Please Don’t Use Ads
An open letter to indie devs,
While I have felt for a long time that mainstream media is a terrible beast that devours all in it’s path, nothing hits home like the News of the World scandal. Ok, so it’s ironic it took a news article to prompt me to post about the media, but let’s skip ahead.
Please don’t use advertising services. Please don’t use services that use ads. You don’t need them. They need you.
Let’s say you’re an indie dev and you’ve poured your heart, soul and free time in to a game. You want to create a revenue stream from this game, having put a lot of effort into it. That is absolutely fair enough, you deserve to be reimbursed for your efforts. Let’s look at potential ways to do this.
- Advertising. Use a service to place ads at the front of your games. You’ll earn a few dollars a month unless your game goes viral like Rebecca Black’s Friday in which case you may make a substantial amount. On top of this you’ll have your product co-opted by who ever is selling something at this particular time. There’s got to be a better way.
- Sponsorship. This isn’t as bad as advertising, but it’s the same deal. You’ll have your game branded and taken away from you.
My suggested route is this:
Use your game as a calling card. No advertising, no rubbish. Put your name and your contact details and there and sell yourself.
If you made a flash game, use it to find some contract flash work. Let’s say you put out a flash game that uses an interesting play mechanic. And some advertising agency wants to make a branded game that uses a similar game. You’ll be in a good position to score some contract work there. Let’s do the math.
- Advertising. $2-$5 a month
- Sponsorship. $70 pay out once.
- Contract work. $30-$60 an hour for two or more weeks. You’ll meet new people many of which will have their own contract work offers.
Use your game as a virtual business card, not as a billboard.