How to Make Money with Flash Games

If you have made a flash game or run a website that promotes flash games, this article will show you how to start making passive income from them.

Step1

Add Advertisements to your game

For Game Developers:
The first thing you should do after completing your game is add advertising to the game file itself. It is important to do this BEFORE ever releasing it online to any website including your own. The reason for this is that people can copy your game and place it on their site, and if you haven't added ads before they copy it, the ads will not show in the version on their site, and you won't receive credit.

To add advertisements to your game I suggest using a company called MochiAds. It is free to sign up. MochiAds also allows you to add leaderboards (AKA highscore boards) to your game for free and it is easy to do. Just add one line of code to your game. Everything is explained in detail on their site www.mochiads.com.

(NOTE: You typically earn $0.10-$0.25 for every thousand plays. This is a very solid amount considering good games could get over 20,000 hits a day earning $150/month.)

For Website Owners:
You too can earn money using MochiAds. Just sign up as a Publisher, and add games from their collection to your site. You will earn 10% of the profits every time an ad is shown in one of the games you are hosting.

Step2

Find a sponsor and license your game.

One of the quickest yet hardest ways to make money from the flash games you create is to find a website who is willing to sponsor them. With a single sponsorship, an individual can make anywhere from $1000-$7000 for a game. So what is the catch? Because there is so much flash content being created daily, your game has to really stand out in order for sponsors to be interested. The graphics and sounds must be high-quality, and the programming must be fluid and flawless. Not to mention the fact that the game itself needs to be easy to learn and addictive to play. If you think you have what it takes to get a game sponsored, here are some sites you should check out.

AddictingGames.com

First, we have Addictinggames.com. This is probably the most popular flash game website on the web. It will be the most competitive for trying to earn sponsorship, but it will also yield the greatest profits. In addition to an initial sum, it appears you can earn money if your game is in the top 25 for the most hits in any given month. See the site above for more information and to submit a game.

ArmorGames.com

ArmorGames.com also sponsors games for a profit of $1500-$7000 per game. Some games can earn more if they are of superior quality. See the link above for all the information.

FlashGameLicense.com

Next, there is a little site called FlashGameLicense.com. This is a site dedicated to connecting potential sponsors with developers who are looking to get their games licensed. Simply sign up using the link above and browse the site to see what it is all about. Then submit your own game to see who might be interested. The average profit for this site appears to be around $1200.

Step3

Create your own website and place ads in it.

One way to make money, whether you make flash games or not, is to start your own flash game web site. To do this, I suggest using GoDaddy.com to purchase a domain, and use a web editor like Kompozer to create your web pages. Sign up with MochiAds (see link above), and use their games to build up a nice inventory (this way you can earn money from other people's games). There are several challenges involved with making your own site which include the following:

1. It requires some technical knowledge about html coding.
2. It costs a small amount of money.
3. There are already a great number of flash game sites out there. Making yours stand out will be very difficult.
4. It takes time to keep a website up-to-date.

If you think you are up for the challenge go for it, and once you have your site created, add advertisements to it to start earning money from your visitors. Most people have heard of google's AdSense. This is one way to place ads on your site, but I have had better luck with other companies such as WidgetBucks . Look around and see what sites might work best for you.

Step4

Send traffic to your site.

This is probably one of the least effective ways to gain recognition, but signing up for a traffic exchange program will help you get your site name out and about so people will become familiar with it. I suggest using TrafficSwarm . This is how it works. You open your start page and click on a link. You have to look at that page for 20 seconds in order to get credit, then you go back and click on another link, again and again. The credits you earn are then used to send traffic to your site. Other people will click your link the way you clicked theirs. The reason this doesn't work so great is that the people coming to your site are just trying to earn credits, they may not be interested in playing any games. But you never know, it is worth a shot at least at the beginning.

Step5

Get the word out.

Whether you chose to make a game or to start a site, you need to let people know about it. Traffic exchanges are one way, but one of the best ways is through forums. Look for a forum for the type of game you have made and make a post. Using the distribution provided by MochiAds is a GREAT way to earn recognition for your games. Promoting a website is a bit harder. Try posting flyers at nearby colleges, adding your website to your forum signatures, or whatever else you can think of. Whatever you can do to get the word out that you have a new game or site is the best thing possible.