I think 10% is perfectly fair for that kind of service. The argument about them handling the searching around for you, instead of doing it yourself can be said for just about any business venture. It's a convenience fee.

We tip delivery people 20+% because we don't want to drive to the restaurant ourselves.
We pay $2.00 every time we go to an ATM to take out $20.00 so we don't have to go to the bank.

If you don't want that convenience, you don't need to pay for it. I personally don't have the time or energy to shop around and email dozens of sites, so I'd PREFER to pay the 10% just so I don't have to do any of the work selling it.

Really, like they said, 10% to act as an agent is incredibly cheap. Look at the commissions people in other businesses get.

You can technically purchase a home without a Real Estate agent, and you can represent yourself in court by researching the laws/consequences in your area (instead of getting a laywer) if you really want too and if you don't like the fees those people impose on you.

It's just another convenience fee, and really if you don't want that convenience, you don't need to use it.

Shopping around costs you 0%.

I don't think they deserve 10% if you make a deal on your own, however.. but if they find you a buyer, or a buyer finds you through a service they've created, 10% is perfectly fair.

Let's assume Luis 40/40/20 split on a $4000.00 game.

$400 taken off the top.
Programmer: $1440.00 (As opposed to $1600)
Artist: $1440.00 (As opposed to $1600)
Audio: $720.00 (As opposed to $800)

Scaling up/down shouldn't be a problem, since we're dealing with percentages.

And really, the numbers are still pretty nice if they can handle all the grunt work of getting that game sponsored for you.

Don't think it's fair? Don't use it.

I'll bet in the years to come, as Flash games become even more advanced, and make even more money, that percentage will creep up to 20%-30% and it wouldn't surprise me if some portals decided to only deal with brokers, to limit work they needed to do to find solid games.

About it being a flat rate rather than a percentage, this was discussed before, and if they were to make it so that the commission would max out at $500 for example, then there'd be no incentive for FGL to try and get your game sponsored for more than $5000.

On a side note, did anyone notice how the featured games and featured movies' places were switched on the frontpage?

Yeah, as Johnny said it's all about the convenience of using their service. I am perfectly willing to pay 10% of my earnings to FGL, and it's not like the fee makes much of an impact on the total amount I receive in the end.

$1,000 -> $900 to you, $100 to FGL
$2,000 -> $1,800 to you, $200 to FGL
$3,000 -> $2,700 to you, $300 to FGL

The way I look at it, you receive 90% of the sponsorship earnings they found for you.

At 7/5/10 04:42 PM, 4urentertainment wrote: On a side note, did anyone notice how the featured games and featured movies' places were switched on the frontpage?

Yes, Tom even made a post in General about it. It makes more sense, in my opinion.

After putting up two games for bid on FGL I have come to this "conclusion":

FGL is great for developers only if the admins decide your game is good enough to get special treatment. In all other cases I want to claim that FGL benefits sponsors a ton more than us devs.

Before FGL showed up sponsor's choices were much more limited since they had to wait for developers to come to them. Nowadays they have a vast collection available for them at anytime they've got some money to burn. So I think it's kinda weird sponsors don't pay a single cent to use this service, while we do.

At 7/5/10 04:29 PM, Johnny wrote: I'll bet in the years to come, as Flash games become even more advanced, and make even more money, that percentage will creep up to 20%-30% and it wouldn't surprise me if some portals decided to only deal with brokers, to limit work they needed to do to find solid games.

Its definately interesting how the flash gaming/animation has evolved into a big league business and that we can have conversations like these and have business-based scenarios such as these come up. I think thats the best part of this flash reg lounge anyway, to be able to give interpretations of flash, be it Apple's shunning of it, or Adobe's shit upgrades, etc.

I think its kind of cool to be someone in the position that alot of users/kids have been in where they are able to see and be part of a whole business niche come up from nothing. Like being there from the start.

Anyone fancy downsaving a couple of CS3 files to 8 for me?

At 7/5/10 04:47 PM, Archon68 wrote:

At 7/5/10 04:42 PM, 4urentertainment wrote: On a side note, did anyone notice how the featured games and featured movies' places were switched on the frontpage?

Yes, Tom even made a post in General about it. It makes more sense, in my opinion.

Hmm, I preferred the old one better. I liked how what made newgrounds special (among other things) was the fact that it focused on flash movies, as well as games. Not the other way around.

I can understand though, that the change would increase the value of a game getting front paged on newgrounds. Better placement = more views = more money,

At 7/5/10 04:56 PM, 4urentertainment wrote: Hmm, I preferred the old one better. I liked how what made newgrounds special (among other things) was the fact that it focused on flash movies, as well as games. Not the other way around.

I can understand though, that the change would increase the value of a game getting front paged on newgrounds. Better placement = more views = more money,

As PsychoGoldfish said in the thread:

I think if everyone steps back and looks at some of the real reasons for the change, they may realize it's actually a good thing.

As a few people have pointed out already, Newgrounds is one of the only sites where flash animations get any promotion. Having the movies box moved down may seem like we're not making movies a priority, but that is definitely not the case.

The fact is, because we ARE the only big flash animation site (youtube is great but not easy to get your work seen among the masses), so your animations don't really get a fair chance to go viral and draw in new users and fans. That leaves the existing users and fans, who all know fully well how to get to your work, and can still see the latest popular movies on the frontpage with a bit of scrolling.

Now the games... they have HUNDREDS of sites they can take advantage of in the viral market. When they bring users to Newgrounds, those users are coming to play more games. We have to make sure they can find those games easily from the frontpage. And if they realize we have awesome content here, they will stick around and even start looking at all the other facets of the site, including ANIMATIONS!

And if we get more people signing up and watching your animations, that also means you can capitalize more using our revenue sharing opportunities. It really is win-win.

I guess it is a bit unfair to animators/movies, but it's not like they are no longer on the front page. A bit of scrolling never hurt anyone, though.

I've been thinking about it even more, i think that if you look at it as an initial investment, the 10% may be worthwhile. Like if you are someone new to the scene and you want to get a pulse of what sort of sponsors show interest in the type of games you are making, then it seems like a worthwhile investment into getting that information. I think once you've gotten a few games off the ground you naturally build relationships with sponsors and youre likely to be able to negotiate your own deals or get your own preferrential treatment without the need for a brokeresque service.

At 7/5/10 04:54 PM, Sam wrote: Anyone fancy downsaving a couple of CS3 files to 8 for me?

I approve of this message.

Wrote a long response, but it got too convoluted.

Basically I agree with luis's last synopsis. The value of the site is different for different people. I don't think we will ever see 30% commission for a sales agency for flash games. Other than some specific cases I don't think they can add enough value to make any developers pay that much.

Also Johnny, your comparisons to other industries doesn't really clarify the issue about this specific industry. Law practice is a bit of a stretch for a comparison.

Also archon your last point made me lol.

Also knugens point about the sponsors was good. They're taking advantage of a great service. Actually if I remember correctly I made a deal with a sponsor awhile ago that they pay 5% to fgl on top of what they gave me, and I pay 5% out of my share.

At 7/5/10 05:45 PM, Coaly wrote: Also Johnny, your comparisons to other industries doesn't really clarify the issue about this specific industry. Law practice is a bit of a stretch for a comparison.

I don't feel that way. It's just like anything else. We hire experts to do jobs we can't do, or aren't willing to do ourselves.

Personal Experience: About 10 years ago, I got busted for pot with 6 other people. Instead of paying $800.00 for a lawyer, like the rest of my friends did, I decided I would look into it myself, and get a laywer as a last resort.

I went to the library and researched first offense laws for marijuana and found out about "Conditional Discharge" for first time offenders. Low and behold, when all of my friend's lawyers went up to the stands, they recommended that punishment for my friends.

I went up there w/o a lawyer and got the same damned thing, (some court fees and a year of probation) for $800.00 less.

Obviously, it's not the OJ trial (And with Murder 1, I'd be hiring a lawyer) but I think it still applies.

If you feel comfortable doing something for yourself, you don't need to pay another human to do it for you.

Don't taxes comes to mind. I still pay someone to do mine for me. My GF doesn't. It's a preference thing.

Unless you need documentation, ect.. ect..

This weekend will mark the first ever Newgrounds Online Game Jam. For those who aren't familiar, a game jam is an effort to rapidly prototype video game designs and inject new ideas into the game industry. Hope to see some of you in it!

Tom will be offering $300 NG Store Credit to spit among the winning team!

http://austinbreed.newgrounds.com/news/p ost/490924

At 7/5/10 07:10 PM, nathanielmilburn wrote: Tom will be offering $300 NG Store Credit to spit among the winning team!

http://austinbreed.newgrounds.com/news/p ost/490924

That's actually a really good idea. Signed up!

I'm actually more interested in what kind of games will come out of this.

At 7/6/10 03:16 AM, 4urentertainment wrote:

At 7/5/10 07:10 PM, nathanielmilburn wrote: Tom will be offering $300 NG Store Credit to spit among the winning team!

http://austinbreed.newgrounds.com/news/p ost/490924

That's actually a really good idea. Signed up!

I'm actually more interested in what kind of games will come out of this.

Double post, but after carefully reading the rules, I gotta ask, why two programmers for each game? One would suffice, and there's always the chance they might have different programming habits (one would prefer to program in OOP while the other is used to timeline coding). That, and it seems we've got a lot more artists than programmers at the moment.

At 7/6/10 03:18 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: Double post, but after carefully reading the rules, I gotta ask, why two programmers for each game? One would suffice, and there's always the chance they might have different programming habits (one would prefer to program in OOP while the other is used to timeline coding). That, and it seems we've got a lot more artists than programmers at the moment.

Since you have no more then 48 hours, so it'd be nice if someone is constantly working on it ! C:

i hope to be part of a game jam in the future. they look like fun and its always amazing what kind of things you are able to come up with under a brutal timeline.

out of town this weekend or i'd have joineddd

damn that jam sounds awesome. sucks that i'm working all saturday... :(

I'd definitely be up for this but the misses is back from Rome on Friday, so I'd rather be seeing her than drawing and animating.

So many excuses so far..

I'd do it too if I didn't have such a poor work ethic. If there are a lot more artists than programmers on friday I'll probably still sign up.

The artists seem to be 3 times the programmers so far. It'd suck if we ended up with teams of 3 artists, 1 programmer and 1 musician.

Anyway, I'm more interested in how many people will actually finish their games. With the power of three event last year, I think only 4 or 5 games were finished, out of the 40+ teams that were there.

Finals!

At 7/6/10 04:41 PM, Xeptic wrote: Finals!

gz :)

I placed a bet (not a big one, but for 15 times the money) on Germany before the tournament though, so I'm afraid my sympathies are with them if they beat Spain tomorrow ;)

Looks like they edited it to teams of four instead of teams of five, so 1 programmer, 2 artists, 1 wildcard thing.

At 7/6/10 05:05 PM, knugen wrote: I placed a bet (not a big one, but for 15 times the money) on Germany before the tournament though, so I'm afraid my sympathies are with them if they beat Spain tomorrow ;)

You're lucky you didn't put in all of your savings then ;)

At 7/6/10 05:46 PM, Keith wrote:

At 7/6/10 05:21 PM, Coaly wrote: Looks like they edited it to teams of four instead of teams of five, so 1 programmer, 2 artists, 1 wildcard thing.

It's going to be interesting to see how that will work. Hopefully everyone does there part because if one person disappears then that's definitely going to take away some time.

There are some people that are able to do programming, AND art, AND sound to an extent. Hopefully those could close some gaps.

I think for the most part this will turn out pretty well. It's good to set short deadlines. Power of 3 last year, the deadline was so far away and undefined and not a lot of people ended up setting their goals straight I think.

At 7/6/10 06:59 PM, Keith wrote: 5 percent of games that are original

And that 5% is what he's looking for out of this. I am excited to see what some people come up with.

Also, I can't participate because <insert excuse here>.

*Id love to code someones game only if they let me use tell target for everything

At 7/6/10 05:51 PM, Xeptic wrote:

At 7/6/10 05:05 PM, knugen wrote: I placed a bet (not a big one, but for 15 times the money) on Germany before the tournament though, so I'm afraid my sympathies are with them if they beat Spain tomorrow ;)

You're lucky you didn't put in all of your savings then ;)

Well, right now I wish that I had bet a lot more at least :)