Indie-Resource.com

FGL Is a portal to sell your flash or html5 games to "sponsors". Yet, they promote themselves as "the game industry's marketplace", so I thought, I shall try to see if Cubicverse can get some visibility, but guess what? those people don't have a clue what a real game is beside small flash games. Why? First of all, you need to specify the level of completion of your game while you publish it there. Now how can I rate a completion of a game which will always evolve while being played? I wrote down 50%, too bad, nobody want to sponsor a game which is not 80% or more done. We I could change the %... but that's not the most important issue: games should not have registrations as that push out players! What? How a multi player online game can work without any login? I don't have the slightest clue, but they pretend it works without registration or in a worse case a demo account... Yet a demo account will hardly work as you would need to allow multiple logins of the same demo account and not store anything from it. Again no clues.

I think those people live in a world where the only games are small and simple "play 5 min" games, and when a game require more intellectual efforts, then it's the game fault. Sorry guys, you are completely wrong. Open your eyes, see that ANY multi player online game do actually require a login, and see that they continue to evolve. After my rants the messages we kindly exchanged:

----- FGL_Rozek wrote: -------------------------------------------

Your game, Cubicverse, has been removed from the Approval queue so that we can offer some feedback before it is approved. You only get one chance to impress sponsors, so we want to help make your game the best it can be!

Reviewer Notes:

[Game must be a minimum 80% completed before approval can continue. I noticed that you have to create a login to play. Publishers will not take the time to register for your game to play, at the very least, a guest player should be allowed. Thank you.]

When you feel that your game is ready for sponsor viewing, please reply to this message to let us know.

Thank you.

Me:-----------------------

Thanks for the feedback. For the 80% completed, this kind of game is nearly never finished. Look at a EvE online, or WoW, or Runescape. Continuous work in progress. Sadly the options wasn't giving out this option. Is the game already playable? Yes. Does it contain already content? Yes. However we will continue to work on it and add more flesh to it over time. What kind of % shall I choose? No clues.

For the demo account, it can be done, however if multiple people use it, that will cause issues. Why? Because it's a real time game, with some of the logic running on the server. You can't really have 2 browser running with the same player.

Maybe my issue is that my game (an MORPG) is not the kind of game and game size found here on FGL.

FGL_Rozek:-----------------------
-The issue is this (80% completion), publishers are looking to purchase this game, not really for you to co-own it and continually update and upgrade it. They are looking for a game that players can get right into, slap their branding on it and let the internet do its magic.

-Most likely. If your game requires users to sign up or log in to something, it's extremely unlikely that we'll be able to help you get a sponsorship.

Gamers are usually turned off by this. Publishers know this, so they won't bid on a game that requires a special signup step.

Wow, that's just unreal

That really sucks, but I had a feeling that was going to be the response. These are not the types of games that sell on sponsor portal sites. They want little one-off games, like throwing a basketball through a hoop or something like that. Something they can throw-up on the web and forget about, not something that would require staff to run and content updates.

And beyond that, the money is crap for the time investment, so I think you are better off going it on your own. Seek out coverage of your game through the indie game media for exposure, add it to every game list you can think of, etc. But selling it wholesale the way single-player Flash games get sold is likely not going to be an option.

this is funny

Gamers are usually turned off by this. Publishers know this, so they won't bid on a game that requires a special signup step.

99% of gaming is done through login. Whether it's a WOW type game or signing in through Xbox Live or a Candy Crush type with Facebook login. Name 3 top money making non console games
MineCraft - needs a sign in
Candy Crush - needs a sign in
Wow - Needs a sign in

Unless you are looking for a cheesy click and play game which do not make millions unless you have a thousand of them. Maybe that's why the investment market for the gaming industry is so bad.

I was somewhat convinced too that it would not work out, I simply said to myself, it doesn't cost? Let's try. And guess what? Time lost. Indeed this guy have not the slightest clue about what he's talking about. Odd that this is not my first game, NEaB was successful in my books (sure I cannot live from it, but made more than most FLASH game would have done, and had over 170K registrations). So I can't be considered like somebody knowing nothing. Does it know it? No and he don't need to know who I'm, but I would have expected somebody knowing a bit his field, which clearly he fail at.

Wow, I kinda agree with them (wait i will explain), why? because it's exactly as they said, they want a game finished that they can slap their brand and leave it on every flash game website to rotten and generate some ad revenue.

Although i disagree on the part they declined your game for "turning off" players with registration. I know it can happen, and mostly will with those noobs that are used to candycrush and facebook games that all they have to do is login with their facebook cookies but the "old" players, those with some knowledge will see that your game is very good and create an account.

Vitinho444: I don't say they are not right.... if they just want small and basically quick play and forget games. However there was NO WAY stated that we could not send an MORPG. They could simply have answered: nope sorry, we don't look for that kind of game.

Also, finished game: as said, most big MORPG never finish till they die. Check runescape and their continuous development. Sure they have a lot more features than I have, I never argued about it. But then check other games out there, sold on steam, which have actually less things to do than I have to offer (remember something hall?).

So is my game right for their market? Seems not so. But it's the way to present it which is wrong and trying to sell themselves as a game market. They are not.

Ah i get your point now

I think for your type of game (or any actually) you need to follow jackos advice:

Seek out coverage of your game through the indie game media for exposure, add it to every game list you can think of, etc.

hallsofvallhalla wrote:Unless you are looking for a cheesy click and play game ...

The thing is, that is exactly what they are looking for. Games that use basically no server-side resources, that users may stop and play for a couple of minutes on their lunch break.

Does Kongregate take HTML5 games? Because I think they have some games that you log in to and use server-side resources. But I could be wrong on that last bit.

Umm, I think you're reading the 80% wrong. I'd say they'd call eve and wow 100% finished. I know there's this cultures of going 'oh, how will it change?', but really those games are100% complete right now (disregarding how they have no actual end), but these guys aren't following that culture.

If you can play your game to the end (if it has an end) and there are no place holder graphics or other scaffolding, then it is 100% done.

And the demo account was for sponsors to quickly drop in and try the game. Basically for the sponsors only.

I'm not saying any commercial entitiy is reasonable and right in what it demands. But you seem to have missread their demands.