Are you a greedy bastard?
I started this blog a couple of days ago with only one subject in my head: this one. Problem is I didn’t know how to write it without slapping the wrong people. And the wrong people in this case would be the guys behind Flash Game License.
Flash Game License
So, before moving forward, let me start by saying that this post is not about FGL as a community, a service or a company. It’s not about the people that started it and maintain it. This post is about the wrong mindset that has been created by the possibility of quick cash… and do people love quick cash.
The outstanding success of FGL has made a large amount of developers join the FGL community. I don’t have numbers, but I believe that the growth was at a certain point exponential. The success of one developer brought two. The success of two brought four and so on. We have to understand that this success didn’t arrive by accident. What FGL allowed that was never seen before was to have a standard for both developers and portals. A standard place to show, a standard place to look, a standard set of information to use. The downside of it is that the huge developer community gathered arrived there with a purpose: get their games licensed and either you like it or not, that means they arrived there to make money.
As FGL grew bigger and moved more money, more sponsored games; the community grew eager of achieving the same goals of the more successful developers. At FGL and Mochi forums, questions were repeated ad-nausea. “How much is my game worth?” some asked, many times receiving an answer, from a developer, that finishes his post making the same question. This threads by developers for developers caused a constant feedback of false expectations because, truth be told, most games are worth $0.
Yep, that’s it… zero. Funny fact… many developers think every game is worth something and waste enormous amounts of time thinking more about money than about the product that will allow them to get money: the game itself.
So are you a game developer or a greedy bastard? The game developer in its essence is a hard working person. His next game is his most precious possession and he will strive to make it as perfect as it can possibly be. It’s that passion that creates something between good games and masterpieces.
A new breed of greedy bastards are now thinking day after day how much their 1 day game will profit. Game developers are spending one more day to achieve something grand. Money will smile to the developers.
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About Flash Truth
Flash Truth is about the -sometimes- wonderful wold of flash game development. It’s about development, fun, marketing, greed and choices.
It’s also about what makes this world tick: outstanding games!
Hopefully it will be about being useful for those who need information and being clear and sharp about the tricks of the trade, be it development, marketing or simply news.
Flash Truth 
Hey Andreas,
Thanks for the blog post and concerns. I think if you look at our forums as a whole that you’ll see that the FGL community is, in general, very well informed, helpful, and talented.
I think this is due to the fact that, though the core of the site is to help developers and sponsors make money, it is also our goal to help developers make great games. We do this by offering services like First Impressions, and community feedback, and an area to collaborate, and help in getting art and music, and all sorts of other offerings.
Also, keep in mind that many developers want to make a living making games. I don’t think this is greed, but just a wish to make enough to get by and do what they enjoy.
Hi, thanks for having the 1st non-spam comment on flashtruth.
I agree with you, like I said the problem is not FGL, but the mindset of easy cash that builds up from within the community.
I don’t think that there’s something FGL has to deal with, or responsible for, each simply connected.
I have no idea where you got the name Andreas though… 🙂
Hi, i’m a game developer and i not quite agree with you.
I’m developing flash games almost for a year now and i still have many questions about the flash game business.
When i started i had the same questions that many of the “new developers” ask in the forums. I also wanted to get some money but my main interest is create great games.
FGL has a great community, and it’s a great place for game developers searching ways to monetize their games. Some get good deals and some not.
I agree FGL has a good community, I have a developer account there and I have no complaints. I can understand your doubts and the doubts of many developers, what I don’t understand is how can a game developer be money-centric when the game is not good enough.