We all know what flash games are (they are alternatively called online arcade games). Although the market is saturated (search for flash games or something related and check how many exist), there is still some profit in this niche. I would recommend the following though:
Don’t build a flash games website
Although it’s very easy to create such a site (I’m gonna tell you how later), don’t build one. Unless you spend serious money to promote it, you’re not going to get the traffic you need to make a normal profit, so I strongly disagree that it’s a good investment. I have one and I know several persons who operate such sites and we all agree on the above. Instead…
Integrate a flash games website into your existing website
Do you have an established website about games or something related? If the answer is yes, then a flash games section will be an amazing addition to your website. Apart from the obvious benefit of profit via advertising and/or a share of the games’ micro-transactions revenue (where applicable), you’ll have a great way to get your visitors stuck in your site. They’ll spend even more time on it and they will keep coming back for one more reason (to play a game).
It will also be much easier to rank for the flash games since your site’s reputation is going to help a lot. You’re not going to be another flash game website like hundreds of others, but a unique website that also has a flash games section.
How to integrate a flash games section into your WordPress blog
There are several solutions, both free and paid. My personal choice is the paid version of MyArcadePlugin. There is a free version of the script as well, but you have to find and insert games manually, therefore the money that the paid version costs for the features that it gives you and the time it will save you is a real bargain!
After you buy the script, there are detailed instructions that will guide you through the installation and configuration procedures but don’t worry since it’s very simple. After you install and configure it, you’ll basically just have to choose games to add. There are three different paid versions; the professional which costs €24.95 (around $32 at the moment), the ultimate which costs €29.95 (around $38) and the carefree which costs €49.95 (around $64). The one I purchased and I recommend is the ultimate, since it comes with 38.000 pre-fetched games stored into the database, so you can just browse through the list, read the games’ descriptions and publish any of them by just one click!
There is also the option to schedule auto-updates so your flash games section can run as an auto-blog with hundreds of games published every day automatically, but I wouldn’t recommend it since…
If you’re going to do something, do it right!
Everyone can install the plugin and just have it update itself automatically. What will make you stand out is if you hand-pick the games. Spend a couple of hours every week to play 100 games and publish only those which are of good quality (extra points if you re-write their description). Don’t forget to tell your visitors that you only choose what is worth playing. This will make you stand out since a huge percentage of the persons in the niche fail to do that and they end up with a flash games site just like any other.
Good luck!
photo by remy_free@flickr
