Today post will not be directly about games, but this tool is just awesome and I want to share it with you.

I am very future oriented person and I spend a lot of time thinking and reading about the future technology. Right now I have interested in next gen graphic system, where next gen means graphics in about 2013+. A lot of new stuff going around, mostly new kind of multi core CPU architecture, which will need new kind of thinking about how to program games (and other software) on them.

Right now you have about two cores, most games are single or couple (say 6, maximum) threaded.  For future games you will use hundred of threads. If you know something about multi-threaded programming you probably get headache right now. It is very clear that we will need to invent a lot of new techniques to deal with this, probably based on functional programming.

I stumble upon some great slides that takes this to very deep level, so if you are not scared of it take a look: The end of the GPU roadmap by Tim Sweeney (CEO, Epic Games).

John Carmack, lead programmer and technical director of ID software (game like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein) giving keynote presentation on QuakeCon each year. It is usually very hardcore speech about the technology, advances in computer graphics and so forth. This year it is little bit more accessible for most people with interest in gaming technology and business and if you have two spare hours I recommend to take a look on this video.

In this keynote he talks about how they was acquired, iPhone development, Rage and its technology for level designers, growth of ID software (from 15 people to about 100) and also put some random bits on things they like: rockets, his experience driving Tesla electric car and so. Video is located here.

Making living writing flash games is very hard. Target audience is very price sensitive, best (and mostly only accepted) price is zero dollars.

I wrote small piece about flash game monetization last year and now I found great new series that goes really deep and I do not afraid to say, that these two links are most comprehensive and inspiring articles about making money using flash games today.

Take a look to the:
Flash Love Letter, Part 1
Flash Love Letter, Part 2

I worked on some casual puzzle-crossword game last year and due to some complications with graphic designer I did not finish this game. The source code lays in the dark corner of my hard disk for many months until I spoke with Gee about it. From that time I have dilemma what I can do with this game.

Last year I wanted to have epic (casual) game full of elves and pots of gold, nice Irish music and beautiful hand drawing graphics. First months everything was going well, then started problems with my graphics designer that went to fail of the project. I lost attraction, but most of code is written, also some levels and others stuff.

These days I spend a lot of time thinking of what I can do with this unfinished project. I can continue at the point I left this game and finish it into A grade casual game and sell it at the portals. This sounds good, but it requires a lot of time and effort that I probably do not want to spend at this project with such a uncertain outcome (my game developer myself cry, but it is not so fun to find another graphic designer, than another, because first left than start again).

I can also finish this game as a B grade casual games and go indie way. Just finish the code, throw all the elves and nice story away; add some generic graphic created by myself (graphics is not crucial in this kind of games) and try to sell it via download sites. This looks nice for me, because it is everything just about me and I do not need to spend a lot of effort at the business site (like dealing with publishers and so). Game could be also much cheaper: if it will costs $5.99 I will get more money than if I release $19.99 game with some publisher (yeah, they take more then 70% of game sale).

Or I can just leave it at the dark place of my hard drive. What do you think, what is the right way? Try to make it big, spent a lot of time and money to get the chance and have about 5 percent to make nice income or try to publish it and just see what happen later. If you are a developer what are you doing with your abandoned projects?

There are tons of flash games available and each day pops hundreds of another new games. Question how these developers and whole developments teams makes living is usually undiscovered which leads me to wrote this list.

Pre-game advertising
This is most common way how developers makes money: you must see the ads before loading of the game many times before.

Portals Revenue Sharing
Portals like Kongregate forbid in-game advertising, but they provide revenue sharing based on their own advertising solution.

In-site advertising
This way was most common before rise of in-game advertising by companies like MochiAds. Developers created game with faith that this game will spread virally and brings a crowds of players to his sites and then monetize it by classical advertisement like Google AdSense or so.

Sponsorship
There are a couple of sponsorship methods: developer could sign a exclusive publishing deal with game portal and this portal will pay him for his game or some other business or individual could pay him for including link which leads to their site or whole game might be branded to payer theme.

Pay Per Play / Pay Per Item
This is well know in MMOG genre and the method is simply: you have access to the free version of game and if you want some advantage or more content you need to pay some small amount money to the developer.

This list do not contains all possibilities, I want just provide some basic info about how developers makes living by creating small flash games. If your favorite method is not listed do not hesitate to post comment.

Most of gamers will tell you that current games sux, because most games are similar of each others (and then they will go to the shop for new sequel of Fifa, NBA… you named it). The gaming geeks and journalist are more persistent about this and if they see something new they start to sing ode. While fascinated by something new they can easily omit some things which can degrade the game.

There are small independent company in the England: Introversion software and they’ve got all this press for everything they do. I played most of their games and like it, but I can’t say that these game are superiors, they are just unusual. This games have different graphics than other games, have differentgameplay and although their games are not special journalist and hard core gamers like it. This is clear message for other developers: stop doing poor alternatives of successful games and make something different. People will love you.

If you are not familiar with Introversion Software, take a look at the video of theirs further game: Multiwinia, which will be relased during 2008.