Want to make $9000+ from your hobby? Make Flash games!

One year ago, Italian Flash programmer Emanuele Feronato started an experiment - was it possible to make money from making Flash games just for fun or as a hobby? The experiment has been a huge success earning Emanuele $9413, jobs, recognition and more.

Just after he started, we wrote about this experiment. With thousands of Flash games out there, is it possible to make money from it even if it's just a hobby? Apparently, yes. There's something special about Flash games. They don't have the market push that major label games have, but they cater to a very different audience.

During the experiment, Emanuele's scope have widened as well. With detailed tutorials on game design, solid research on monetization and getting your game sponsored - his blog has become maybe the best resource available if you want to learn how to make Flash games. Not only that - Emanuele has also kicked off a gaming portal called triqui.com and he shared the process as he did it. When he now summed up what he had made from the games during this first year, he arrived at $9.413 and he expects to double that for 2009. Not shabby for a hobby, or what? We asked Emanuele for some details about the experiment.

Q: Could you tell a little about the time spent on this?
A: Not that much... it ranges from 4-5 hours for the simplest games to about 20 hours for the more polished ones

Q: It was and still is something you do on your spare time?
A: Sure it is. I work for my web company 5 days a week (and I love to do it), I have a wife, a daughter and I practice and teach martial arts. And, last but not least, I have a Playstation 3. I make games in my spare time. That's why not all my games (let's say a half) see the light.

Q: Your blog have become really popular throughout this year and you've been sharing your knowledge willingly. Has this opened up other things to you as well?
A: First, running a tech blog motivates you to learn more and more... and that's very important for a programmer. Then, I receive about a job/collaboration offer a week. Recently I wrote all the actionscript for a Flash project started by another web company located in Italy, and they found me thanks to the blog. Moreover, my old classmates can Google for my name and see I rock!

Q: Is Triqui.com part of that revenue and how many visitors does it have a month?
A: Triqui is part of another experiment and actually is on stand-by until I'll have the Mochi plugin perfectly working, so it's not part of the games revenue. It has about 20,000 visits per month, thanks to the links from my blog and the self sponsored games. It does not have its own public yet

Q: Did you think it would go this well when you started the experiment?
A: Absolutely not, it was just an experiment, something you do when it rains and your wife is (hopefully) at work and you're bored and the DVD movie you was looking for is not available. But that's what experiments are for...

 

 

 

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