GameDistribution HTML5 SDK in 2020

Questions
#1

Hi guys

I’m new here with Defold. We do Unity games most of the time and we did tons of flash games back then. Last week I started comparing Phaser, Cocos Creator and Defold for making HTML5 games and ended up choosing Defold. Watched a couple of video tutorials and reading the docs, this seems to be a great choice for HTML5 games!

However, being a noob at this as I am, I have zero idea how to integrate GameDistribution SDK. They only provide SDK for Unity, Construct and pure JS. I think the only way to use it would be via their JS SDK here:

I can imagine I can easily set up the SDK by editing index.html directly
But I’m not sure if there’s an interface to talk with the JS SDK from Lua
Without this, showAd() can’t be called to show interstitials, and neither can we use rewarded Ads

I saw a similar question posted here a few years ago and I wonder if things have changed since?

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#2

Welcome! I think html5.run() is the closest to what you’re after:

Let us know how you get on!

#3

Hey thanks for the quick reply!
As far as I can see from the docs, it’s not very clear if it can call external JS library
I understand that i can be use to call standard JS method like alert or print…
if I were to expose functions on index.html as a bridge to the GD SDK, will it work?

#4

Welcome! I’m happy to hear that you decided to try Defold. Please reach out here or on Slack if you get stuck or have a question.

You would need to load the JS library in the embedding HTML5 page. But other than that I see no problem. You can also use JsToDef to get more out of interacting with JS on the embedding webpage: https://github.com/AGulev/jstodef

BUT the proper solution is to wrap the GameDistribution SDK into what we call a native extension. With GameDistribution as a native extension you get a nice Lua API around all of the functionality of the SDK. It will be a bit of work and since you are new to Defold I’d recommend starting with the html5.run() solution first.

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#5

Hey. I got an answer from the mighty britzl himself. Is this a sign from the universe? :slight_smile:

I don’t think I can dive directly into native extension at this point.
I found this thread that may be the answer:


There Pkeod put sample code for both Lua and JS side, which in end helps explain html5.run() better
than in the official doc
I think with both html5.run() and jstodef, I’ll be able to use GD SDK. I’ll give it a try and update here later. Thanks! :slight_smile:

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#6

Oh, I don’t know about that :slight_smile:

Makes sense. My recommendation is to make the game first and worry about the GameDistribution SDK.

@orimaru have you used GameDistribution in the past? What is your experience?

#7

Hi! If you are interested, I can make a native extension for this SDK as a paid job.

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#8

@britzl no, not yet
but I know the company behind it
Looking at the SDK page, it seems to be well structured and documented. It’s such a shame that they don’t support Defold yet
Maybe that could change with a nice, sweet email from the founder of Defold? :slight_smile:

@sergey.lerg interesting, how much are you thinking of for this? Might be great for us if GD still won’t expand their SDK flavors in coming weeks

#9

We’re looking for more corporate partners and this would definitely be something we could do as part of a partnership with GameDistribution. I haven’t reached out to them about this though.

#10

sent PM.

#11

Yeah I think that’d be great to have native extensions for popular game portals. I know only 2 so far, GD and Poki. And I know Poki from Defold main page, (friends of Defold) but oddly, their SDK is missing from the Assets page :slight_smile:

@sergey.lerg got your PM! thanks!

#12

Anyone here has experience with GameDistribution?
What kind of traffic/revenue can we expect if the game is popular?

#13

Pretty sure it’s against the rules to spill out revenue data publicly
but here’s what I can say:

  • our casual game has been live for 2 weeks, it has earned not much, but definitely a welcomed addition to our daily revenue from Mobile
    they say it’s only still available on GD, we might see revenue increase once more web portals publish our game
  • if your game is good, you may get offers from its parent company for some advance money for exclusive deals
  • there’s this thing called “network effect”… meaning the more games you publish with them, the more revenue you’ll get as your games get cross promoted with each other. But they control the distributions and promotions.

EDIT

  • they are pretty strict about what you can and can’t do
    no analytics allowed so we’re in the dark about users data

I’d say the easiest way for you to figure out if it’s worth your time is to make a simple puzzle game and publish it. You don’t need inside contact to do that. Just register and upload your game, wait until your game’s passed their QA. A simple 2048 game with some twist would be good enough for testing, I think.

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#14

What’s the minimum payout threshold at GD?

The problem I’ve always had with these sites is never reaching this threshold, and although my games make money on a variety of sites, I’ve never seen a cent of it. It feels like a rigged sytem to me so I only sell non-exclusive licenses now - that is, a fixed fee up front before handing over the game. Most sites don’t do this though so you have to look around.

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#15

Made with Defold?

#16

We haven’t been paid yet
But we do have an exclusive deal with them and already received some advance money, so I’m not worried they don’t pay us when we reach the threshold

If you got a good HTML5 game that works on mobile (defold games will work!) and interested to publish with them, let me know, I can hook you up with my contact :slight_smile:
Please bear in mind that they are very picky with exclusive deals, they expect high quality games with great replayability or stickiness. If you got a mobile game with great retention, that’d work with them

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#17

No sorry, the other team chose another HTML5 engine for porting that game
We have another game in the works using Defold though

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#18

Bumping this topic, is there anyone out there using this platform and generating interesting revenue?
I’m trying to estimate of monetisation potential of pure web games.

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#19

There are a few Defold games released on GD, but most are not generating any significant revenue as far as I know. I think you will have better luck with Poki to be honest. Their content is a bit more curated though, but if your game is accepted I think it stands a better chance to make decent money.

#20

GD:
from the back of my mind, I think there’s a confidentiality clause that forbids any developer to share anything financial related that’s why generally you can’t find such information on google

So with any portal, in general you got 2 options:

  1. get paid one-time for exclusive deal (meaning you can’t sell it to anyone else)
  2. get % royalty share, but no upfront money

The thing here with these guys is that you can’t put any sort of analytics so you gotta trust their reporting. If you’re very confident about your game (high retention, which brings to high ads impression), then you should go with option #2
If you’re not, then option #1 would work. Just keep making better games and offer them for exclusive deals. PM me if you want to reach out to GD, I know the BD/agent there

As for Poki, I literally have 0 experience with them. Would be great to hear experiences about them from anyone here.

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