Here is where you will hit your first roadblock. Yep, already in step one. You need a name for your online arcade / flash games site.

There are many thoughts on this, if you have the ching to spend you can get a good name from one of the aftermarket auction sites (ebay, sedo, afternic etc...).

Tip: put a number after the word arcade and call it good. A recent domain name lookup on godaddy had this one available: arcade17[dot]com - it's serviceable and only costs $7-15 / year depending where you register it.

Other options:
Buy a turnkey flash game site: cost anywhere from $20 - $xx,xxx depending on traffic + script + design (all will be covered later) etc...
(this is what I did total cost for arcadeturf.com $20)

See appendix for naming thoughts and seo+traffic considerations in naming your online arcade.

This step is relatively easy.

Do you have $80+ to spend on a script?
If so, go purchase gamescript.NET (a.k.a GS) the cheap package.
If you need some hand holding DO NOT get this script. It's a great script ... sucky support.

Otherwise arcade scripts by the boatload:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-25,GGLD:en&q=arcade+scripts

Most common: phpArcadeScript, GSS, GS
A few words of caution:
GameSiteScript (a.k.a. GSS) owner went awol so no support but also a nice/easy script. Simple to code around.

ArcadeBuilders.NET it's a RIP of GSS ... there is rumor that GSS owner + AB owner are the same or in a partnership. But that is all speculation. Just be aware you *could* potentially run into some copyright issues if you are running AB.net script.

Basically what happens is these arcade script builders get chargebacks or lose interest in supporting their creations so they go away (or charge an exorbarent amount: see - shockscript[dot]com)

If you have php+mysql+css experience then I would roll your own if you have the time.

The quickest way is to just buy a turnkey site.

Another easy step.
HostGator.com - cheap, good support and no lengthy contracts.
Initially, you can sign up for the smallest plan (hatchling) but you will then need to pay the whole year up front. I use the baby croc plan and it is more than sufficient to run one of my arcades that is getting 1500 uniques per day.

If you choose to not use hostgator, your arcade host will need php (see your particular script for minimum version). Your host will also need mySql for a database (unless script uses something else).

You will also need FTP access, cpanel access and ability to setup cron jobs ... we will go into this in step 4.

Some things you will need to get your Online Arcade up and running:
FTP program - I use Smart FTP
Your FTP path + username/password
Your install files for the script
Your CPanel login
Your database created with pwds
Ask host for the local path to your public_html folder (needed for CRON)

If you are familiar with uploading/mysql/cpanel skip ahead to Step 5.

The steps below might or might not be needed depending on your arcade script.

Login to your CPanel account.
Click the MySql Databases Links.
You need to setup a database.
Go down to "New Database", give it a name and click "Create Database".
** Note: the name might be dependent on host (ie: you type in mydbname and the actual name gets prefixed, so its actually hostprefix_mydbname)

Create a user: fill in the username and password field and click "Create User"
** Same prefix might happen as above

Now in the final section "Add Users to your Database", choose the user and choose the database, select all priveledges and click "Add User to Database".

WRITE everything down, you will need it in a minute.

Now to uplaod your script.
Fire up your FTP client (directions below will be for SmartFTP but should be similar)
File->New remote browser. Fill in Host+User+Password click OK.
File->New Local browser. Find the folder with your online arcade script files.

Make sure you are in the WWW or public_html folder on the server and make sure you are sending via Binary Transfer Type. Drag your files from the local to the remote host. Set any folder permissions via install instructions (usually just right click the remote folder and change to 777). Change transfer type to ASCII and move any .SQL files over.
** Make sure you bring all the contents over.
Make sure there is a index.php (usually) in the root (ie: don't copy the script folder into the www/public_html folder, just the underlying files + subfolders).

Find the local config.php file. Names differ from script to script but it is there you enter the database information from above. Upload it to the server when done.

Run the install.php (or whatever your script calls it). If everything was good then delete install file.

Last but not least:
Go back to CPanel and password protect your admin directory.

Setup the cron job (if your script uses one):
php /server localpath to public_html/public_html/cron/whateverpage.php

what this does is reset daily play counters or weekly/monthly play counters.

So, you got your arcade up and you should have some games that came with the script loaded.

To date, you have spent anywhere from $30 to $xxx on hosting, domain and script. I bought my arcade name with script so I have $20 + $10 (another year of name registration) + $10 for a month of hosting, for a grand total of $40.00.

Now, let's do some modifications.
If you are a designer and can make your own layout and graphics then go ahead and do so, otherwise you are looking at probably around $100 to make it look different from all the other scripts.

Go into your control panel (admin section) of your site and turn off text links portion for now.
Turn on the comments and put to "no verification needed".
Set the title of your arcade ... see appendix (coming soon) for more information on this.
Add your ad code for google.

Voila, you now have a complete functioning money generating arcade ... or do we?

coming soon...

coming soon ...

The thought behind a good name for your arcade is one that is searched alot and has minimal competition. This is going to be very hard to find unless you have some cash. The key is to try and find a happy medium between searches (keywords) and competition. The site I am using in this example: arcadeturf is not considered a "good" name by any stretch of the imagination for this appendix purposes.

What you are trying to do is find a domain with natural type-in traffic to make building a traffic base easier.

Anyhow to try and understand what I am getting at:
go to
www.keywordtracker.com sign up for the free trial so you can see what is happening.
Once you are signed up type in: flash games and when it is done click the "flash games" link and you will see a table with numbers. The higher the number the higher the amount of "web searches" for those particular keywords.

Flash games is good you say? it has 5000+ which should be much higher for google. Well, let's go see what the competition is for that keyword.

Open google and type flash games and search.
Hmmm... 151,000,000 pages indexed and we want to be in the top 30 ...very hard.

Besides, all those .coms are taken already.
Use wordtracker and try and find a nice keyword with minimal competition and then go and register. You will probably have to buy it from the aftermarket so you will need some ching.

For me? I like doing things the hard way and am going to try and seo optimize my pages instead of spending 20 grand on a great domain name.

I have only touched the tip of the iceberg "so to speak" in domain names for online arcades but you get the general idea :)