Flashbang Studios, creators of the portal Blurst, which is filled with their own games such as Off Road Velociraptor, Blush, and Minotaur in a China Shop are really doing things right. They have now self funded five titles and try to come out with a new game every eight weeks (six per year total). All of their games use the Unity web plug in for a nice, high fidelity game experience in the browser on both Macs and Windows machines.
Flashbang's Blurst Game Portal
These guys have no idea that I am posting about them. While I met Mathew Wegner a few years back at a Casual Connect, we have not stayed in touch. At the time, I was extremely impressed with his creativity and the types of games they were creating. Since then, their company has really hit its stride. In this article, Gamasutra - News - Interview: Flashbang Studios, Blursting Through?, Gamasutra interviewed the founders.
Here are some of the things that I think they are doing right:
- They have a”day jobs” doing contract work.
- They are creating new Intellectual Property at the rate of six games per year.
- They abandoned their old plan of making casual games to make money to concentrate on games they really believed in.
- They chose a game engine and work within its bounds. They don’t complain about what it does not have, they just crank out great games.
- They are aggregating their efforts in a rapidly evolving portal, Blurst, that is gaining traffic at a nice rate.
In summary, Flashbang is following all of the steps that I advocate in my Foundational Five article about surviving as a game developer. They have a small team of creative, like minded people, they have day jobs, they are creating innovative games, they are building a portfolio of company owned IP. In my mind, these guys, along with companies like Thatgamecompany, Behemoth, and 2D Boy are a new generation of rising stars that will be making the hits of the future. A couple of years from now, I think Blurst will have huge traffic, and these guys will be extremely successful.
-Jeff Tunnell, Game Maker
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