Starting A flash Site (video games)

My friend recently told me that it is so easy to start a video game site. I obviously had my doubts.

My question is how do you start one? Where do you get all the games from, and how do you distinguish yourself from the hundreds if not thousands of other sites pushing the same idea?

I have never made any websites, so this is a fairly new thing to me.

How mush would starting a site like this cost? And how long would it take to start generating a profit.

Thanks for the tips.

 

i'd say its easy if you either paid someone several thousand dollars to create everything and you just maintain it,

or you are well versed in html, flash, and other types of script to make the site able to compete with competition. I don't know if you've seen some of the sites out there but they look really good and flow with all sorts of games.

Now, you can make money from any website, but its not just easy as putting it up. There is a lot more involved.

 

The first thing to do is start doing some research serious one in that way you can understand how that works and learn by looking how the other do it. That also will be the way to digg the free game, i am pretty sure there is a lot of sites like newsground with free flash based games, are you could try online emulators as well like nescafe (a Nintendo 8bit web based emulator).

How to be different? is the same old answer niche niche, aim to certain target audience in gaming maybe a site specialized in FPS (Firts Person Shooters) RPG games, space shotters, also add value to that example if space shooters is the topic well maybe a blog, history of that.

The costs, well, there are a lot of free tools i would recommend joomla for that maybe get someone to make a especial development and template to adjust to your specific need that would be 300. you could maintain it your self or pay someone to post, you can pay from .10 per post and then the cost o hosting and domain that wont be more than 6 per month at this stage.

How much time? well if you get your great content, do a nice seo, link building, promotion, ad placement etc, i would say in 3 month of hard work the money will come.

hope you find that useful

 

You can easily start an arcade site using ready made script like: Flash Game Script. Note that I am an affiliate to the above site, so please review the site on your own. Personally I think it is one of the best especially that it is being supported by original programmers who developed the script.

As for generating revenue from such arcade sites - it is not really easy. One of the creator of the above script is my real life friend, and they have sold 400+ licenses so far. But according to her, many of the buyers is not active. However, active buyers do make money and keep getting new custom code, designs, games, etc from them. So I guess the key here is to work CONSISTENTly on the site once your started it.

 

If you are looking for a cheap deal.. and a very good quality.
My company makes flash sites.


Since your a DP member I can get you a good deal.

 

I'd agree with 'forgetmenot' in that its not as easy as some people think (although it isn't insanely challenging either) - you just need to do your homework before setting up; pick a good script to run it on; think carefully about how to promote it and indeed monetize it (Adsense is horrendous for Arcades), and as mentioned above, if you can hit niches, then that would be helpful.

Once everything is up and running, its just a case of being consistent. Most of the people who just leave their arcade idling away, expecting it to turn a profit with no input into it whatsoever are the ones who end up drawing a blank, and thus trying to sell it later (which is probably why so many are on the market without traffic or revenue) - keep an eye on your stats, traffic referrers and revenue, and be sure to mix things up if something isn't working well.

I only recently started out myself, and keep an ongoing 'journal' of sorts about my experiences, which you can check out here (i'm not associated with that site in any way, so please don't see this as a cheap plug!) - not sure whether that will be any help at all, but feel free to take a read either way.