Kongregate & Other Major Flash Sites

Wouldn't it be a good idea to have this game since it is Flash; on sites like kongregate.com?

 

I feel like http://armorgames.com/ is a better place. They have a supported platform for many F2P flash game there like Drakensang (especially tons of MMO).

Still I'm not sure how beneficial it is and what's the deal with Armorgames is going to be and whether Blue Manchu wanted to host the game themselves under their control.

More audiences is always better though.

 

Armorgames is decent, Kongregate is essentially the same thing just with more people. Drakensang is on both sites. Also Cardhunter can still be hosted in the same way. It just allows people to play from there, and can still play on our server.

 

Aren't they both ad sites with fugly top bottom and side ads? And pre roll video ads?
As long as I can play direct from the cardhunter site

 

The good thing is that adding Card Hunter to Kongregate would probably tripple the player base overnight. The bad thing is that the.. quality of those players might not always be very high, meaning you would get lots of angry kids yelling in chat.

 

That's not really a bad thing. Jon & co. would just need to develop slightly more sophisticated chat filtering options
A wider playerbase is not only a good thing, but I think a necessity. The game needs to grow a lot larger! Gogogo~

 

Reminds me of the endless threads "too much RNG i quit" during the first week of release. Those were the days.

 

That's a fair point. But once they've established themselves I don't think they have much to lose by building roads to other sites.

 

Games like cardhunter can die off quickly if it loses any player base and is extremely difficult to rebound back. Finding a huge source of players is needed. Kongregate/armor games can reach THOUSANDS of players. And worrying about the younger whinier crowd is the least of our problems.

 

My understanding is that Armorgames has a requirement that any multiplayer games on their service have accounts that are limited only to Armorgames. So someone who started playing on Armor would have to keep playing there forever.

And Kongregate at least used to have a policy restricting the size of the game window - full screen has to be disabled for Unity games, for example. This is to prevent anything from covering up their ads.

That's in addition to the percentage that they take from what the games make, though this would probably be offset by the increased audience. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I think Kongregate could work as a promotional strategy if you made sure to provide a migration path so people could move their accounts over to cardhunter.com. Some games will put a teaser up on Kongregate - basically a demo, prompting people to buy the full game. This is another possibility: expand Greenfang's adventure a little bit and let Kongregate players do that, then once they finish give them a link to the full game.

 

I agree with the goal of adding to the player base, but handing over control to a page where you compete with tons of other games is a bad idea.

There are some other options:
- banner ads on RPG gamer hangouts (RpG.net, Order of the Stick, RPGsite, dragonsfoot)

- A Kickstarter. Not for the money but for publicity.

 

Here is a view of a random kongregate game. There is an option for full screen which gets rid of all adds. While not in full screen there is one at the top. ALL of us could still play from cardhunter.com Why not all the option of players from Kongregate to play this game too? Seems silly that there would be ANY defense to NOT advertising this game on flash sites. I am almost tempted to just putting it up myself.

 

Yep. There have been other similar games that have been added to Kongregate but most people still play through official site.

The downside is marketing related. If Card Hunter would be added to Kongregate, its brand name would take a hit. Right now Card Hunter is a solid game with its own website, forums, wiki etc. If it was added to sites like Kongregate, it would be "just another flash game" among thousands. It would be pretty much like Hollywood A-list actor doing a horrible B-movie. BM might want to protect the brand and not spread the game around the internet.

I personally think that adding Card Hunter to Kongregate would be a good move, even if it meant slight brand downgrade and hordes of annoying gamer kids. Player base is hands down the most important thing because it keeps the game healthy and generates revenue. If there are players, nothing else matters really.

 

I worry about the status and future of this game. Unless they have some trick up their sleeve or plan to put the flash game on a popular site; I fear for the worse. I know I am not the only gamer here to see the fate of these type of games. We might hold a small constant player base. But I have already noticed a decline. Updates alone dont bring a flurry of new players. We might have some older ones who quit come back. I love the game, but maybe it will only ever be a small niche.

As current players acquire most cards, less money will be spent.

 

If they get it on Steam, everything would explode (in a good sort of way).

 

That would be so awesome.

 

I absolutely think they should avoid any flash game site as like you said they will quickly fall into the just another flash game in the sea of thousands, and yep i think they should move towards tablets or greenlight on steam. The game is totally good enough to stand up as a retail release and they should not lower themselves to f2p add sites.. Once you have been there its very hard to pull out and go retail.

 

Yeah, kongregate would probably attract some good customers, but the ad at the start would cheapen the game.