Game Design Secrets

Pitching Publishers: Who Buys/Publishes Indie Games, Why They Do, and What You Can Expect to Earn

A number of major websites and companies publish indie/third-party web games—among them are Gamehouse, Mochi Games, Flash Game License, Miniclip, Addicting Games, Big Fish Games, and Armor Games. These are surveyed in greater detail in Appendix A, “Resources for Designers.” For now, let’s have an in-depth conversation with a market leader in web games—Kongregate.

Publisher Profile: Kongregate.com

The following are some key stats about Kongregate:

• Web address for developers: developers.kongregate.com.
• Monthly visitors: 15 million, about 5 million from the United States (according to Kongregate, citing Google Analytics).
• Key demographic stats: “Our registration data and surveys show us having an average age of about 20 and that we’re about 85 percent male,” says Kongregate co-founder Emily Greer, who adds that the site has strong overlap with hardcore gamers. “In Comscore we index on console ownership and game purchasing at almost exactly the same rates as IGN and GameSpot.”

Gamestop.com gets 4.2 million monthly visitors.

• Site snapshot: Along with skewing toward hardcore gamers (who are mostly young and male), Kongregate (see Figure 7-5) is owned by video game and software retail chain GameStop, which also has a large presence online and has a prominent link to the web game portal.

Figure 7-5: Kongregate’s homepage

Kongregate’s Game Director Greg McClanahan offered these ...