Are there alternative/additional solutions to earn from HTML5 games?
Monetization of mobile HTML5 games – this is by far most important and vast topic discussed by many web gaming developers since the HTML5 mobile games showed on market. Recently I wrote an article which pointed out the most common, known, and accepted monetization solutions. Much in the same way, other developers, and publishers were describing their own point of view. Here I refer to known entries by Richard Davey of Photonstorm or Ben Chong of MarketJS. Despite the potential, and higher effort, there are still not enough solutions to give developers peace of mind about future of their business, and games monetization. Many times I have mentioned the lack of market awareness which causes low interest of big companies into investing more resources and support into HTML5 gaming, as there is still a lack of safe space to distribute and monetize games for many developers
Are there any other ideas?
We know well of monetization opportunities of most known publishers. Every developer who has some experience, and was researching the market, knows that only a handful of publishers can really bring potentially safe revenues. Games rental, subscription revenues, advertisements, games licensing or freemium are common solutions. But, are those all possibilities? Let me try to fill up the knowledge we have already with couple solutions that may in my belief give more potential to HTML5 games monetization. We don’t really need to limit ourselves to most known/’tried and tested’ ways – we should seek, and experiment IMHO.
Your knowledge and skills from game development are your precious treasure.
I noticed that many developers use pre-made engines such as CooconJS, Impact, and many others. From our point of view, we prefer to use own, custom code. Why? No limits, no additional costs, except maybe that we may spend more time on coding. But, thanks to that we can always find new and cool ways to solve problems or find new ways for the game development. Having your own libraries can be a really good way to monetize part of your knowledge. The libraries you create could be also licensed to others, same as game engines are don’t you think? This is actually your work, your effort, and experience that can be also used by others. Who knows, maybe your skills are a perfect solution (or a quicker way to achieve the same) for those developers who cannot solve their coding issues? In a funny, and smart way you may create a mini shop with “Coding solutions for your HTML5 games” – just like the IAP shop in freemium games. That’s just imagination working, but do we need to limit ourselves?
Moreover using knowledge you gained on coding your own games, can be also used in getting a client work. This solution requires a vast number of contacts, and a higher experience in a field of development. But overall this is a perfect way to fill your need for more resources to go on. You may produce new innovative code, get more experience while preparing a game for a client. You are always gaining on that!
There is one more way you might consider profitable from a point of monetizing your skills. If you think your skills of game development are high enough to easily compete with others, search for game developers contests! Actually this is really good idea because of one reason: being a winner of such contest can bring you more money than you would get sometimes in a year or two of licensing/advertising /renting your games. But, there are two disadvantages: 1. there aren’t many contests; and 2. most of them strictly forbid developers to enter with a game already released officially.
Let’s go back to revenue shares for a moment…
Here we know that we can share profits with publisher basing on in-app-purchases, advertisements or subscriptions. Is that all we can do? Actually no. The creativity of publishers, and cross-platform possibilities of HTML5 games brings another interesting way to earn gaming revenues. Recently I had an opportunity to have a conversation with Rob Smith, Legal and Business Affairs Manager at Odobo. During a chat, I learned that gambling based revenues may be also be a lucrative ways of income, and a great opportunity for developers to use theirs skills in completely new environment, far different from closed world of native apps, and social networks. “… the regulated online gaming industry alone is worth around $35bn today and the player values are significantly higher than those available to the social or casual gaming industry (some research journals place this well in excess of $100 average per user) (...) yet the regulated gaming sector has traditionally held a number of barriers of entry to the wider development community. Odobo’s model for example removes this limitation by offering developers a certified server-side technology stack that allows developers who are new to this sector the foundations to build creative and innovative regulated games, without having to be experts on certification. This is complimented by a platform that empowers developers by removing the need for developers to manage credit control, business development and legal resource, as Odobo as the platform holder provides them with the established downstream channel. We want developers to create great games and push boundaries of innovation and yet it’s harder for a developer to warrant this investment if they are continually finding their time is spent on corporate support services”. This actually brings not only a new opportunity to earn money on Black Jack or Slot Machine games revenues, but also creates a new, and independent market for developers. “… it offers developers not just a standard licence royalty but equally the ability to send their own social game players to the Odobo games on Odobo Play and gain affiliate revenue on-top of the standard game licensing royalties“.
Conclusions.
As we can see not only the developers want to find out new solutions for HTML5 monetization. We need to focus on a creative side of our businesses. Trying to find new solutions for monetization keeps us active in searching, and brings more ideas. Researches proves that the standard ways to monetize HTML5 games aren’t the only way. There are more and more opportunities coming soon I believe and more enablers for developers to reach greater returns for their games. I think that I may fill up the knowledge shown here with more cool, and profitable solutions soon.