One of Canada’s most successful video game developers is Vancouver’s Gene Endrody, who, with his wife Marnie Kucy, runs Maid Marian Entertainment. MaidMarian.com is the website from which Endrody and Kucy present their free-to-play online video games, and they are getting 1.8 million unique visitors a month. “Second Life is about 650,000 unique visitors over a two-month period,” Endrody told me during a demonstration.

Endrody, “wears whatever hat I have to wear to get the game out the door,” which means he acts as animator, designer, coder, programmer and ad salesman. Not that he’s ever talked to an advertiser. All revenue for the company comes from ads — 80 per cent of which are provided by Google. However, if Endrody’s online ad-sales agents can give him a better cost-per-thousand (CPM) rate (online advertising that is negotiated on the basis of impressions, as opposed to click-through), that ad runs in place of the Google-provided one. “I’ve literally never talked to an advertiser,” he says.

One of the problems faced by many online video game companies, Endrody explains, are competitor game sites that are normally pariahs of the game industry because they steal content by wrapping ads around a browser window for a game that they don’t own and don’t host. Endrody turned this around by encouraging these sites to use MaidMarian.com games as long as they displayed the ads that would normally run if gamers ran the game directly from MaidMarian.com. If a competitor wants to run Sherwood Dungeon, MaidMarian.com’s role-playing game (RPG) simply by putting a frame around Endrody’s window, Endrody’s company still makes money.

There are three games that are free to play at MaidMarian.com: Sherwood Dungeon, a massively multiplayer online RPG with sword fighting and magic, Tank Ball, a quick shooter game in which you drive around in a cartoonish tank and take out other tanks, and Club Marian, an online party that has visitors driving around in virtual sports cars and mixing dance music.

All three games are designed to be simple and intuitive so that anyone can step in and play, no instructions required. Because the menus are icon-driven, language is not an issue, and by running all games in a browser window — the games themselves are programmed in Shockwave — Endrody didn’t have to worry about platform or computer restrictions. That also meant that the games had to be very lean, in the computer code sense of the phrase. Sherwood Dungeon is only 2,200 kilobytes in size, so gamers are playing within moments of hitting the URL.

“I needed to completely remove any barrier to people playing the game,” says Endrody. “The time from discovering the game to playing has to be less than 20 seconds.” This, Endrody explains, is one reason his business model works.

“It’s not the game mechanic that attracts people,” Endrody clarifies, “it’s the community that attracts people.” The Maid Marian community voted Sherwood Dungeon “Best Game” in the Pop Vox Awards at September’s Vidfest, even though it was up against games — such as Company of Heroes, NHL 07, and Scarface — from bigger developers and publishers.

Endrody, an alumnus of Radical Entertainment, left that company when the money he was making from MaidMarian.com exceeded his Radical salary. “This was designed as a lifestyle business,” said Endrody of Maid Marian Entertainment. “I can do this from the beach in Aruba.”

WINGING IT WITH WARHAWK, STRANDED WITH SONIC

Warhawk (publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment; platform: PS3; rated: teen)

Warhawk is the kind of game you’ll either play with friends, or you’ll make friends while playing. You’ll also need a high-speed connection for your PS3 if you don’t already, as the gameplay here is only online and only multiplayer. Up to 32 of you will play on a variety of maps, and you’ll range from infantry to Jeep and tank action, to dogfights in the air while flying the aptly named Warhawk fighters. You’ll want to spend most of your time flying the skies, where you’ll have the most fun, and you’ll realize that the developers came up with a great scheme for flying the birds, which can hover and move up and down as well as fly forward, pitch and roll. Go get ’em.

Sonic Rush Adventures (publisher: Sega; platform: DS; rated: everyone)

Sonic and Tails crash their airplane on an island and are “saved” by the egotistical but charming Marine. She takes the two adventurers in, and explains that in her environment, pieces of metal and jewels can be combined to create vehicles. This new adventure gives you the same experience of speeding through serpentine levels that you expect from Sonic, but adds some exploring, too. You’ll use the touch screen to navigate watercraft — from water bikes to sailboats — from one island to another. As you zip through the levels collecting the usual rings, you’ll also collect objects that can be used by Tails to construct other vehicles. Slip slidin’ away? Struth!

Blaine Kyllo is a freelance writer and pop culture critic specializing in video games and technology. He is also a CBC radio contributor.