Three weeks ago I launched the beta version of my new online games arcade, SmileyGamer.com. While the site is still in beta, I already made some changes to the design and color scheme. I went to dark text on a light background, to make it easier on the eyes.

Since the launch, the site has received almost 16000 visitors, and more than 45000 pageviews. This is definitely more than I expected! According to Google Analytics, almost 60% are direct visitors, i.e. not referred by another site. Most of these are people who click on the links in my flash game Enigmatica, which I released not long after the site went live.

In the past few weeks I’ve been spreading the freeware version of Enigmatica to several online game websites. It is surprising to see how many people visit the site thanks to the game. So the free version of Enigmatica is not only giving me a small residual income with the included MochiAds advertisement, but also through the advertising on my website.

Making money with a games arcade is rather hard though, the revenue from Google Adsense ads is very very low. Most visitors visit the site to play games, not to click on ads! But fortunately I was accepted with ValueClickMedia last week! They are an ad network that also pays for pageviews of the ad, so I make money even if people don’t actually click on the ads.

The rest of the traffic was mostly obtained thanks to banner exchanges, like MoreGamers and ArcadeBanners, social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, and link exchanges with other arcades.

I still have several features planned for the website, before I can call it final. But even more important is to continue work on Smiley Memory, which will be my next Flash game! Already mentioned before, Smiley Memory will be the first game from the Smiley Puzzle Project. This game will feature the 3D smiley’s also used on the Smiley Gamer site. I expect it to become a lot more popular than Enigmatica, so it will be a great promotion for the site! It’s great to see the Smiley Puzzle Project, originally started more than a year ago, finally come to life!

The freeware version of my Flash game Enigmatica has been released on my new arcade SmileyGamer.com! If you are a webmaster, you can put this version for free on your own website or games arcade. Download the full package here.

Contrary to the version that is available for licensing, the freeware version contains advertising from MochiAds, an ad network for Flash games. It also contains logo’s from, and links to the Smiley Gamer website, and it’s integrated with the highscore system of that same site.

Check out the games for your site page at Smiley Gamer to see all our games that are available for free and for licensing.

Yesterday, I uploaded the game to Newgrounds, and it has already received some nice reviews over there!

In case you were wondering, yes, the Smiley Puzzle Project is still alive! While the actual games are still under development, the project has gotten a new scope.

As discussed before, the SmileyPuzzleGames.com site was intended to become a small games arcade featuring my smiley related games. But instead of developing this site, it seemed like a better idea to take it a few steps further, and actually build a full-blown online games arcade.

So I registered the SmileyGamer.com domain, and started building my arcade based on PHPArcadeScript. It’s now in a reasonable state, which I just declared the beta stage, so have a look for yourself:

Some of the reasons for dropping my original plans:

• A full-blown arcade can be used to showcase my own games to a wide audience.
• If I can let my arcade grow and start getting serious traffic, the site can start generating some decent advertising income.
• I will spread freeware versions of my own Flash games to other arcade sites, with links to my arcade, as a way to get more traffic.
• Since I wont be focusing on smiley related games alone, a general games arcade is a better home for my first Flash game, Enigmatica, and my java game Bubblomania.
• Also, I will not only make puzzle games, but other genres as well. So the SmileyGamer.com domain is better suited than SmileyPuzzleGames.com.

This change of plans also means I will be focusing my attention to webgames made with Flash, rather than downloadable games made with Java. I wrote previously about why to make this switch. I might still decide to make a downloadable version if any of my webgames becomes wildly popular, but for now, sticking to webgames makes more business sense.

If you visit the site, and find any problems or have feedback, please let me know by using the contact page on the Smiley Gamer site, or leave a comment here on this blog.