Kongregate Premium Games Submission Guidelines

Concepts and Philosophy

Nobody Knows Anything.

This phrase was first coined by “Princess Bride” screenwriter William Goldman, but I heard it first from Head of Adult Swim, Mike Lazzo. Goldman meant it to mean that no one in Hollywood has any idea if a film will do well before it's actually released. (This still holds true today. Everyone raise your hands if you thought “Snakes on a Plane” was going to be a big hit. My hand's up. So much for the power of buzz and buzz analysis.) Those three words epitomize exactly what any industry with aspirations to be innovative and exciting should embrace.

Nobody knows anything. What does that mean, and how can it be applied to making games? Does it mean that all our experiences, all the best practices we've learned as game developers should be thrown out the window? We should reinvent the wheel every time we make a game?

No. Well, sort of.

What it really means is that we should A) make no assumptions based on conventional wisdom and B) not assume that what made one thing a hit will necessarily make something else a hit.

For example, according to “casual game” conventional wisdom, most “casual players” are 30-40 year old females, and as a result we need to make that demographic our primary base when designing games. Assumptions tumble out after that: casual gamers can only grasp mouse-based mechanics, extreme violence is a definite no-no, the de facto art style for casual games should be young and cheerful! Yeah, no.

For another example, if we were to ape everything that's a hit, we'd end up with a million Diner Dash clones. (Oh wait, we already have. Anybody remember the names of any of those?)

So why? Why do that? Why chase the trend, why bow before dogmatic conventional wisdom, when nobody knows anything?

Instead, I want to break new ground with every game we do here at Kongregate. Let's not stagnate. Let's not fearfully chase hits just searching for pieces of innovators' success. If you submit a pitch to me and I've seen it before I'll turn it down flat. If you've got an interesting take on an old genre, you've already sparked my interest. Or if you've got a whole new genre. If you've got a concept that's so unconventional and amusing that I laugh just reading the title, you'll have sparked my interest. Then, if we decide to greenlight your game, you and I will work closely together to make sure every aspect of the game is as unique and badass as it can be.

I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Community-Centric

It’s people! The internet is made of people! (And…code, I guess. But mostly people.) One of the best things about the internet over every other medium on which games can be played is that it is literally designed for people to communicate with each other. So why not take advantage of that?

People playing together is awesome, whether it’s blowing each other up or working together to beat the bad guy. There’s always a rich vitality about it, a sort of high-energy spontaneity. We really want that for our Premium games, so you should try to center your game around robust community features or multiplayer – especially co-op experiences. There are so many original ways web-based games could take advantage of the natural connectivity of the internet, and we want to find all of them.

Advantages of Making a Premium Game with Kongregate

We fund your development anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000. We will also provide great APIs for things such as multiplayer and our upcoming wallet system. The wallet system will allow you to enable microtransactions in your game and take payments from players.

We may be funding development of your game, but you will still own it. We ask for a year’s exclusivity, but after that you’re free to do what you want with the game.

The developer and Kongregate will split any income the game makes from microtransactions and sponsorships, but the ratio of the split will change over time and depends on a few variables. The funding we give you is considered an advance on royalties, so after the game launches, the developer will receive a smaller portion of the income until Kongregate has recouped its initial investment (called “earn-out,” including transaction costs, such as credit card fees, etc), at which time the ratios will swing much more in the developer’s favor. The exact percentages of those ratios depend on things like amount of money invested (thus more risk taken on) and the experience of the developer. And of course the normal ad revenue split still applies, the Kongregate portion of which goes towards earn-out.

If your game doesn’t earn-out, don’t worry. You don’t have to pay us back our investment amount.

Submit a Game

If you want to submit a game for consideration to be a Kongregate Premium game, write up a short summary of the game, 1-2 pages. If you have art, throw that in as well, but it’s not mandatory. It should include a section on how you plan to monetize it (hooks for sponsorships, microtransactions, standard ad revenue, etc.) but what I’m most going to be interested in is the game itself, so that’s what should occupy the majority of the document. What the concept is, what the mechanics will be, what the player will spend most of their time actually doing, what the art will be like.

A demo is great if you have one already, but it’s not required. What is required is a link to games you’ve done before, just so we know you’ve got the game-making chops to pull this off.

I’d prefer these in an attached document (makes them easier to organize on my desktop) sent to submissions@kongregate.com. (Please do not send sponsorship questions to this email. Those should go to sponsor@kongregate.com. )

If you have any questions, ask over at the Forums.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you’ve got.

Chris Pasley
Director of Games
Kongregate