Project Development Updates
October 29, 2009 Posted by Tyler CruzI’ve been working so many hours lately it’s crazy. I need to do errands such as get my badminton racquet restrung because I broke 2 strings the other day, pick up more printer ink, etc., but I just can’t seem to pull myself away from the computer.
There’s simply so much work to be done. I plan on relaunching Movie-Vault.com on November 1st, PublisherChallenge launches a new competition set up for November 1st as well, and I’ve been extremely busy working on the very early stages of my upcoming game.
I’m looking very forward for when Mass Effect 2 and then Starcraft 2 are released so that I can take a real break from work and immerse myself into some nice relaxing gaming. I’ll save the vacations for next summer.
Game Development Updates
As mentioned in a comment I left on my blog yesterday, I decided to forgo the investing idea and just fund the whole thing myself.
I received a lot of criticism for the investment opportunity I put forward, but I still stand behind it. In fact, I think it was actually a very generous opportunity. But I’m fine with how things turned out, as now I can now reap all the rewards (if any) myself.
There is a lot of risk though – I’ve never developed a game before, so this is a completely new venture for me. Together with Movie-Vault, this will have been $20,000 that I’ve invested into my projects during the past 6-8 weeks, which is the most I’ve ever invested at once before.
I still have a mortgage to pay, so this really is quite a risk for me. But few people get anywhere by always playing it safe.
The game I’m developing (or am getting developed, rather) is an online multiplayer robot-themed game. I am currently going through various early mock-up designs (seen below) for the robots that will dictate the look and feel of the whole game, so this is an important stage of development.
The game will take between 2-3 months to develop… probably about 6 weeks to get a beta version out there with several follow-up weeks to tweak and polish it.
I am extremely excited about this game. It’s so different from anything I’ve ever done before that it’s a wonderful and refreshing new thing to get into. I love games, anybody who knows me can attest to that, so this could be the start of something beautiful.
New PublisherChallenge Competition
It’s been a slow time in the affiliate marketing industry due to a number of factors including the economy, FTC rulings, and flog and rebill slapping. As a result, PeerFly’s Awesome Autumn contest had a very poor turnout.
But they’re back with yet another contest (their 6th in a row) for the winter, aptly titled PeerFly’s Wonderful Winter. The winter season usually picks up for most affiliates due to the Christmas shoppers, so here’s your chance to start with a fresh new competition.
Like its previous competition held between September and October, this winter competition is a bit different from many of the prior ones held on PublisherChallenge in that it is strictly tier-based. While there is still a separate category for New Signups, there is no Main Category in this competition.
Instead, everybody competes against himself to make as much as possible. Anybody who makes it to a tier will win the corresponding prize, regardless of how many people are eligible.
Some of the prizes of this contest include digital cameras, Macbooks, VIP Las Vegas trips, a 2009 Honda Accord Coupe, 2010 Honda Acura TSX, and a top grand prize of a 2009 Lexus GS 460!
Movie-Vault.com Revamp Updates
I was really hoping to relaunch Movie-Vault.com on November 1st, but now I’m not so sure it will happen. There’s still a number of things to do on the site, and tonight is the last day the programmers work before the weekend.
If I can get them to go into the office and work on Saturday then we might be able to make it. Worst case scenario is we launch on November 2nd or 3rd though so it’s not the end of the world.
I also have a giveaway contest I need to set up and launch once the new site is up, so I really have a lot of work on my plate.
Now I’m starting to realize how those 2 badminton racquet strings broke…
This game looks awesome, Good Luck man.
Make sure you get some seo setup on movievault
Hey Tyler,
I’m excited about your decision to try and create an online multiplayer game. Good luck and I hope it works out for you! (P.S- I like the first robot design better) When you need some beta testers, let me know and I’d be happy to help you out with testing out the game.
-Casey
I also would love to be a BETA tester. I’m a huge online game fan (as you know) 😛 🙂
muhahaha hihi (:
Looks like you have a heap on your plate at the moment! those robots look awesome and best of luck with the project!
The game mock-ups look cool, Tyler. What genre of game is it going to be?
Game looks good. Hope to see it soon.
Not to rain on your parade or anything but I just don’t see a “robot” game making back your investment. Many games like this have flopped so yours will have to be 100% original for it to even have the slightest chance.
You mentioned that you loved games, be sure to not let your emotions dictate this project. If you do this you will wind up way over your head and regret this more than anything. Don’t just make a game to have a game, be sure you really believe in the product and think it can make back your investment (at least).
Good luck either way, I just don’t see this one ending well.
What company are you going to use to develop your game?
Tyler I would re-consider this flash game if I were you. I subscribe to http://izismile.com/ feed and everyday their last post has between 4 and 6 new flash games to try (everyday!). They have over 900 in their archive here http://izismile.com/games/ . Flash games are released so frequently you need yours to really stand out. MyBrute.com is made by http://www.motion-twin.com/english They’ve been making flash games since 2006 and have 11 staff, I wonder how many games they’ve made over the years that haven’t succeeded…
Man, defiant to the end, eh? You think the investment opportunity was “generous”? Anyone who’s done any serious investing knows this isn’t so. If you feel otherwise, I’d really like to hear why, because while plenty of people just laid into you over it, a lot of others in the comments had very valid, technical criticisms. It really isn’t a matter of opinion; you demonstrably capped reward without capping risk. Suck it up, admit it was unfair, and move on. But making some quick aside about how you still think it was perfectly fine without addressing any of the many valid arguments against it is just no good.
Agreed.
Better idea many people were sketched out by the investment idea as there was no assurance or anything or value backing it up.
The thing with the game is you must develop enough gaming to keep the players playing in the initial stage. This would require a lot of thinking and images.
-Mike
I can’t wait for StarCraft 2 to come out!!!
My flash game project is doing 600$/mo. I hate nah sayers…
You should check out the other games that are on the
CPA networks and see how the montize their games.
-CPMSTAR/Mochiads
IMVU.com ( get ‘credits’ to buy colthing/new maps)
DeadFrontier.com (credits to buy better weapons)
AdventureQuest etc.etc…
credits/membership is the way to go… 😉
+ the ones in cpa networks have
a great marketing stragety
Good Luck,
-Brad
I use mochiads. It makes almost no money
Affiliate money is EASY money. Developing games and enticing people to subscribe to them is HARD money. You will work 5-10 times as hard to earn the same amount, dollar for dollar. Even if you get tons of hits, it may not equate to profit.
Go check out the MochiAds forums and read about biz there. Developers are making $0.10 CPM (that is abysmal). Games that have gotten 5 to 10 to even 20 million plays have made relatively little. Don’t take my word, check the threads for confirmation. They post the total stats to many many games on there.
There is so little money to be made, that it becomes bragging rights are mainly about how many plays a game gets. And when you check out the stats, you’ll see the same steep slow downward, showing that no matter how big a game gets, within one year, it is getting maybe 10-20% of the traffic. The popularity and traffic rapidly dwindles because there are just SO MANY NEW GAMES coming out every day.
I assume you’ve investigated all this, but you have to realize that a game like this will not sustain itself over time and the revenue will dwindle to nothing. This isn’t the kind of thing were you can expect to be making $1000 a month for the next 20 years. But rather you make a huge pile of money right away (if it is a huge hit) and then watch it rapidly dwindle to nothing.
I’m not sure if your MochiAds reference is a fair metric of which to base game earnings. From what I understand, MochiAds basically lets publisher host pre-made games themselves, earning a portion of the ads from within that game.
Although, I read on a blog that “…according to Ada Chen, product marketing manager of Mochi Media, In-game ads have a click rate of up to 5 percent, while most Internet banner ads have click rates of less than 1 percent. She cites Bloons, created by NinjaKiwi, which she says rakes in $30,000 or more a month through various ad revenue streams.” Now, obviously Bloons would be one of the more popular simple flash games out there, but then again I think your $0.10 CPM number would be on the low end of the spectrum.
I’d be much more interested in seeing numbers from games which offer paid memberships in conjunction to free accounts (Ex. http://www.runescape.com/), as that is how and I am planning on monetizing this game the best.
In any case, the game is already under development, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Good luck!
It will be the hardest project you’ve ever worked on! A multi-player flash game is exponentially more difficult than a web site to build and manage. I will be watching with great interest.
Let’s see lots of posts on the progress..
I love the first design Tyler. The second design seems to…childish. I’d love to be a beta tester when you launch. Keep up the project and website posts, I love ’em.
Ethan
great.. love this very much , hope this will become one of best project that you ever done
keep blogging daily or more about this game development and what your doing with it. Ill be checking your blog daily.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to as it’ll take about 2 months to develop… but perhaps I could give an update a week, like what I did with Movie-Vault.com.
That’d be awesome Tyler! I love these updates. I’m glad your blogging about your personal projects and stuff again. All those dumb affiliate challenge posts and reviews were hurting my eyes.
Yes, that would be great!
Yeah thats fine but I really want to know every thing you do. Good luck man
You sure have a lot of things to do. Best of luck
[…] my post on Tyler’s business development, I read today that Tyler has recently provided an update: I received a lot of criticism for the investment opportunity I put forward, but I still stand […]
The game sounds like it could be a success, but I’d be a bit worried about your movie-vault developers. They don’t seem to be committed to the project as you’ve mentioned you have to convince them to go into work to launch on the specified date. Who are they?
In the video I asked them to work on a Saturday so that we could launch in time, which they did 🙂
So the site is launching tomorrow like originally planned?
It was going to, but since the forum integration wasn’t 100% complete, I decided to delay it for another 24 hours. It will probably be going live around 2-3 am on November 2nd.
Man some people are really hating your game idea. I think it’s worth a try.
There’s a difference between “worth a try” and losing $20,000 to $40,000 on a product that has failed more times than it’s been a success. It’s just not a smart investment for anyone involved.
Oh well, it seems like he’s too connected to games to realize this. He’ll find out soon enough when he’s out all that money.
I CANT GET INTO MovieVault, TylerCRuz! All me cookies are gone and it wont recognize my username or password! Or maybe Ive forgotten my password since its so long since Ive typed it. HELP!
Wow. You are really busy. Good luck on your game venture. I don’t know how profitable it will be considering their are so many free games on the internet. But I am pretty sure you have done your research and know exactly how you will profit from your new game. Good Luck.
If you can get people hooked, it is bound to be profitable. The trick is just making the game good and addictive enough that people keep coming back.
Yeah you know I am looking forward to Starcraft II as well Tyler! I think once it comes out It is also going take up a good amount of my time. It sucks though that Blizzard keeps pushing back the release date, but hopefully knowing blizzard it means we get a better product.
Till then,
Jean
What will make this game successful?
The art for the game so far seems really cool…it may just be worth it, besides you’ll be the one running to the bank while the ones who criticized you failed to take risks..
Nobody’s coming out against risk-taking in general, just against this particular risk. Way to generalize.
yeah that’s too risky. Well good luck on your new investment, I hope it’ll be big and strong and I am going to watch out for that one! I like games too haha
Tyler the game sounds pretty sweet. I’m sure it will do well. The investment opportunity was good if there wasn’t the risk. The trick will be getting the game big enough that other people design levels and player skins for you. Good luck.
nice game play. the design is cool The art for the game so far seems really cool.this game sounds like it could be a success. many kids love this kind of game.
Network Marketing
I won’t lie – I’m Not a big fan of the entire tier based competition. I think it takes some of the fun out of it… Competing against others is way more fun the competing against yourself…
Great article!!! Thanks Tyler
I like the second robot image!
goodluck to this robot game idea, investing $20,000 is really really risky, but trust yourself
What company are you going to use to develop your game?
great draws 🙂
Great article!!! Thanks Tyler
Make sure you get some seo setup on movievault
Better idea many people were sketched out by the investment idea as there was no assurance or anything or value backing it up.
You sure have a lot of things to do.
very good game projects.
The game mock-ups look cool, Tyler. What genre of game is it going to be?Great article
This game looks awesome, Good Luck man
Game looks good. Hope to see it soon.
Better idea many people were sketched out by the investment idea as there was no assurance or anything or value backing it up. :/