Hi there,

I lurk here, but got an account just to reply :) I will be speaking
here wholly in the context of online flash games, as I can't and won't
comment on picture sharing, community websites or any of that
new-fangled social or "SpaceBook" aspect :)

What you've got here, (and you probably know it already), is a game
portal. You are also what's known as a publisher. Portals host,
filter, select and promote games and take a cut of the in-game ad
revenues. In return, they provide traffic (eyeballs!).

I haven't heard of HeyZap before, so thanks for bringing them to my
attention. I had a browse through their site, and saw some attractive
offers, so if I can find more info on their system, I might be
interested to use them some day... What caught my eyes was their very
attractive developer share of a whopping 70% of the ad revenue! From
what I can gather, publishers get 15% of the ad revenue. Is this
correct? Perhaps you could also comment on the eCPM of their offerings
-- how much are you receiving from the in-game ads compared to the
traffic? I assume your traffic stats are daily numbers?

I am not sure why you were not keen on Google Ads, they've been quite
popular among the portals that I have heard of. Google can now index
Flash assets, so in-game text, tutorials, etc should get picked
up. For more games, have you heard of: mochiads or CPMStar, or other
portals like Kongregate, armorgames?

mochi: Developers get 50%, publishers 10%

Don't know about CPMStar (anyone?)

Kongregate: Developers get 25-50% (depending on features). No
publisher affiliate system that I know of, they are after all a portal
too.

When you say you haven't done anything recently, does that mean you
don't update those games on your page? There are portal software out
there (www.flashgamedistribution.com has a "portal in a box",
download, click, and you're away [disclaimer: I haven't used it]) that
automate the delivery and distribution of games from source. All you
gotta do is play a suggested game, and approve/reject them from your
front page. Sounds like a dream job for game crazy teenagers! (I'm not
saying you're a teenager here of course.)

I am sharing this as a game developer who's been pondering the pros
and cons of having my own portal. If you subscribe to the Long Tail
hypothesis, then portals benefit from the long tail. However, I feel
that the competition is intense, though I have no experience
here. Most portals are starting to move into proprietary
micro-transaction systems, but the revenue from this area is still
relatively small. It is definitely a growth industry, and the key is
always more traffic, though I wonder if it's possible to do better? I
would appreciate any experience you may share from your end (if you do
go further with this). :)

Here's something that might interest other readers. Remember that this
guy develops games and runs a portal, so the portal section of his
analysis is really only about 8% of the total.

http://mochiland.com/articles/developer-recap-badim-shares-t...

I should also mention flashgamelicense.com -- you might see Badim
mentioning licensing deals in his blog. Lots of portal owners (I'm
assuming you need to be a certain size first) sponsor games in order
to be able provide their own branding and ads. Could be interesting to
check out once you reach a certain size I guess...

I would appreciate any useful stats other readers may know about this
new and exciting (for me) area!