I clicked and gave it a run, hitting the defaults I was presented with "752 / 8". My mind just lost interest (it is almost 4am mind you) and I closed the tab. Then it occurred to me that this arithmetic would be much easier if I had built up to it, i.e. I was used to doing sums like that. So, with that in mind, perhaps you need to offer more? I mean, a lot more. Ways to track my progress as I do build up, ways to giv…
Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
11–20 of 20 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#12Ideas monetizing this game I built: http://thewikigame.com ? It has ~1500 players per day, w/ average time on site ~10mins. I'm currently starting on a iPhone/Android app. I've thought about virtual goods and adds, but so far I have shied away from adds, and virtual goods I'm not sure about. There is also that upcoming Chrome app store which might be a possibility. Any other ideas? Anyways, good luck spicyj , you're…
I pretty much suck at this, but it's fun :P
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#13Ideas monetizing this game I built: http://thewikigame.com ? It has ~1500 players per day, w/ average time on site ~10mins. I'm currently starting on a iPhone/Android app. I've thought about virtual goods and adds, but so far I have shied away from adds, and virtual goods I'm not sure about. There is also that upcoming Chrome app store which might be a possibility. Any other ideas? Anyways, good luck spicyj , you're…
Nice game :-) I've been playing for half an hour and registered my username. I pretty much suck at this, but it's fun :P
People really love the game for a while, the word "addicting" comes up a lot. But, the long-term retention is pretty low, and understandably so, there are no variations or other features except the main game.
I'm working on making more features/game types/etc to make the game players have better retention, and make it overall more enjoyable for long-time players. Specifically, I'm working on the top voted requests here: http://wikipediagame.uservoice.com
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#14Your best bet is probably to talk to some company that's selling arithmetic-improvement books and mind-skill books, even mind-improvement software and offer to advertise for them. Just tell them up front what they will have to pay etc.. You could also search for affiliate networks that have some of those categories, but that will probably not pay off as much. I can't see that you'd be able to make any money selling a…
Btw. Is your leaderboad supposed to work? Because it's not working for me... I'd like to see where I rank compared to other people. I also have a lot of ideas of how you could improve the game aspect itself, but you probably have them as well, you just haven't been developing the app for the last 5 years, right?
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#15Ideas monetizing this game I built: http://thewikigame.com ? It has ~1500 players per day, w/ average time on site ~10mins. I'm currently starting on a iPhone/Android app. I've thought about virtual goods and adds, but so far I have shied away from adds, and virtual goods I'm not sure about. There is also that upcoming Chrome app store which might be a possibility. Any other ideas? Anyways, good luck spicyj , you're…
In case you weren't aware.
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#16Ideas monetizing this game I built: http://thewikigame.com ? It has ~1500 players per day, w/ average time on site ~10mins. I'm currently starting on a iPhone/Android app. I've thought about virtual goods and adds, but so far I have shied away from adds, and virtual goods I'm not sure about. There is also that upcoming Chrome app store which might be a possibility. Any other ideas? Anyways, good luck spicyj , you're…
fwiw, a similar game was already released to the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wiki-hunt-the-wikipedia-game/... In case you weren't aware.
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#17The article below is for flash games but it shows the difference between popular ad supported games and popular 'premium' (in-app purchases) games.
http://blog.gambrinous.com/2009/10/07/you-should-be-making-a...
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#18I was surprised that I actually got into the game a bit. The problems are challenging enough to make it a real race with the timer. I didn't quite expect it to be as interesting as it turned out.
This might work well as one of those IQ quiz/survey things that seem to crop up a lot in banner ads. You could push it with a slogan along the lines of "How fast is your math?" although you might want to get a bit more creative. Checking just now, I see the domain fastmath.com is already taken. In fact, it looks like there are already some games out there along similar lines. Don't expect to find a lot of low hanging fruit.
That said, I think you might still find some opportunity. I would probably look at hooking the game into Facebook to get it in front of more people, and promotion deals for self-help books targeting math skills.
You'll probably need to liven up the design, though, and you absolutely MUST make it work with Firefox, without telling or expecting the user to do or install anything. I don't know if it's a problem for anyone else, but I JUST freshly installed FF on my Windows laptop, just in case the problem was Linux, and it failed the same way there. Google Chrome handles it on Windows (as I assume does IE), and Konqueror on Linux even knows what to do with it. What Firefox is missing, I don't know, but I suspect that slice of the market is a little bit big to just ignore. You would probably do well to look into it.
Good luck!
UPDATE: Had another look with Windows Firefox, and it's identifying the file as MIME type "application/octet-stream", which is probably what my Linux version considers a BIN file. I'm also noticing that sometimes the browser does seem to dectect the file/MIME type and run the file correctly on both Linux and Windows. Less often than not, though.
At a guess, you're going to need either to set the Content-TYpe (text/html?) explicitly, or give the file an extension. Otherwise, Firefox is unlikely to handle it consistently, let alone correctly, and that's liable to KILL your chances of monetizing anything.
Again, good luck...
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#19You can find a sponsor who wants the advertising to brand it theirs (some sort of school supply or test prep company maybe?)
You could add some advanced features only accessible after pay paling 5 dollars.
Re: Ask HN: Any way to monetize a simple game?
#20Mathogen teaches kids (3-10) addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division through a cute and colorful pattern matching mechanic (faster comprehension means higher scores).
I thought $2.99 in the App Store would be a sweet price but anything over 99 cents seems like a deterrent.
Does anyone have experience making money with their games on Facebook? If I release my game on more platforms, more people will talk about the game and purchase it, right? I would love your feedback.