Want to build a gaming website?

I want to build a gaming website i.e. a website with say 10-20 different PREMIUM flash games (not the basic crappy ones), here the user will be able to sign up, play, can keep his scores etc, now I want to know:
- Where can I get/buy the games from and
- Which script to use, also can I accomplish the same using Joomla
- How much will this cost me
Thanks & regards

 

Well honestly it all depends on the games and how much you want to put forth.

Custom flash games can be costly, costing thousands of dollars... but also, you can find someone going to school whos learning to make games that could do it for cheap. Its hard to ping an exact price on games. Alot of game websites have programmers that build the games for them.

Could run you a couple hundred dollars, upto a couple thousand dollars.

But why would someone use your games, over the games on say Facebook? Myspace? Etc. Whats your "niche" ? Thats important to have. Otherwise, lots of big names have already beat you to the punch. But if you have a specific niche to exploit, you will have better luck.

 

I agree.

Think hard about your design because gaming website can quickly expand in to something you cannot control.

 

Really important you think everything through, there are so many gaming sites out there, it is quite a competitive market. Webrec's sentence summed it up perfectly, "what's your niche?" There are so many games out there, that if you wanna make a real impact in the market you will need a lot of cash to get this going. Even then the returns are still difficult to achieve. As well as your points above I would advise to put together a plan outlining what you are trying to acheive (monetary and personally), your strengths as a gaming brand, your weeknesses, quantify how much of a threat your competitors are and how you plan to be a cut above.

 

It is very difficult to manage. Because there are lot of competitors in this field. You must need to mange it through SEO services.

 

I have one. I coded it and get games from MochiAds and FlashGameDistribution. Many competitors.

 

is the effort worth...how much can you earn with this?

 

1.] It will be best if you can create the games yourself or hire someone to make a unique game for you. As you can see, there are already so many flash games website on the net. So you need games that will only be available to your site or at least rare.
2.] Of course, there are premade script that is made really for this kind of website. Try to search google "Arcade script" and you will see some commercialized scripts. On the other hand, you can use cms scripts like joomla, wordpress for this site. You just need to tweak somethings to make the site function the way you like it.
3.] If you can provide/create the games yourself, setup the site and use an open-source script with your tweaks on it then the costs are only the hosting + domain.
If you can't do anything above then you are looking for a budget of $$$ - $$$$ depending on the games.

 

In my opinion, if you want to make money off these games after investing in them, make them for facebook/myspace.
Good facebook/myspace games can really bring alot of profit if the game's good enough.
But a website... eh, there's just TOO many of them.

Good luck

 

I think you'll be able to get such games for free from indie developers if you just let them display their ad spot and/or download link next to the games. You'd naturally be able to have whatever other ads you want near them too.

 

You had better apply for the help of the professional programmers than for amateur's one here!

 

Check Freelancer or Guru outsourcing sites to get bids on game development. That will give you an idea the costs involved in getting just the games (which I'm assuming will be your largest expense). I have to imagine the developer can also help you implement it on a web site (which should be cheap)...