitable. Feel like web-game players are very much into themes and familiarity, so you might do some research & assess if any of your games could be reskinned to suit your platform. (Or find a Poki-run platform that already matches your theme 🤷)
Still looking forward to seeing that Switch port of Gauntlet of Power - Nintendo fans as a whole are more intune with retro-styled games, I think. Good luck!
do you actually use JS for developing web games? or is your framework able to export Java code to web platform?
I had a similar thought, I know libgdx can export to html but I wonder if that is the approach?
Yup rewrote my game framework in JavaScript. And then it's a matter of either porting each java code class one at a time to JS.. or just write new games from scratch in JS
Never got that export to work...
@@orangepixelgames that's cool, looking forward to your dev video about this ;)
@@lisovyy Vampire Survivors was originally a Phaser.js made game until they went coop multiplayer and moved everything into Unity. The teams I worked with at a former job used Phaser too for client projects, as it was easy to use if you are a programmer in mind and heart (I am not).
crazy games is like poki, but the process of submitting a game is a lot more clear and easy from what I can tell
What is their traffic numbers? Did you check how many players they have? Some platforms might not have traffic but poki has
I’ll buy gauntlet of power day 1 when it releases on iOS (hoping for a premium version 😅)
what a surprise!, good luck!
😁👍
I'm really interested of what you'll do with poki, it could be interested as well as it could be a total waste of time. I hope you'll tell us :P
Yeah let's hope it's not a full waste of time doing we games 😅
YO I have have one of those FirefoxOS t-shirts! It's one of my favourite shirts!
I always had more financial success on webgames compared to Steam, too bad everyone goes to webgames now and crowd it up.
have you considered making your own website to host your webgames on?
Yes, but I then need a LOT of games to keep people coming back, and I need to get people to visit my site! So long term that would be an idea, but not at this time
I believe they've built the brand name over many years by both doing strong SEO efforts (which costs a lot as well) and paid ads, for making players know them, and now there enjoying a lot of direct visits. Very good execution by that small Netherlands team (I think they're like 10 to 40 people in size, forgot exactly, but small team)
I've published some games on FirefoxOS at the time but Poki refused all of my games ... 😅
Did you also get the Firefox T-shirt!? 🤓
@@orangepixelgames oh no, I got the LG Fire(something) phone. Was pretty cool.
What are their refusal explanations? Game size?
@@babyfox205 no explanation unfortunately... My games usually fit between 1MB up to 3MB (brute compression on images and JS), the (only) biggest one is 10MB. I think they didn't liked the mechanics of them. =(
Your English was so fast there, and I forgot you were Dutch, so I thought you were speaking spanish. 😂
Que?? 😁
Looking forward to the web games!
People call it "HTML5" games when in reality it's made with just a lot of javascript and libraries like WebGL.
And all those technologies combined is HTML5 😅 but honestly, nobody cares about such semantics
And people call LLM's as "AI", while you could say it has nothing to do with "intelligence", it's just a text parser algorithm that vomits out an average input. 'Average' meaning 'most common' string of text when confronted with other string of text.
And what people call "neural networks" has nothing to do with "neurons" nor "networks" LOL. It's literally weighted algorithms that take various inputs and spit out some output based on those input values. Biological brains work in analog mode and are a lot more complex than some math equations. Neural networks and neurons ("biological neural networks") couldn't be more distant from each other.
The question is; What is your point? It seems like you have none. You make no point. It's like a silly trivia information that someone will forget about at the party in 5 minutes lol.
@@Sourusophyexe
Their point was to correct what they thought was an error. But, it wasn't an error. (You can stop rubbing it in now, we have all been educated sufficiently. Thank you.😉👍)
@@honaleri yeah lol
HTML5 encompasses the JS web APIs as well. So yes, webgl should be part and parcel of HTML5 spec as well
I understand why you like web games. All the things that you say is true about web game. They made for fun only. No need to worry if you did not win the game. Just open the game and enjoy it.
but how do you sell something that's online and requires internet connection for the game to load. what if your users don't have internet???
Those users that dont have internet are almost none.Like less than 1%
@@SelladowithChains yea but players won't take your game seriously ,, they will just lose interest after a few gameplay and ads are super anoying!
@@jasonl9266 I agree that most games ads like PlayStore are really bad.But with Poki i played like 20+ games and the Ads/rewards are decently well implemented.
You don't sell webgames, they are free and there are ads surrounding the game canvas or in game ads, or distributed to partners like telecom companies and other community sites.
Every platform is different, with diff core audiences & expectations. Web games are for the "looking for time-killers" audience, who for whatever reason is not on mobile. Group 1- they don't have (or want) smartphones, but do have desktops or other web-enabled devices. Group 2- they are not in a place or position where playing on a phone is acceptable, like while doing office work. Group 3- they come to the same web-games platform all the time as a habit, maybe they chat or play with online or IRL friends. Group 4- the web-games feature a beloved genre that isn't done much elsewhere (not all Flash genres made the leap to smartphone mobile).
It's a small, but persistent, slice of the market. Not quite sure they're all looking for OP arcade-style games, but if there's like a retrogames web-portal, that would be great!
Poki's market is more on casual, not hypercasual, mobile is hypercasual
Think both Poki and Mobile have both casual and hypercasual games.. 🤔
@@orangepixelgames And "midcore" - you can go pretty crazy with WebGL these days
Steam vs. HTML5?
What? HTML never was a programming language and never will be.
Neither is Steam 😜
Yeah, the problem with games made for inferior systems and imported to PC is, if you're making a game for mobile or console, it's never gonna be a great PC game for most experienced PC players. Simply because most people I know play PC games instead of console because they have more depth of gameplay. You're never gonna get the depth of gameplay that a PC is capable of with some game you made for console or mobile or inferior device. If I see a game that is obviously ported from those platforms, I don't even give it a look, no matter how interested I might have been otherwise. As a PC game player I want a quality game with depth and decent gameplay features. That's why I don't play console or mobile. PC gamers generally want a lot more than the bare minimum that can run on console in a game, at least the PC gamers I know do - that's why they're on PC. They're looking at a ported game that is supposed to be for PC and seeing something without the depth of gameplay and features they're used to seeing from a PC made game. That might be why you get the heat from PC gamers. Yeah, they should realise it's just an inferior ported-to-PC game and move on, but you're expecting them to play a game on PC made with less because it's imported from a considerably inferior product, right? So they're judging that game against other games they know - and those games are made for PC with PC specs in mind, and with a lot more features and gameplay that is made with a keyboard in mind instead of a joy stick. These games stand out like a sore thumb as bland with minimal functionality to PC players. Some PC players might like these kinds of games if they're looking for something casual, but PC gamers that I know, just don't. It's an unfair comparison, sure, but from the player's view, they're comparing what should be like products, side by side.
No offence intended for other device players (play on the system that right for you, right?), but that's just the facts. That's probably why your PC players are expecting a lot more - because with PC made games, they generally get it.
PS: Good luck with your future plans, btw.