hi i was wondering which type of games make the most money, webplayer, pc, or appstore games. can someone list advantages for each and disadvantaes. i have already read the article on the Casual games from reasources.
thanks
Windows = Large amount of people, hard to get noticed.
Mac = lol, macs. People always want games. To bad their on mac.
Apple store = Large amount of people.
Web = Hard to manager. Not preferred.
Windows + Mac, however, especially on Steam, could be really good.
Don’t forget that there’s a lot of possibilities for Web, too, like Facebook games.
You’d better read this in-depth analysis of the state of casual games for 2009 (think of it as a general post-mortem):
http://www.casualconnect.org/content/Kyiv/2009/stateoftheindustrykyiv09.html
That should give you some real info on the current situation.
appstore games can be the best way only if you have genuinely enjoyable games.
if i put my game up on steam do they want an initial fee or do they just want a % of my sales? and whats the best websites to put games on without paying intial fees.
thnx for the answers
You don’t “put your game up on Steam”, you contact Valve and ask them if they would accept your game on Steam. If they happen to respond to you (it’s my understanding that the vast majority of independent submissions are rejected) and they happen to accept you, they take a percentage of your sales.
That’s assuming that Steam actually accept independent submissions of casual games. They categorize casual games separately and judging by their selections, it’s entirely possible that casual games have to be submittd through a publisher/aggregator.
hmmm that sux. so whats the best place to put up your pc games what has high rate of acceptance and no initial fee. does anyone know?
It’s a loaded question. By definition, anywhere with a high rate of acceptance is overflowing with crap and stands a high chance that very good quality games will not get noticed. A better question would be how can I make my game so that good that it stands a very good chance of getting accepted by a site which is pretty choosy about what it accepts.
hehe true, so what do u think the answer to this would be ^^.
Is it definitely a casual game that you want to make? If so, I’d say you should take a look at BigFishGames, download some of the top ten games in the genres that particularly appeal to you and have a good study. Pay particular attention to the amount of polish, the quality of the visuals, and the number of extras (minigames, unlockable bonuses, things you can collect, things you can buy, things you can customize.) I would say these are absolutely vital qualities for a casual game.
You might also want to bear in mind that production values for these games typically range from the mid five figures to the low six figures, and even higher. That obviously includes salaries, so if you have several talented people prepared to offer significant amounts of time without being paid up front, then this would factor into your production value.
I find that the only games I will truley want to spend money on, are the ones that require “tokens” that i can use.
Yeah sell it on your own website. Though getting any decent traffic will be a (big) problem.
Set up your own “game-portal” where you sell your full-version games. In order to build up some traffic you could release a free game every month. You are also working on a big game that you sell every 4/6 months.
If you are able to produce that much quality content (that appeals to whoever your audience is) in an efficient manner. Now you could also put some ads on your site and possibly make some cash from that as well.
Steamworks is free for all developers, meaning they take a percent of sales only. No upfront fee or cost. Just only when you make money, they make money. At least that’s how I understand it.
I think they would be the first I would hit up if I ever get a finished game made :P. I say “if I ever” because I have been working at this as a hobby for 7 years and nothing playable yet 
.
hmm interesting thoughts guys. thanks for the replies
Check out dimerocker.com, if you’re interested in going the web route. That enables you to deploy to Facebook, etc and gives you an API for leaderboards, achievements, and more.
Most importantly in this case would be the marketplace, which could be used for micro-transactions, subscriptions or one-time purchases.