Is it hard to have a successful web game?

[brownshoes]

I'm a newbie here and I think this community is really cool. I used to play Earth 2025 back in the day. Now I'm a programmer and would like to create something similar :)

But it seems most of the games here are dead. There's a thread with a list of games owned by members of this forum - I read it and played a couple. Most of them were intricately created, probably cost hundreds if not thousands in hours and dollars, but I was the only player online.

Is this the fate of browser web games? I mean, after all we are competing with facebook games, android iphone. All of these are free.

[KyleMassacre]

I think web games are a tough market these days. I think a lot of it has to do with what you've already mentioned with the social networks. Since approximately 90% of the worlds population is on some form of social networking site it is really tough for people to create a browser-based game and have it succeed. What a lot of the community is not doing is going mobile, A lot of people are on the go all the time and they don't have time to sit in front of their computer and play game

[Veramys]

I believe it is still possible to be successful. The only problem is finding a genre to base your game on. Mafia games especially are overdone. You need to find something that will interest your player base to keep them playing, while adding new stuff. But you also don't want to overwhelm them with everything. It requires a fine balance.

[Sim]

I think for a web game, it has to be extremely mobile friendly and be very attractive to social media users. Since more people use facebook/twitter/social media on cell phones, if you can get people to share it during plays, users click the link, sign up (play/share).