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GameMaker Studio & Construct – Giveaway Results

May 172013

After a staggering 1250+ entries to my recent software giveaway, I’m pleased to announce that multiple winners have now been selected by random draw! Winners (listed below) will be contacted privately and prizes will be distributed over the coming week.

If you didn’t win today, follow me on Twitter and Facebook where I will be giving away more free game development software in the future. Check out my book Making Money With HTML5 if you’re interested in finding commercial success as a game developer, or bookmark this site if you like my content.

Without further ado, here is a list of the winners…

GameMaker Studio & Construct – $1000 Software Giveaway

May 072013

Over the past year I’ve given away a lot of licenses for my favorite game development engine, GameMaker Studio. Today I’m doing it again, and I’m also adding Construct licenses and a bunch of other useful software and tools for game developers worth over $1000 in total.

This is my way of giving back to the community and people who have supported me during my first year in business as a self-employed game developer.

The giveaway is very easy to enter, and it’s open to everyone. Continue reading for prize details and information.

Online Income Report #012 – April 2013

May 032013

coins icon3 Online Income Report #012 – April 2013 Each month I publish a fully transparent income report that documents my online earnings. These income reports exist to demonstrate my progress, share my experiences, and motivate others who want to make money online.

Check out my online income report for April 2013.

What I Did In April

It’s been a huge month for me: I’ve now been in business for an entire year (hence my 12th income report)! The past year has been a whole lot of fun, and I’ve learned an incredible amount and met a lot of great people. I was planning to write a large post about it but I never got around to it unfortunately. I’m so humbled by the support that people have shown me during the past year.

Launching A Brand – 2D Pixels

Apr 152013

One of my goals for this year is to “portray a more professional business image across all platforms” so today I’ve launched my official brand, called 2D Pixels. This move has been a long time coming, and is not at all designed to make my work less personal, or more generic; that would, of course, be counter-intuitive to all of my goals. The purpose of the 2D Pixels brand is multifaceted.

Centralization

The main reason for launching my brand is to simply create a banner under which I can tie all of my work together. I basically create content for a living, and over time I’m producing more and more and more of it. I’m acquiring new web properties, building new games, and launching new products on a monthly basis! A brand will help to centralize and organize all of these endeavors.

Official Mailing List

Apr 102013

Today I’ve launched a brand new feature for the site which will help you stay updated with my latest posts – without having to check for new posts all of the time. I will be sending an occasional newsletter to readers that sign up for my mailing list. This newsletter will include an overview of my recent posts and other interesting news, plus it will instantly alert you to time-limited discounts and giveaways. I will even be including exclusive content and free stuff for subscribers!

To join the newsletter, look for the “subscribe” button in the sidebar to the right. It only takes a few seconds to sign up. I do not spam, and you can easily opt-out at any time.

Note: if you can’t see the subscribe box, and you’re running NoScript, try enabling the Aweber form element.

Online Income Report #011 – March 2013

Mar 312013

coins icon3 Online Income Report #011 – March 2013 Each month I publish a fully transparent income report that documents my online earnings. These income reports exist to demonstrate my progress, share my experiences, and motivate others who want to make money online.

Check out my online income report for March 2013.

What I Did In March

While I spent much of last month improving my websites, I spent much of this month moving them to new hosting. The hosting service I had been using and recommending, called TelVPS, seemed entirely stable and reliable. Then out of nowhere, I received an email saying the service was being discontinued, and that I had only a few days to take my business elsewhere. Naturally, this disrupted my month from the offset, and it was a distraction I certainly didn’t need.

Generating HTML5 Advertising Revenue With LeadBolt

Mar 212013

Recently I’ve been referring a lot of HTML5 developers to an advertising network called LeadBolt. Founded in 2010, this company specializes in serving mobile ads, and is one of the few that supports ads for HTML5 applications and the mobile web. Over the past two months, publishers who I’ve referred to Leadbolt have generated over $2500 in revenue, so I wanted to provide an example of how LeadBolt works, and how to utilize it to the fullest.

LeadBolt is an excellent platform for publishers, especially for those who wish to monetize free-to-play mobile games. As an HTML5 game developer myself, LeadBolt has enabled me to generate significant and consistent income from the HTML5 games in my portfolio very easily. These games have been played by millions of people all over the world, and nearly always from a mobile device of some kind.

To monetize that traffic, I have integrated simple banner ads that generate revenue whenever they are clicked. LeadBolt offer a very extensive set of ad types to choose from. If you have mobile applications that are not monetizing well, try some of the following unique options and you will see a difference.

Online Income Report #010 – February 2013

Feb 282013

Each month I publish a fully transparent income report that documents my online earnings. These income reports exist to demonstrate my progress, share my experiences, and motivate others who want to make money online.

coins icon3 Online Income Report #010 – February 2013

Check out my online income report for February 2013.

What I Did In February

Truth be told, I was fairly lazy during the majority of February (particularly toward the end). The last few months have been very work-orientated, so I decided to take time to relax after receiving some large payments within the first few days of February.

I did get some work done, though.

Harnessing The Power Of HTML5 For Native App Promotion

Feb 212013

In recent months I’ve been working on integrating banner ads into the games in my HTML5 portfolio. Since late December 2012, I’ve been launching these ad-supported games with major publishers around the world. The monetization setup is simple: my banner ads are shown a percentage of the time, and the publisher’s ads are shown when mine aren’t. Normally the publisher gets the majority of the inventory because they are responsible for distributing the game, which can be an expensive and time-consuming process.

By sharing 60-70% of the ad impressions in this manner I can reach a massive global audience and make a profit at the same time.

Hosting HTML5 Games For Free With Dropbox

Feb 112013

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of new developers taking an interest in HTML5, many of whom don’t yet own a website or server to host their games on. Fortunately, you don’t need either of those to enable people to play your game. All you need is a little slice of the internet to call your own. Dropbox is a free hosting service that provides this and more.

Dropbox works a bit differently to typical hosting services – it’s actually a program that’s installed directly onto your computer. During the installation process, a special directory, which you can manipulate like any other, will be created. Every file placed within this directory, your Dropbox folder, will be automatically uploaded to a secure online server. If you alter a file within your Dropbox folder it will seamlessly update itself within the cloud.