Bah. You can make even more money selling toothpaste. The guy is making a living writing games that he wants to write. Everything after that is gravy, IMHO.
So he has a net income of about 150k first year for a successful game. You also need to factor in already spent development time, but on paper this sounds ok. But the second year the net income dips down to 40k. Oops!
How long can you do this? Is this sustainable? You probably have to churn out successful games year after year for the rest of your life. But this is a gamble. What happens, if one game is a failure? One year of development just went down the drain. Oops!
So, how can you survive as indie game developer? What I believe:
1) Either you do this for fun in your spare time. But this gets more difficult the older you get, if you consider family and children. Finishing a polished game that way is possible but tough, I guess. If you're doing this for fun, maybe release the game for free.
2) You try to copy as much stuff from the previous game as possible and try to go for a short release cycle. You go for the long tail, so the more games you release the better! The result: 455 total games per day on the app-store (http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/). Good luck competing with them.
3) You go in full-time. Yeah right... My wife would declare me insane for doing this.
The bad thing: regardless which path you take,it takes a lot of time and dedication. And in most cases, there's no money and no reward waiting for you. Most people do not even consider spending a buck for your endless evenings spent in front of your monitor trying to make something entertaining.
It was 65k from both of his games combined though.
You have to also consider that his games have been featured on the app store multiple times - and he's not even making that much. It's a risky path, but it can pay off if you work hard and are smart about it (e.g. I'd try to build communities around my games that I could get to play my next games as well, immediately getting them up from the bottom of the app store where nobody goes).
8 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 28.2 ms ] threadHow long can you do this? Is this sustainable? You probably have to churn out successful games year after year for the rest of your life. But this is a gamble. What happens, if one game is a failure? One year of development just went down the drain. Oops!
So, how can you survive as indie game developer? What I believe:
1) Either you do this for fun in your spare time. But this gets more difficult the older you get, if you consider family and children. Finishing a polished game that way is possible but tough, I guess. If you're doing this for fun, maybe release the game for free.
2) You try to copy as much stuff from the previous game as possible and try to go for a short release cycle. You go for the long tail, so the more games you release the better! The result: 455 total games per day on the app-store (http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/). Good luck competing with them.
3) You go in full-time. Yeah right... My wife would declare me insane for doing this.
The bad thing: regardless which path you take,it takes a lot of time and dedication. And in most cases, there's no money and no reward waiting for you. Most people do not even consider spending a buck for your endless evenings spent in front of your monitor trying to make something entertaining.
Ain't this sad?
Previous discussion on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3syzuc
You have to also consider that his games have been featured on the app store multiple times - and he's not even making that much. It's a risky path, but it can pay off if you work hard and are smart about it (e.g. I'd try to build communities around my games that I could get to play my next games as well, immediately getting them up from the bottom of the app store where nobody goes).