Flash gaming site Kongregate has a new service launching on Wednesday called the Collabs that lets musicians and artists share their work in the hopes of getting it used in upcoming Flash games. Content creators upload their works directly to Kongregate where it goes into a directory that's curated by several of the site's power users.
The Collabs are not just for developers though. Kongregate users can listen to music and view animations, as well as rate them the same way they're able to do with the service's games. In a phone interview, Kongregate's CEO Jim Greer told me that he wants it to be a place for users to explore and discover new designers and musical artists before they go mainstream. Their input also has the power to get some of the ideas turned into games that they can later play, or sound creations that can go into their favorite games, since the highest rated submissions win cash and the chance to get free home game studio tools.
The new sounds section lets music creators share their work with potential developer clients who can preview a track and maybe license it, or hire them to work on game music.
(Credit: CNET)Casual users who have a game design idea will also soon be able to publish it directly to the art Collabs using built-in tools from Aviary. Using special versions of Raven and Phoenix (Aviary's vector and image editors), which run right on the page, users will be able to create new art that can be sent directly to the Collabs. This functionality won't be live on Wednesday, but Greer says it will be there in a week or two.
To handle all the licensing, each item can be set to one of three creative commons licenses--both for acceptable use and acceptable modification. There is no integrated purchasing system though. Instead, each submitter can be directly contacted by those who are interested in their creations or services. There's also Kongregate's "hook up" forum for developers to hire talent or find testers, or for people looking for work to match up with their skills.
Kongregate continues to grow since launching three years ago. Greer says the site is now adding around 1,000 new games a month, which are entertaining more than 7.5 million monthly unique users. That audience is doubling every six months. The site is still driven by ad revenues, although has recently built in a micropayments system which developers can include in their games. This new system will hopefully generate more Flash game development, which should augment those numbers even more.
User created art, as shown off in Kongregate's Collabos.
(Credit: CNET)
Kongregate is an anomaly in the casual gaming business. Where many Flash game sites feature card games and are frequented by a diverse population with a good percentage of women, Kongregate has hardly any solitaire-like games and has demographic of about 90 percent men and boys. It's where the shooter players go when they want to blow off some steam without firing up the console or the gaming rig, according to Kongregate CEO Jim Greer.
That focused demographic may be narrow, but it's also marketable. To engage this group more fully with the site -- and with sponsors -- Kongregate is launching a series of tutorials to help its users become game developers. The first series, sponsored by a youth-oriented automotive brand, walks participants through the steps of building a side-scrolling space-themed shoot-em-up in Flash.
Tutorial intro.
The tutorial itself is not revolutionary, but I respect how Kongregate is layering in the elements that its demographic can relate to. Even though Greer does not really expect any Kongregate-schooled developers to build one of the few games that makes it to the top of the site's charts, he does think that the program will bolster the site's community and help lock users into the site.
Many of the current games on Kongregate are also available elsewhere, but Kongregate gets its users to come back by tracking achievements and rewarding users badges for meeting challenges. It also has a social angle.
The strategy for the gaming site is to move beyond advertising and sponsorships, though. As Greer says, "You can make pretty good money on an ad-supported game, but it tops out at $40K to 50K." That's why Kongregate allows users to submit their own games; nobody knows which ones are going to be the $50,000 winners; most of the submissions barely get noticed. It's also why Greer's company is building a system for in-game micro-transactions (for tarting up your avatar or buying power-ups) as well as a subscription platform for developers whose games are so compelling users will pay for them on a monthly basis. Those are better avenues to big revenue.
Lee Uniacke, Kongregate's chief revenue officer (isn't that normally the CEO's role?) says the male, 18- to 24-year-old demographic is "quasi recession proof," which sounds a bit sketchy, although that group of young job-holders will like always spend a bit more of their income on discretionary expenses, than, say, 40-year-old parents. The 20-person company still has "a lot" of its $9 million of funding left.
See also: What fun: Popfly gets a game builder.
The online gaming site, Kongregate, makers of some of the best time sucking games out there, is adding a challenge platform to its Facebook application on Monday. As of Tomorrow, Facebook users will be able to challenge their friends to a variety of Kongregate games, which are playable through embedded versions in Facebook. Right now, you are able to challenge your friends to eight different games.
The implementation here is really great. Kongregate makes it very easy to throw down the gauntlet against one of your friends and see who is really the best. You earn points for doing a variety of activities, including beating your friends in a challenge. The whole thing is rounded out by leaderboards which are broken down by friends, networks, and all players. Given the extremely addicting nature of Kongregate's games, I think that this application will catch on really well. As we saw with Scrabulous, games have great potential on Facebook and Kongregate really nailed it with their challenge platform.
I had a lot of trouble pulling myself away from these games to write this post, so I think that people are really going to enjoy this. Some of the most successful applications on Facebook are those that bring out people's competitive nature. We saw that when Facebook's developer platform first launched with iLike's music quiz and I think that we are going to see that again with Kongregate.
Doof is a new Flash games service that's attempting to give people single and multplayer Flash gaming in one spot with a creative spin. Doof takes a virtual desktop approach to managing a playspace, with floating windows the likes of some Web OS services we've looked at. You can have as many opened up as you'd like, and they can be minimized, organized, and tweaked to look any way you want. When actually playing a game, however, it'll take control of your screen, darkening everything else on your Webtop.
The smattering of games is what makes Doof worth looking at. You'll find many classic clones, along with some first-party classic titles like Asteroids and Space Invaders. Games can be played in a "quick play" setting that jumps you into a single player match, or you can play the odds and go up against another Doof player. Here's where things get interesting--you can incrementally buy into various levels of tournament play against other people using virtual credits. You can either buy these credits in chunks (using real money), or win them with skill against others. You start out with 10, which is enough to get you into a couple of multiplayer tournaments with the chance to win from others.
In addition to games, Doof mixes up a variety of community features. Most notably each member gets their own profile page which tracks game achievements, play history, and can let you pull in your photos from Facebook. There's also a microblogging platform the likes of Facebook's status message, which Doof calls "Pulse," along with an RSS ticker that grabs the latest headlines from a little over a dozen sites. Like everything else on the site, the entire experience is handled through windows, instead of jumping you from page to page. There are also no advertisements.
Where Doof shines is its interface, which is highly customizable and open to a lot of new things that can be built in later down the line. In many ways it reminds me a lot of iminlikewithyou, although with less emphasis on user profiles and more on the games. Compared to a competitor like Kongregate, Doof is treading a slightly different path. Their games may have a bit more immediate polish, but there's not a developers network in sight. Cheapskates will prefer Kongregate for its free multiplayer gaming, which you can't get away with on Doof (unless you're a good gamer), along with a much larger library of playable games.
Play all sorts of games with other people, or just by yourself with Doof, a Flashy new games site.
(Credit: CNET Networks)About a decade ago playing visually rich and enthralling games on your computer required an installation, a reboot, and some considerable horsepower. These days, between lean browsers and speedy broadband connections, people are now able to play something for a few minutes without installing anything. The latest movement in online games is playing them with others, and building platforms and content delivery systems that let fledgling developers share their work with others.
By the way, Bunchball has one of the coolest favicons I've seen...ever.
FlowPlay a casual games aggregation site that runs entirely in Adobe Flash. All the basic games are free. There's also a subscription model that opens up the more advanced titles. The service has integrated a social network with user profiles, rankings, and user avatars. Similar to Meez, and Gizmoz, user avatars are completely customizable, and users can purchase clothing and accessories to change their virtual appearance.
Hothead Games was definitely the odd man out in this group. They create PC and console games. Their upcoming project Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is one of the more interesting stories of Internet success. Penny Arcade, which gets over 4 million visitors a month, is a video game blog/comic strip that's become so popular it's jumped off the Web, and has its own video gaming festival.
Jim Greer, co-founder and CEO of Kongregate [review] talked about his site, and company who recently celebrated their one-year anniversary. The service is a casual games site mixed with a social network. It's library currently has about 1000 games. Users can chat with one another, view each others profiles, and their gaming achievements--a feature similar to Microsoft's XBOX Live Arcade. Greer says Kongregate's version was inspired by Pogo.com's badge system.
The site is planning to roll out a micropayment system and a subscription model so users can purchase full versions of games, or subscribe to access premium titles.
Webware is a media sponsor of the SFBeta mixer that's on tonight. I'm looking forward to finding some new companies there to cover. Most of the official presenting companies are not new to Webware, so I'm hoping that somewhere in the crowd I'll find the CEO of some tiny, unknown, and very cool start-up. Wish me luck.
The official presenters get demo table space, but there's a changeover halfway through the evening since there are more presenters than tables available. With any luck, there will be a CEO stare-down--or worse!--when the first shift of presenters doesn't want to give up their space to the late-night crew.
Here are the companies we know we'll be seeing tonight. New (to us) ones first:
New to Webware
- YourStreet: New company. Officially launches April 11. This company is similar to StreetAdvisor (review), in that it aims to collect information about the tenor of local real estate markets, so people can decide if they want to move in to a neighborhood, or so they can determine how to price a property in the neighborhood if they want to sell it. Run by former CNET employees (and friends), with some current CNET staffers freelancing for it, so I can't review it; check it out yourself.
Chesspark: A site for chess geeks.
(Credit: CNET Networks) - Chesspark: Chess meets Web 2.0. Play against the site's own bots or mix it up with other members. Rich functionality on the Web site. There's a download, too. The service does not appear to support wagering, so Chess hustlers will have to head elsewhere.
- SoftSearch: Helps you find business software apps for your particular industry or function.
- FreePledge: Site that collects affiliate marketing fees from big online retailers on your behalf and gives them to charity. An easy way to do good (reminder: you can also just donate money to your favorite charity directly).
- Rightround: Site by and for indie musicians and the people who listen to them.
Previously covered
- SpotDJ: Cool service that lets you listen to--and record--commentary blurbs between your iTunes music tracks. Webware review.
- Kongregate: Flash games site. Recently got a big pile of venture money, so should have some new features coming soon. Review; News.
- Xcellery: Makes Excel spreadsheets collaborative over the Web. A Webware Top Five Under the Radar pick. See also our review.
- Fliptrack: Makes slideshows with music. Review.
- Wrike: Project management through e-mail. Review. This company also presented at last week's Stirr event.
- Prosper: Lets you lend to, or borrow from, other Prosper users. See our previous review.
- Facebook: Right. Them. Don't know if they have anything new to show us tonight. We'll check.
- NBC and News Corp. push new Web rival to YouTube. If you can't beat 'em join 'em, which is what AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace are doing to combat media juggernaut YouTube. The companies have combined forces and are gearing up to launch a new online video service this summer. Besides user-submitted clips, expect to find full-length TV shows and paid-for movies from two major studios. (CNET News.com)
- HP to acquire photo start-up Tabblo. Photo sharing and printing service Tabblo is being acquired by Hewlett-Packard. In our hands-on we noted the ease and simplicity of its built-in printing options, and apparently HP took notice too. HP purchased competing photo-sharing service Snapfish a few years ago, and intends to keep it and Tabblo as separate brands. (CNET News.com)
- Site wants to become YouTube of games. Flash games site Kongregate (previous coverage) has a received $1 Million in funding and has opened up the site to everyone (it was previously a private beta.) The site now hosts over 300 games. (CNET News.com)
- Picnik adds new features, Picasa Integration. Picnik, the Web-based photo editing and browsing tool we checked out last month, has added some neat new features like tinting, focal change, and drawing right on photos with a doodling tool. Also new is the ability to sync up with Picasa Web albums using the newly released Picasa Web Album API.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
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