Last June, Heyzap, the Y Combinator-funded startup that builds products around Flash gaming, launched a new micro-transaction platform for Flash that looked to offer developers a way to monetize their highly viral but difficult-to-monetize games. The platform is off to an encouraging start, and today Heyzap is taking it one step further with a new payout system that offers publishers a chance to take 15% of the proceeds. As a special promotion, the site will offer 20% of in-game proceeds to the first 1,000 publishers to sign up for the program through this link.
Heyzap’s gaming widget allows publishers to embed thousands of games in one fell swoop, and is already being used by over 35,000 publishers (you can see an example game that integrates payments below). Up until now these publishers have used Heyzap’s games to increase engagement, but haven’t been able to directly monetize the embeds. Now they’ll have an even greater incentive to use Heyzap: they’ll be able to increase user engagement while generating revenue any time a user makes an in-game purchase.
Co-founder Immad Akhund says that so far, around 15 developers have integrated Heyzap payments into their games. He expects that number to increase quickly, as many developers are currently working on games that are being built with microtransactions in mind from the start (most of the games currently using the platform integrated it after initial release).
Participating publishers will receive a 15% cut that will be taken from the proceeds first, and the remaining revenue is split with 70% going to the developer and 30% going to Heyzap (note that this has changed in the developer’s favor since the platform initially launched with a 50/50 split). Publishers will be able to monitor the money generated by games embedded on their site though a dashboard on Heyzap’s homepage.
Other players in this space include Mochi Media, which has also launched a payment platform for Flash games.