{"id":116,"date":"2012-02-06T23:12:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T23:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/?p=116"},"modified":"2012-02-06T23:12:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T23:12:51","slug":"get-rich-quickish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/get-rich-quickish\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Rich Quick(ish)!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Also known as: Why I will never be as rich as Notch<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It bothers me how often developers ask, “What’s the in<\/i> genre? What will make me the most money?” I am not bothered by developers being callous and in it only for the money; I am irked by the answers usually given. Indeed, I think any answer that involves a specific genre is wrong.<\/p>\n

Tower defense. Physics puzzles. By the time they are popular enough that they are well known as the in<\/i> genre, there are already dozens if not hundreds of competing games available. If a potential, money-hungry developer asks this question, by the time they have produced their game, sold it, and released it, they will be at best a few months late to the party. At worst, they will become yet another developer whining about how there is no money to be made in Flash.<\/p>\n

I would like to draw your attention to Minecraft for a moment. It is freeform. It is creative. And you already know about it.<\/p>\n

This is a diagram of how players go through my games:
\n\"Direct\"<\/p>\n

This is a diagram of how players go through Minecraft:
\n\"Open<\/p>\n

I like to craft experiences<\/i>, where the player is made to feel the emotions that I want them to. (I just made myself sound like an evil dictator. I promise, I do it for the good of my players!) What this means is that I have all sorts of fans, who really enjoyed spending half an hour on my games – and no more. There is a built-in limitation to how involved my fans can be. The way to get the ultimate fandom is to have an experience that never, ever ends.<\/p>\n

Give a child a jigsaw, and they will be occupied for a while. However, give a child a bucket of LEGO to build from, and you may occupy them for hours, even days, before they need feeding again. This translates directly into the gaming sphere: Fantastic Contraption, Line Rider, and Canvas Rider are the first Flash examples that spring into my mind.<\/p>\n

I confess, this is not how I build games, so I will never be as rich as Notch. But it does answer the original question.
\nThe way to get rich somewhat quicklyish, is to build an addictive game that lasts forever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Has anyone tried building a game-creation engine in Flash?<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Also known as: Why I will never be as rich as Notch. It bothers me how often developers ask, “What’s the in genre? What will make me the most money?” I am not bothered by developers being callous and in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash","category-gaming","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radicaldog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}