My dream is to become one of the first to make a living off entirely free games. It is this dream that I aspire in my various projects. It is also a very real dream for me because I am taking steps to reach my dream.
That dream has been criticized. They see that I will fail no matter how hard I try. They criticize and yet often never offer feedback on how I can reach my dream. Basically, they said "don't even brother". (What is described here are not representative of all critics)
Yet I persisted in my goal. Although I have little to show for, I am making steady progress in term of revenues(I am breaking personal revenues records ever since I started). That, at least I am happy. (Although these critics laugh at my small earning. They won't laugh in the near future :) )
One day, after looking at my profits and look at older posting on this blog, I begin to realize something important. I am building a pretty side income . Even if I don't succeed, at least I have this source of revenues.
Even If I lose a job(Don't have one), I still have this source of revenues. It will make money for me even around the clock. It doesn't require much maintenance. Plus, I can use what it earn to fund future ventures.
The pursuit of my dream yield me economic benefits that I overlook as I chase to reach my goal.
The pursuit taught me something important. If you don't try, there are no gain. If you did try, the benefit could be great. Even if you don't succeed, you're left with more knowledge and the high possibility of positive changes in your life.
Aim high and take these little steps to reach your dream. With this unrealistic dream of your, you can achieve many things as you ruthlessly chase after the goal.
Such as getting dugg, appearing on slashdot, and having a semi popular wiki to name a few of real life accomplishments.
With the revenues source, I am glad that I persisted against my critics.
If you want to achieve a new world order in the video game industry based on free gaming, maybe we can talk about achieving this goal and take a step together. I would love to form an alliance with fellow entrepreneurs that is interested in free gaming to overtake an industry that is even bigger than hollywood.
Discuss this post in the forum.
P.S:
I am sorry that I couldn't revamp the rubygame tutorial part 2. At least I accomplish something by adding a forum section.
We also disabled commenting to this blog. Now if you want to post a comment, go to the corresponding thread in the forum we linked to above.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
What I been Up To These Days?
So what been happening between all these days between the last post and this post?
Well, I am monetizing more of libregamewiki.org. It is now earning me at least 10 cents more per day. For the purpose of monetizing the site and increasing the site's usefulness, I added a forum, planet, and even a blog. I also experimented with the dimension of the ads boxes. I found button ads to be much more profitable.
The Libregamewiki site have about 200 articles, over 4000 edits and currently 4 hyperactive editors. So it is growing rather fast.
On the game development side, I been forever working on a game that was supposed to be complete last month in a pyweek contest. If only I have more motivations to finish the project, I would earn more money than what I am earning. Given the previous history with my development you could say I don't have what it take to create commercial free games.
What is coming up for this blog? Hopefully, regular output of new content. I think I am going to open up a forum section at the libregamewiki site and rewrite tutorial part 2 into smaller pieces that are easy to manage. I am going to put myself a deadline here: I must get it done by Wednesday.
Also, I'll be soliciting ideas from the forum since historically this blog doesn't produce much contents.
Well, I am monetizing more of libregamewiki.org. It is now earning me at least 10 cents more per day. For the purpose of monetizing the site and increasing the site's usefulness, I added a forum, planet, and even a blog. I also experimented with the dimension of the ads boxes. I found button ads to be much more profitable.
The Libregamewiki site have about 200 articles, over 4000 edits and currently 4 hyperactive editors. So it is growing rather fast.
On the game development side, I been forever working on a game that was supposed to be complete last month in a pyweek contest. If only I have more motivations to finish the project, I would earn more money than what I am earning. Given the previous history with my development you could say I don't have what it take to create commercial free games.
What is coming up for this blog? Hopefully, regular output of new content. I think I am going to open up a forum section at the libregamewiki site and rewrite tutorial part 2 into smaller pieces that are easy to manage. I am going to put myself a deadline here: I must get it done by Wednesday.
Also, I'll be soliciting ideas from the forum since historically this blog doesn't produce much contents.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Success and Neglect
Libregamewiki now far eclipses this blog. About 40,000 pageloads, 12,000 visitors were recorded in my stat yesterday. This blog is so far got at best 5,000 pageload in its best month(which is July).
The wiki got dugg.
Thus, the wiki grow bigger, even though many of the contributions are essentially worthless(people adding freeware games and such).
Little did I know that submitting the wiki to FSDaily would create such a chain reactions.
Digg propel my wiki to traffic unimaginable probably 3 days ago. It is an amazing achievement for me.
But I been neglecting this site. It is hard for me to write stuff on this blog. My effort on the wiki already reap great benefit.
I planned to revive the site and then cranks out great articles to read. Thus making my blog useful again.
The wiki got dugg.
Thus, the wiki grow bigger, even though many of the contributions are essentially worthless(people adding freeware games and such).
Little did I know that submitting the wiki to FSDaily would create such a chain reactions.
Digg propel my wiki to traffic unimaginable probably 3 days ago. It is an amazing achievement for me.
But I been neglecting this site. It is hard for me to write stuff on this blog. My effort on the wiki already reap great benefit.
I planned to revive the site and then cranks out great articles to read. Thus making my blog useful again.
Monday, August 13, 2007
New Wiki For Free Games Launched!
Hello readers and visitors! Today I announced the public launch of a new wiki called libregamewiki.
It is an encyclopedia on Free games and the Free gaming world.
Why I created this wiki? Well, I decided that the Free gaming world need a dedicated wiki of its own. It is not going to be about Linux gaming, but the whole Free gaming world! Plus it would be nice to know what the gameplay is like, what is the storyline, who written it, what license it is under, and more such information.
Plus it help with my ambition of creating making a Free gaming community(I never told you this before I think) and help make Free gaming become a major force in not only the Free software community but the gaming culture in general.
It is a place for Free gamer diehard who want to encounter ONLY Free games. That's right! NO PROPRIETARY GAMES!
It is going to be a place where people can gain lot of knowledge about Free games. It is going to be a place where people go to find new information about Free gaming, their hackers, and their contributions.
I already seeded a few articles there and there. In one case, an anonymous contributor already contributed an article. There are more articles to write too.
But the amount of articles is too small to be a useful resource and it need your help. We need your articles, your knowledge, your time, your expertise and your contributions.
If you're compassionate about Free gaming, please help us....
Help us make this wiki the comprehensive resource and encyclopedia for Free gaming in the world! <--- That's our goal. That is the end of my begging. I hope you guys contribute. Thanks for the audience that you granted me! Happy hacking! ~Kiba UPDATE: An anonymous user told me via the wiki that the new wiki is empty. No it isn't! For demonstration of non-emptiness, see the Battle for Wesnoth article I created.
UPDATE FOR A LITTLE NOTE:
I briefly changed policy and update this post to allowed games with source code Free but not contents but then I revert it. Now the old policy is back. Very strict but that will keep the game entries to be made of only Free games and prevent the wiki from expanding its coverage to proprietary games.
I registered a domain name for the wiki very recently.
It is an encyclopedia on Free games and the Free gaming world.
Why I created this wiki? Well, I decided that the Free gaming world need a dedicated wiki of its own. It is not going to be about Linux gaming, but the whole Free gaming world! Plus it would be nice to know what the gameplay is like, what is the storyline, who written it, what license it is under, and more such information.
Plus it help with my ambition of creating making a Free gaming community(I never told you this before I think) and help make Free gaming become a major force in not only the Free software community but the gaming culture in general.
It is a place for Free gamer diehard who want to encounter ONLY Free games. That's right! NO PROPRIETARY GAMES!
It is going to be a place where people can gain lot of knowledge about Free games. It is going to be a place where people go to find new information about Free gaming, their hackers, and their contributions.
I already seeded a few articles there and there. In one case, an anonymous contributor already contributed an article. There are more articles to write too.
But the amount of articles is too small to be a useful resource and it need your help. We need your articles, your knowledge, your time, your expertise and your contributions.
If you're compassionate about Free gaming, please help us....
Help us make this wiki the comprehensive resource and encyclopedia for Free gaming in the world! <--- That's our goal. That is the end of my begging. I hope you guys contribute. Thanks for the audience that you granted me! Happy hacking! ~Kiba UPDATE: An anonymous user told me via the wiki that the new wiki is empty. No it isn't! For demonstration of non-emptiness, see the Battle for Wesnoth article I created.
UPDATE FOR A LITTLE NOTE:
I briefly changed policy and update this post to allowed games with source code Free but not contents but then I revert it. Now the old policy is back. Very strict but that will keep the game entries to be made of only Free games and prevent the wiki from expanding its coverage to proprietary games.
I registered a domain name for the wiki very recently.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
My Blogging Experience So Far: 10 Things I Learned
It been only a few months since I started blogging. Indeed I learn a lot in that time too. I also applied my knowledge that I gained from blogs about making money and articles on blogging. A lot of them are indeed true. I also learned a few things along the way too. I am not an expert though, but I did have some modest success(if you count thousand of visits last month modest).
Before I talked about what I learned about blogging, I discuss some potential benefit for game developers that come from blogging.
Potential rewards of blogging for game developers:
1. Additional traffic source for your projects. If they're interested in what you have to say, you probably have your own market for your games and new starting points for new websites you're going to develop. For example, when I launch that game devlog, all the new traffic come from this blog, even if it is very small. I have yet to try announcing my games here.
2. Reputation and ego gratification. You'll be a little bit more known to the community. If you got nice traffic boosts for articles you written, that will gratify your ego, too. When people say they like your blog, you know that you done a good job. Plus, they're more likely to pay attention to whatever new projects you're going to do.
3. Extra revenue source. Yet another revenue source for your game business means that if you lose one revenue source, you will still be making money with another website.
So what I learned about blogging?
1. It is very easy to make a profit if you know what you're doing. Ingredients required: free(as in free beers) host that allowed you to put up ads(blogger), some good contents, a source of traffic, and some ads, then BAM! You make money, even if it is mere cents. Your website become profitable just like that!
2. The difficulty is actually scaling the profits. In general, the higher your traffic, the bigger the profits. I see this happen whenever I got a traffic spike. I noticed it the most with projectwonderful ads and way less with Google Adsense but it still happen.
3. Resource articles are easiest to write and easy to promote(like this one). All you need to do is get links for a specific type of resource or make a list of what you know.
4. Sometime an article is indeed worth publishing even if you don't think so and vice versa. For example, my article about ideas on making money off Free softwares.
5. You do not need to spend money to make money with the exception of a computer and an internet connection. You could make money from blogging at public computers, though. I never spent a dime on this blog and on another website so far.
6. Put action items such as "vote for me at blahblah" at the end of your article. It'll help. This help me whenever I submitted an article to FSDaily.
7. There are lot of opportunities in the world. Learn to spot it and pursue it. For example, I got all the articles I ever submitted to FSDaily.com once I discovered that site. Each time, I got a nice decent boost for the size of my blog. If I wasn't a lazy bum in discovering new opportunities and exploiting them, this blog would be even more popular.
8. You can indeed be a lazy bum for days while still making money. This blog is a prime example. I didn't post for a few days, and I still make money.
9. People in your niche can be your best allies. For example, the Freegamer blog gives me nice traffic boost at various point of time.
10. Sometime, you can fill an unexpected really tiny niche. For example, my tutorial series apparently got lot of search engine results from people looking for Rubygame tutorials. I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting that people are not interested in Rubygame at all considering the really small size of the Rubygame community.
I hope this information will help some Free game developers, especially those that actually spend time on blogging.
Happy hacking!
~Kiba
And oh, if you like this post, please subscribe to my blog's feed.
Before I talked about what I learned about blogging, I discuss some potential benefit for game developers that come from blogging.
Potential rewards of blogging for game developers:
1. Additional traffic source for your projects. If they're interested in what you have to say, you probably have your own market for your games and new starting points for new websites you're going to develop. For example, when I launch that game devlog, all the new traffic come from this blog, even if it is very small. I have yet to try announcing my games here.
2. Reputation and ego gratification. You'll be a little bit more known to the community. If you got nice traffic boosts for articles you written, that will gratify your ego, too. When people say they like your blog, you know that you done a good job. Plus, they're more likely to pay attention to whatever new projects you're going to do.
3. Extra revenue source. Yet another revenue source for your game business means that if you lose one revenue source, you will still be making money with another website.
So what I learned about blogging?
1. It is very easy to make a profit if you know what you're doing. Ingredients required: free(as in free beers) host that allowed you to put up ads(blogger), some good contents, a source of traffic, and some ads, then BAM! You make money, even if it is mere cents. Your website become profitable just like that!
2. The difficulty is actually scaling the profits. In general, the higher your traffic, the bigger the profits. I see this happen whenever I got a traffic spike. I noticed it the most with projectwonderful ads and way less with Google Adsense but it still happen.
3. Resource articles are easiest to write and easy to promote(like this one). All you need to do is get links for a specific type of resource or make a list of what you know.
4. Sometime an article is indeed worth publishing even if you don't think so and vice versa. For example, my article about ideas on making money off Free softwares.
5. You do not need to spend money to make money with the exception of a computer and an internet connection. You could make money from blogging at public computers, though. I never spent a dime on this blog and on another website so far.
6. Put action items such as "vote for me at blahblah" at the end of your article. It'll help. This help me whenever I submitted an article to FSDaily.
7. There are lot of opportunities in the world. Learn to spot it and pursue it. For example, I got all the articles I ever submitted to FSDaily.com once I discovered that site. Each time, I got a nice decent boost for the size of my blog. If I wasn't a lazy bum in discovering new opportunities and exploiting them, this blog would be even more popular.
8. You can indeed be a lazy bum for days while still making money. This blog is a prime example. I didn't post for a few days, and I still make money.
9. People in your niche can be your best allies. For example, the Freegamer blog gives me nice traffic boost at various point of time.
10. Sometime, you can fill an unexpected really tiny niche. For example, my tutorial series apparently got lot of search engine results from people looking for Rubygame tutorials. I was not expecting that at all. I was expecting that people are not interested in Rubygame at all considering the really small size of the Rubygame community.
I hope this information will help some Free game developers, especially those that actually spend time on blogging.
Happy hacking!
~Kiba
And oh, if you like this post, please subscribe to my blog's feed.
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