Kongregate is an alpha stage online gaming site that will let users upload games they have built, charge users for premium play or features with a one click payment system and share revenues with the site from premium payment and advertisements. The company aims to take the site live just after the holiday season.
Co founders Jim and Emily Greer say they expect to get a term sheet for a seed investment from an unnameable tier A VC by the end of this week. I can see why – I think it looks like a solid business. Jim Greer has ten years of experience in the gaming industry, most recently as Technical Director for EA’s successful web gaming site Pogo.com. Kongregate has a very interesting model with a tech-experienced executive team and a well put together alpha site.
The basis of the site is the user generated content – Kongregate co-founder Jim Greer says he is working to build a brand like YouTube (Who isn’t? But his point is valid here) where visitors to the site don’t expect every game available to be good – but know that the ones highlighted on the front page will be.
Kongregate believes that status plus community form the kind of attainable but long term goals that compel committed use by game players. That makes sense and sounds like the basis for everything from gaming in general to Kathy Sierra’s “committing passionate users.” For that reason they will include inline chat, a metagame point system to track general prestige in all the games, Individual challenges, league play and loyalty points for contributing to the site. Those points will be redeemable in game or with brick and mortar advertising partners.
Revenue sharing
Unlike other sites where game creators share their work for prestige alone, the revenue split at Kongregate is compelling. Competitor Newgrounds, for example, emphasizes that contributers are likely to gain big traffic spikes back to their own sites.
Kongregate will offer between 25% and 50% of ad revenue to game contributers, depending on how closely and exclusively the game is integrated into the Kongregate site. 80% of revenue from in-game microtransactions will go to the game creator.
All of this sounds like a very compelling package. With backing by a prominent VC Kongregate could go all the further. The timing is definitely right. From Second Life crossing the one million user mark to media like Infoworld highlighting the connection between gaming and business, game playing is increasingly being seen as far more than a niche market. User generated media content is now widely seen as having value. I know I enjoyed playing some of the games on the Kongregate site and I expect that many more people will in the future.
I agree…this looks very interesting!
Thanks Chris – Did you get an invitation so you can play in our alpha?
I would like an invitation also? Agree, looks very interesting!
Jim,
How much thought have you given to cheaters? Once you start keeping track of points and ranking players you are going to have problems with them.
Hi Stephen –
Yes, I’m pretty familiar with the problem from Pogo, but it will be even worse on our site with a younger more savvy audience.
In general there’s not much you can do against people who run ‘bots’, typically little visual basic apps that read the screen and click madly on your game. The only defense there is statistical – i.e. this person is making progress in this game faster than a human could, or is playing 18 hours straight, etc.
Our basic philosophy is to give most points for contributing to the site in ways that only people can (suggesting games, inviting friends, etc – even on these we need to be aware of gamesmanship).
For high scores, we’re going to do this the way many online services do – we don’t have a global high score list. Instead the high score list compares you with your friends.
Vik – I don’t have your email address to send to, but if you sign up for an invitation on our home page we’re turning those around promptly (until we reach capacity on our current production machines, anyway…)
Jim,
Not yet…just requested one!
do you mind if i bring my aunt with me?
I don’t know about this. There are too many high quality games out there and not enough time to play them. I’m just not sure people will pay to explore armature developed games. However, it could prove to be good fishing grounds for companies looking for new talent.
I’ve spent a day with the alpha; the games are high quality and addictive in a non-brainer kinda way…
Maybe this is a good channel to push peaceful, activist games.
Hi Guys,
Firstly, please don’t tag this as spam – This is relevant to the topic is discussion as Kongregate and pjio are spoken about in the game topics on many forums.
A heads up on an alternative that is currently in live beta that you can all have a look at today, heck even upload your game if you wish.
http://www.pjio.com
We’re not limiting ourselves to Flash or Java, in fact our tech enables virtually any game to be wrapped and delivered as a web game and embedded in any webpage. The beta has been live for 2 days now and the visitor count is already off the scale!
Please come along, bear in mind it’s beta, and have some fun.
Hello,
My name’s Mike from a company called Prazzy.com we pretty much have the same model as these two guys , community orientated and we pay developers CPM for their games . It’s a great idea and could fill a real niche. I’m looking forward to seeing how these two develop.
We are planning to redesign, introduce our global membership backend and then go live next week.
http://www.prazzy.com
I think competition in this industry is quite tough, and it is harder for a company to win over user in this space then let’s say in video space. So, getting big here may be harder and will require more time. But as long as smart and experienced people behind it things may be different, good luck Jim and Emily
Sites that aggregate indie games have been around for a while, like http://www.gamegardens.com/ from the brilliant creators of Puzzle Pirates. Will be interesting to see what happens as these companies try to aggregate and monetize in new ways.
Timing is good as indie developers are struggling to stay afloat in the “established” casual game channels. Most of the large distribution portals don’t share ad revenue, the market is cluttered with tons ‘o clones, downloadable conversion rates are sucky, and infrastructure for micro-transaction revenue either doesn’t exist or isn’t accessible to indie developers.
Gotta love disruptive media. Good luck to Kongregate, Prazzy, Pijo, etc.
There’s one huge difference between Kongregate and others. Kongregate is the only one who has explicitly said that developers are welcome. Look at their big banner at the main page of the site: “We are looking for GREAT flash GAMES”. And the explanation of revenue sharing in their help is clear too.
When I look at all other websites listed here in comments I can’t see such invitation there. Probably, I should look more carefully — but here’s the trick, I really shouldn’t look for invitation carefully If I am really invited. I believe game developers play games too, and much (huh, interesting idea for online survey). And this is supported with the Kongregate invitation at the main page.
Another strong point of their site it the reasonable design. “Featured game” block is only at Kongregate again. In general, they took the best marketing and usability features from web2 and successfully applied the ol’good firm graphic design unlike loose one from other web20 implementation. As result, their site looks innovative and familiar simultaneously. Others look a bit outdated or just usual then with their pretty plain design (despite the fact gamegardens.com has the one which looks original).
‘Hand made, powered by wires’ — here’s the core of their fast success.
Here’s the quotation from my friend Sergey ‘Syo’ Krivosheya from Kiev, whose games featured at the main page of Kongregate at the moment:
“…I have uploaded the couple of games in the evening. When I’ve woke up in the morning, I saw games was played by a lot of people. They write reasonable and very useful comments. Disregarding money, Kongregate website is great platform for testing game ideas w/out without any extra effort indeed…”
I wish Kongregate be the #1
“We are looking for GREAT flash GAMES”. And the explanation e sharing in their help is clear too.