Greg is a great guy. He’s friendly, funny, and he likes quiet walks on the beach. Greg is also the Community and Developer Relations Manager for Kongregate, which means he’s in charge of Kongregate sponsorships. It also means when he talks about sponsorships, you should listen. Lucky for us, he was willing to entertain some of my questions and hopefully you’ll find his answers as valuable as I did.

You were put in charge of Sponsorships at Kongregate long before it became the measuring stick against which all other Flash portals are compared. What are the trends you have noticed since you first started at Kongregate, and where do you see the Flash game industry in a few years?

I think that the biggest direction Flash development has taken over the past several years is toward bigger, better, more complex games with higher production values. I think that the days of the Helicopter game and that one one yeti penguin-clubbing game representing the pinnacle of viral spread are behind us. Now the games that are everywhere — the ones that truly pierce through the industry bubble and into the mainstream — are games like Desktop Tower Defense and Pandemic 2. There’s still a place in the industry for the small addictive games that go really viral, but I think that the trend is definitely more toward games with a development cycle that’s a bit more intense. I’ve seen a lot of neat little games pop up and fade away quickly, and sometimes I’m left thinking, “Man, this game would’ve been huge if it were released 5 years ago.”

Increasing complexity has helped validate Flash as a game platform in its own right. Unfortunately, this means Flash games are also becoming more expensive to make. What advice do you have for developers who are taking on bigger risks as the games gets more and more complex?

Focus on your strengths. You don’t need to rehash the same game over and over, but it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to create successful games spread across several entirely different genres. Square Enix makes (made?) the best RPGs ever, but Dirge of Cerberus (their foray into third-person shooters) sucked. Ben Olding and Hero Interactive spring to mind as developers who have great track records of creating successful games with a lot of variety, but they’re a rare breed. The more common case is the developer who makes something successful, believes that they can do anything, then pours a ton of time into a completely different project that flops.

Start with small games. Build on them. Figure out what works and what doesn’t. Recognize what your strengths are, and objectively acknowledge what your weaknesses are. Focus on polishing your strengths rather than addressing every weakness. If you release the same game repeatedly, people will get tired of it, but otherwise, it’s okay if most of your games share a common theme — it’s not like people are limited to playing only the games that you create.

That is quite an amazing insight, Greg. It’s taken years of me floundering around with different genres to come to those same conclusions so I hope the developers out there reading this will take note. Speaking of genres, obviously 2008 was the year of the tower defense game. Would you care to make any predictions about what genres you expect to be successful in 2009?

Oh man, that’s a tough one. 2008 might have been the year of the sniper games as well. I’m going to predict that 2009 is going to be the year of multiplayer games. Kongregate’s own premium games are starting to launch, and we’re gradually making plans to open our multiplayer/microtransaction system up a bit. Nonoba has their API as well. It seems like XGen Studios is coming out with some cool stuff, and Casual Collective is getting a lot more active with their multiplayer games. So I think that might be the most obvious direction for 2009.

What game design advice do you have for a developer who wants to build a game that’s going to get them maximum sponsorship dollars?

If you’re going for pure sponsorship dollars, it pains me to say this, but you should probably avoid the puzzle genre unless you’re especially good/efficient at making these games or you have a really great idea. Good ones are really hard to make, and even the good ones often don’t spread as much as they deserve to. Kongregate users seem to like puzzle games, though, so you can get some good exposure/ad revenue/contest prizes that way, but the actual spread (and therefore sponsorship value) will likely be a bit more limited.

Avoid heavily saturated genres if they’re not your specialty. Flight shooters are a dime a dozen, and even the good ones that will later go on to be successful are frequently undervalued by sponsors simply because they see so many of them submitted. If you’re going to make one, it needs something to stand out from the crowd.

For the love of God, don’t do seasonal games. There are so many of them, and the best ones can only hope for a short spike of traffic. Sponsorships are all about the long tail — there’s no tail at all for Christmas games in January. Your resources are better spent on games that will get attention for more than a week, or at least games that can be successful outside of their respective holiday (”Headless Havoc” is an example of a successful Halloween game that kept up its popularity well past October).

What you SHOULD do to maximize sponsorship dollars is come up with a really great idea that plays to your strengths as a developer, and make something fun with a lot of personality (the “Button Hunt” series was popular more for its humor and personality than for its gameplay/technical merits). Obviously easier said than done! There’s really no easy answer to this subject.

Spend a good portion of time balancing your game. It’s easy for developers to spend months getting everything finished, then ignore adjusting all the back-end numbers just because the game is theoretically done without these adjustments. But they’re hugely important. Get some player feedback. You could spend 3 months making the greatest game ever, but it won’t get as much spread as it should because that boss on level 2 has too much health, and players get frustrated with it. This final tweaking stage is probably the most overlooked in terms of importance, yet it’s by far the most efficient use of your time.

I’m Mr. Developer. I’ve found a great genre that is not highly competitive and I’ve done a lot of work to build a great game. I’m ready to start negotiating with sponsors. How do I get the most out of a deal with a sponsor?

Ah, money! Let’s get soulless for this question. We can get our souls back at the end.

What a sponsorship really boils down to is the sale of traffic. The sponsorship model ultimately makes sense because, to a sponsor, the traffic is cheaper per click (and usually of higher quality) than traditional advertising. To a developer, it makes sense because the CTR is typically so high (2-10% and beyond) that the CPM comes out to a decent rate. Plus, most sponsorship deals will not interfere with other revenue streams, such as Mochi Ads/CPMStar or the sale of site-locked licenses.

The ultimate question for a sponsor is, “How much traffic will this game drive to my site?” The quality of your game is ultimately only important with regard to its potential distribution/viral spread, and its viral spread is only important with regard to how many clicks this will generate. But the CTR is crucial as well. A game with 1 million plays and a 5% CTR is not as valuable to a sponsor as a game with 600,000 plays and a 10% CTR.

So show your sponsor what kind of CTR your game can drive. Put in some placeholder branding. Show where the links will be. If you’re willing to offer some exclusive content, show the sponsor — make one version with the content unlocked, and another version with it locked and what the link back to the sponsor’s site to play this content will look like. Don’t wait for a sponsor to request these things.

Form your own objective opinion of what kind of traffic your game can drive. If you’re completely clueless, compare it to your past games. If this is your first game, talk to other developers to get some numbers. Pay special attention to games that you believe are of similar quality. Having an objective estimate of what your own game is worth is the most valuable bargaining tool you have when you start talking to sponsors.

Send out emails to sponsors and collect bids (what the email actually says isn’t as important as most developers seem to think — if we like your game, we’ll place a bid). Post the game on Flash Game License. Compare your bids to your own mental estimate of the game to get a rough idea of how much these sponsors are paying per click. If this is too low (your game is being undervalued), then start talking about performance deals that pay per click. If this is really high (your game is being overvalued), then take the money and run! (Just as long as you aren’t giving up too many rights.)

Another interesting point about performance models is that the average is likely higher than flat amounts, but the median is probably lower (most games are not very successful, but really successful games can be REALLY successful). So a performance model is definitely the way to go if you’re okay with risk and you think your game will be really big (or at least bigger than your flat offers seem to recognize).

Finally, also be sure to make a mental estimate of how much various rights are worth to you. If you believe you can sell $2k worth of non-exclusive, site-locked licenses, then a $5k sponsorship offer that allows this is worth more than a $6k offer that does not. The same logic applies to outside advertising networks being allowed in your game.

Thank you, Greg, for your invaluable time and advice! Hopefully we can do this again sometime soon.