I'm thinking about starting an Arcade site, I've noticed a lot of webmasters using them. Can you make decent money with an average gaming site? How is the click through rate with Adsense? Is there a particular script everyone uses?
from my experience (I've owned 2 arcades in the past) there are 2 major scripts that are used AVArcade v2 (v3 just came out ) and phpArcadeScript. In my opinion phpArcadeScript has more features and is very easy to run. However as a coder, I prefer AvArcade because it is super easy to implement custom templates . I didn't use adsense on my arcades but from what others have said it is pretty good earnings. The only drawback is that there are TONS of arcades out there and so the "niche" if you will is very over crowded.
The arcades sites have been popular for a long time so it will be hard to beat ones that are popular.
That's quite a saturated market you're going into. IMO, the success of your site will depend on whether it's unique from the others or not (generally). If you can create a great idea/concept for your arcade site, it can do fairly well!
I use phpArcadeScript for and have found it easy to use. if you want your arcade to successful you need to come up with a unique theme for it.
I use AvArcade 3.0 and the thing is that even though the niche is huge, there are also loads of people who go on arcade sites. If you get a good domain, and market it well, then you can make atleast $5 a day, without investing even $1. After you re-invest the money you earn, you could make $50 a day after 6 months easy.
Yes a niche is handy! I wanted to make an Arcade based around a specific niche community and so did just that - its doing really well! Yuo can def make some nice pocket money!
Check out Arcadem Pro 2.1, it's designed to make $$$ with an emphasis on original content, SEO, and features built in AdSense, TextLinkAds, and pop-up control. It comes with 8 unique themes installed. You can checkout a live demo of Arcadem Pro here.
Definitely a heavily populated niche, but its still possible to be successful with the right approach =)
I've just started one recently (in my footer) and what I noticed was the absurd amount of people that don't know what they're doing and are getting supplemental results for their arcade pages. They insert a game pack, no meta difference or any content. So sure it's saturated with guys like that, giving you an honest crack at it if you know what you're doing.
Hi, I'm about to lunch on of my arcade and I'll give you some pointers that will help you. Like everyone has mention this is a hard niche, but you can enter into it by doing what I'm doing. I don't know if you have seen this but the popular arcades have there own games, meaning when your loading the game you see there logo and url. This will help them alot generating traffic in the future. I play flash games a lot when I'm ether bored or waiting for something. because of this I have seen the logos and names of all the top arcades. crazymonkygames, miniclip, "Brought to you by the studio of FREEONLINEGAMES dot com" (love this intro ) and I could go on and on. This is just in my head. I have never search for online arcades. I just remember the one's that are providing new games. So you could get in touch with a 14 year old dude with a paypal account that could provide you custom games with there eyes closed for almost no money! But it's not enough just to have custom games. The next step is submitting your games to social networks like 'i-am-bored dot com' This will bring you so much free traffic you'll be amazed!!! (Don't do this if you don't own the game, if they see that your arcade logo isn't in the game they will not submit it. Some might but most won't) Trick #2: you could give your games to another arcades. meaning you'll send them a e-mail stating that you'll add there logo in the game if they have it in top position at there arcade. Most arcade owners will be glad to get games with there logo input, now your game gets played and everyone sees your logo and name. (Go for the high traffic ones, the new and none traffic arcades will not bring you any traffic) These tips are more for the long run. this might not bring you massive traffic right away but it will grow! and you'll get traffic to your site even 2 years from now More custom games more traffic. Hope it helped.
Yes you can make money from these type of sites. The CTR though tends to be rather low as people mainly go to the sites to play the games and not to click on the ads.
You do need to experiment on your ads, CPM will work as well as Adsense sometimes. The CTR will be low, and clicks not worth much, but it can work.