Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Games are designed so they can be passed around and embedded easily into other
sites and portals. This can mean creating the entire game in a single file or distributing it
in a way that can be easily embedded in any web site.
Viral games can be played in online game portals and syndicated to other game portals.
Finally, the games are sponsored, include in-game ads, and utilize a global high-score
table and/or other distributed services such as micro transactions.
However, just knowing what a viral web game is does not tell you how to be successful at making
them. The rest of this chapter will inform you on some ways to create, maintain, and make a
make a little money from a viral web game.
Distributing a viral web game
After you have created a viral web game, the next thing you need to do is tell people about it.
Your first inclination might be to announce it to the world immediately. While we will advise a bit
later on why this might not be the best idea, here are some common ways to do just that.
Using your own web site
The quickest and easiest way to distribute your viral web game on the Internet is to set up your
own web site to host your game. Hosting your own game also happens to be the most flexible
way to go about it. After you have created a web site and embedded your SWF, there are a few
more things you can do to help get the word out about your game
Using social news sites
Social news sites like Digg.com are a great way to start promoting your game. Digging a game is
very easy. Just go to
http://digg.com
, create an account, and submit a new link. However,
Digg.com is inundated with links on an hourly basis, so you might not see much of a response
unless you can muster dozens of friends to digg your link and get it moved up the charts.
However, even if you can make this happen, it will only work for a very short time. Other social
news sites like Yahoo Buzz (
http://buzz.yahoo.com
) and Gamer Blips (
http://gamerblips.com
)
are also useful for posting links but suffer from the same drawbacks as Digg.com. However, if
your link gets picked up by a gaming news site and subsequently added to other sites, this
technique can still be a very effective.
Twitter
Twitter can be another useful tool for informing the world of your new game. Creating a Twitter
account is very easy, and there are some very useful widgets and tools, such as RSS feeds of
your tweets (postings) available to every user. To use Twitter effectively though, you need to do
two things:
Get people to subscribe to your tweets. Just like with social news sites, you will need to
start your Twitter promotions with any friends or colleagues that you can muster to help
spread the word about your game. Gaining valuable subscribers that care about your
games can take time and energy. Spamming and faking those valuable connections is
