How To Find A Sponsor For Your Flash Game
Creating a Flash game is an exciting thing if you believe in it’s quality – especially as there are many Flash gaming portal sites out there that will pay good money to have their site branding splashed all over it. Find out how to land a deal and negotiate the best price.
The first thing you will need to do is create your game with a sponsor in mind. What a sponsor usually likes to do is have their splash screen (or intro movie) put at the start of the game. They then like either a logo linking to the site, a ‘Play More Games’ button that links to their site, or in most cases, both. Make sure that you include these ‘ad spots’ somewhere in the demo version of your game that you show to sponsors. Developers have many different reasons for wanting to get the backing of a sponsor behind them. Some like the help in distribution as the game portal sites like their link to be out there as much as possible so will promote the game as much as they can at their end. Other developers like to create games purely for money and will happily/shamelessly put sponsor logos all over their game. Before we go on, you need to weigh up your personal ambition for your game. There is no right way or wrong way. Decide what your prefferable path would be and see below. In either case it pays to start an account over a FlashGameLicense (FGL), the center for most game sponsors and developers to converge and do business.
All About The Games
If you have created a game that you genuinely believe people will enjoy and will be a big hit, it is unlikely that you’ll hold out forever on getting the most money for your game. If you’d rather get what you can and just put the game out there, send out an email to list of gaming portals that sponsor games with a link to your game. Host the game on your own site if you can, as this gives an air of proffesionalism and shows you’ve put some effort into your search for someone to back it. Ask if they would like to make an offer, and at the same time post the game up at FGL. Check your emails for however long you’re willing to wait. Remember that sponsors more than likely won’t reply unless they’re truly interested, and usually operate within normal working hours. So don’t expect an immediate response if you send your game out on a Sunday evening. Decide in your mind how much you’d like to get for your game, negotiate any offers you may get but always accept a deal that sounds good. Don’t get tempted to price yourself out of a deal. Take the money, release the game, and if it’s truely as good as you prophecised, get a shed load of fame and recognition. This will help you find a sponsor for any future releases too.
In It For The Money
Post the game up on FGL and be relentless in your pursuit of sponsorship. Compile a big list of sponsorship sites and bulk email as many of them as you can with a link to your game. No reply? Try again next week. This may annoy a few sites, and possibly could get your email blacklisted with them if they regard your submissions as spam. This however is just a part of the hustle. Remember, you’re in it for pure hard cash and the money won’t find you, you have to find the money. Check your FGL regularly. The site provides a handy feature that lets you see who played that game and for how long. No offers yet? That’s ok, here is another pestering technique that has paid off a couple of times for some Flash game creators – send a private message to whoever played your game for a fair amount of time, asking politely if they’re interested in your game and that you’re open to offers if they’re inclined to make one. If you do get an offer, don’t be afraid to push them up. One game I was involved with was initally offered $300, but the power of clever negotiation easily ramped it up to $800. All it took was couple of private messages. If the sponsors do take a step towards backing your game, try to connect emotionally and professionally, instead of looking like just another Flash game creator ‘also-ran’ who only cares about cash. This may be true, but don’t flaunt it. Try to post the game on forums and such to get public opinion and show sponsors. This can backfire though so only do it if you’re confident the game is of a high standard. The rest is basically common sense. Do what you can, email as many sites as you can and put it out there as much as you can pre-release. Try to mention the games marketability (if it has any) wherever you make it available to be seen by sponsors. Many Flash dress up games sell well because of how popular they are with the mass online games market. Some natural business ability would come in handy with this approach, so if you have any – apply it. If you don’t, then don’t be scared to hang your balls out to dry. You may get slaughtered by critics, but the PayPal balance is going up.
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(7 votes, average: 3.71 out of 5)
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Hello, this is smconstpdgy from Newgrounds..
Great advice..
I’ll be sure to make the game I’m making with my friend to be the best there can be..
He’s the artist, I’m the scripter..
If we do get a sponser, I’ll add it to our (his and mine) paypal account..
We’ll open up our own, and use that to make our websites and stuff..
-Fighterlegend (smconstpdgy)
I’m a sponsor. Check out my site and see if your game would fit in with the rest of the gang
. Then submit it to me, I’m great to work with says the other programmers I’ve sponsored, just ask them.
Nice article, good job of covering the difference between those who want money, and those who enjoy making games. I find a good tactic is to mix the two ways together, that way you’re getting more for your game, but still come off as a reputable developer.
I totally agree with you Ryan, I’ve stated in some other posts that although developing games is enjoyable and very creative, it always helps if you have a business streak in you that strives to get the best deal you can, and if you know your work is worthy of a nice price, you’ll do your best to grab it.