First, it's hard to put a value on it. It isn't clear than the buyer would make enough revenue to keep up with the expense of keeping it running.
Second, you aren't obligated to respond to everyone who sent you an E-Mail or message. Wait a couple of weeks, and then start looking at them.
Third, you aren't considering user retention. You had 6k unique visitors today. There is no guarantee you will still have 6k unique visitors in a month.
Fourth, as long as your income from ads and payments cover the expenses, leave it running.
Finally, if you do retain an audience of 1k+, now you have a customer base for whenever you launch your next project.
I really don't know what to do. Many people told me if I hire a team, or at least one developer, this would help me get going with the game. This does make sense.
However I've been extremely stressful for the last hours. I guess this really is a bad decision, but one that would free myself for university and other projects I have.
The problem is I can't stand to spend my whole day working only on Hacker Experience anymore. I already have other projects that I want to work full time with.
Happy to hear any advice from you. I have no experience at all with business, marketing or even start-ups. I'm just a programmer.
Just wait a few days until things settle down before making any decisions. Seems the stress of the events is still fresh, don't make any final decisions just now.
That's a general lesson in life. Know yourself and know when you're being afraid, when you're being irrational. And postpone taking decisions that can wait a few days.
Hey Renato, good job you did here, but I would honestly don't sell and I'll definitely don't buy.
See, I've been wandering on HE a couple of hours yesterday, and your project seems to have some serious execution flaws (bad ui, downtimes, social based income, etc).
Nothing serious for a side project but these are definite blockers if you ask for a 50k something.
Not mentionning the stack: slackware (honestly?), php and python (why two langages?), no framework. The last one could be the main reason you are struggling to keep it afloat, and that at least throws a big red flag: "I'm gonna head troubles if I'm gonna buy".
And the business side doesn't seems to be worth it.
My 2 cents on selling/buying webapps : I would be keen on paying 10K on a website-based business with 10 long-time customers paying 100$ each month.
That's not the kind of deal you seems to be after, but I think this is somehow the standard for serious buyers on the market.
Why so low you may ask? Because if I understand your project to the point I could buy it, then that means I can replicate your little business.
I'm only buying time, and I think it would take ~10 months to build that webapp and gather some ~10 customers (maybe yours, now I know your flaws...).
And that means buying a strong problem solving webapp, not a niche online game.
If the webapp is very well executed then I would maybe push to 15K per 10 recurring customers, not more.
And I don't care the market size: it's for the potential 100 recurring customers that I would be in, not for the seldom social viralisation peak with an only 1 or 2% conversion.
In a nutshell: don't loose your time trying too hard to sell it.
If it sells then congrats, but you should spend your time fixing the UI to keep your players onboard, writing a great FAQ that handle the tickets, and boosting your infra so you that you're not needed around when it collapse.
Because after that you're done: let it live alone and enjoy your 1000$/month.
Based on my experience there's little chance you'll reproduce that for the years coming.
But that's still a good feat for your age and experience, kuddos and congrats to you ;)
Slackware is a highly capable distro. It may not have the fancier things that other distros have (or at least not as simple), but it's just as capable, and it's highly more stable.
I was not trying to be mean on slackware users, nor implying that slackware isn't a capable distro. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
I implied that, when a distro is missing dependency management, it should be the last on your picking list. I'm an Arch guy myself, but my own servers run on wheezy (because 'life').
Hey Renato,
I am the developer of an Android app that had more than 1000 downloads a day and a huge number of active users. I ran into the same issue that you are facing right now - I was just a programmer and didn't really have the time to support everyone.
One way I managed to cope with it was setting up an autoresponder that redirects over to a FAQ to help with most common issues / requests. If something wasn't covered via the FAQ people still came back to me and I jumped in to help.
As most of the others here replied: Don't jump the ship and sell immediately - try to power through the next few days and use this as an opportunity to learn.
Give it rest, go out and take a walk. You don't need to worry about this too much. You've put a lot of effort into this, but nothing like this is worth ruining your health about it.
Being tired doesn't allow you to think straight.
As for handling support, an autoreply to a faq can save time. Zoho also has a free plan for their support system https://www.zoho.com/support/
I don't know if it's a bad idea if you can get someone to buy it for a price you find acceptable. I think you might have trouble doing that though, which will make the the question moot.
If you did get someone to buy it for say $60k (or $10k?), and they ended up making millions, would you feel ripped off? If they end up not even making back what you paid, how would you feel?
You can also just sit on it for a while, and see what happens, see how your attitude develops. Yes, that might mean you end up losing the chance to sell it (note, it's not clear you have that chance now), but you say you didn't really do it for the money anyway. You could wait a month or two, remembering you don't need to respond to every email or support ticket, and see what happens. Does the success continue? Does it trail off? Are you still stressed about it and want to get rid of it, or do you have a renewed enjoyment?
There's nothing forcing you to rush, you are in complete control here. I suspect you are worried about doing the 'wrong' thing, and maybe being judged for it, and maybe then feeling like you missed out (on making money, or whatever). Don't worry about it. You didn't do it for the money. It's an experiment to see what happens.
If part of your stress is feeling an obligation to your users, maybe actually turn off the freemium pays (for now), so it's all free. If you're getting enough income from adsense to pay your costs, just let it coast a bit see what happens.
I doubt anyone will want to buy your game. It is not that it is not good but without you in the price it is not worth it, they will not be able to improve it or even maintain it. The learning curve in order to maintain that game will be very expensive. Also success is not guaranteed yet, now is the time your game is growing do not let go. Just take a trip somewhere to relax.
Also find a partner, if you were working on this with someone else, you would have much less stress. Working alone is very unhealthy and extremely stressful. Either partner with someone or balance life and work which might be hard since you have to study too. Go to forums where other programmers that love making games are and find someone to become your partner.
Why not take the modest income and pay somebody to improve the game and or it's traffic?
Seems to me, you could find another University student looking to grow traffic as part of their studies. Collaborate on this.
Take another small share and pay somebody to do a little support for those users worth responding to.
As others have said, you could potentially benefit from this in the future.
Right now, you are just a programmer. Continue that. Do well, grow.
But, a programmer who understands some business has serious potential. Seems to me you just created the perfect lesson plan. This little project won't take that much to treat like a business and if you make a couple of friends, who knows where you all might go in the future?
You would be able to learn how to better execute on an idea, get a lot of very interesting user metrics, have a following, show income, etc...
Consider this. I would in a second. A few hours here and there just isn't going to impact your studies. However, those few hours here and there could really educate you in ways you will find difficult to realize in a strictly academic environment. This is worth more to you than you currently realize.
well modern as in "web based". It's not really uplink (i loved the use of different nodes to hide yourself) but it looks like a fun pasttime that take the hacking scenario seriously.
I can't not tell you this: thank you for reminding me of Uplink. I played Uplink before I knew what linux was. Nowadays I am typing this from an arch setup.
Your game IS satisfying (though I have yet to play it for a while, this is just my first impression). Listen to the folks here at HN, take your time, weight your options. Put your sanity first. Just wanted you to know another stranger on the internet found a bit of nostalgia and bliss while playing your project.
I think selling it would be more stressful than just keeping it running. Lots of buyers flake and lots of things could go wrong.
Also, how much time do you really need to put into this project to keep it running?
This is also a reason why I prefer working on PaaS's for solo projects.. For the most part I can do other things and not put too much mental effort towards it.
> There are two main ways to earn money with this game. One is using Google Adsense.
> These values are estimated, but I believe one can get at least $20–$25 per day. That’s about $750 per month.
Until you actually see your first payout, the estimate is meaningless. I've heard of many cases where people saw significant estimates and google turned around and shut down their accounts before the first payout.
Get some sleep bro. Shelve the project for a while, work on something else, then come back to it in a couple of months when you're feeling energized again.
Don't make a decision either way until you're less excited about this. Sit back, take a deep breath, and then go through with it tomorrow after a good night's sleep.
You know the rule: Don't make any decisions hungry, angry, or sleepy.
First of all, congratulations for finishing your game and getting some success with it.
A few thoughts:
- 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral. It's a promising start but too early to use that adjective (and the numbers are also pretty low).
- The fact that you are trying to sell something you worked on for more than a year just because you can't keep up with the email volume is... suspicious. Especially if the income estimates you give in that article are accurate. Why not just ignore your inbox for a few weeks and come back to it later?
- I think the answer to the question above is obvious: you know your success is temporary and you're trying to cash out while you can. Sorry for my cynicism, just being honest.
Some people don't think only on money. I created this game as a fun project, for fun, without expecting any revenue. (If I did, it would be pay-to-win).
I tried to kill myself last year a few days after I gave a talk at a FOSS conference. Some people can't handle pressure, email volume or too much social contact, specially if they have something called social anxiety, depression, and other things that I do.
I understand your suspicious.. However you are assuming I'm a crazy-for-money guy like... many people.
If no one buys the game I'll probably shut it down. For my own mental sanity.
Good work Renato and credit to plugging at it for 2 years. If the social friction this game has bought your life is the reason you are selling it, let me ask you a question: What happens if you cold turkey on the game for the next few months? No answering emails, no bug fixes, nothing. If the game continues to run well and give the players some joy (keeping the money aspect aside for now), why not just let it be?
Yes. As someone with anxiety and depression issues myself I sympathize with the sudden scariness of something like this, but it would be a shame if it just went dark because you have obviously put a lot of work into it.
If you do decide to shutter the server, set up a Github repo and mirror your code under a licence like GPL3, then maybe at least someone else can pick it up and keep sharing more cool stuff with it. It's what I did when I got out of roleplaying games.
Also instead of the added pressure of finding a business model, you may want to put up a "Donate" button.
Ideally, if you put up a graph of your costs per month (including what you feel you should get paid to work on the project) and a graph of donations per month, or something, then people who enjoy your game will be smart enough to help support it financially for you.
If you've not already done so, you should really get with a doctor. I grew up with social anxiety (didn't get diagnosed until senior year in college) and know how bad it can be - feeling like you just got punched in the gut for days at a time is not something anyone should have to live with. And you don't have to, there are various treatment options that a good doctor will help you navigate. Getting treatment can really change your life for the better.
I grew up "shy", and while it was sometimes stressful, there were definitely no suicide attempts, panic attacks, etc. involved.
It's insensitive/cruel to mock someone's diagnosis when you know next to nothing about the details.
There are larger arguments about overdiagnosis in the US, etc., which is all interesting, but if you're talking to an individual about painful experiences in their past, bear in mind that generalities cannot become rules.
I have Cystic Fibrosis, and therefore I cough a lot. A lot of people cough. CF also makes me skinny. A lot of people are skinny. I get tons of "advice" on how to reduce my cough or what to do to gain weight, but most of it is naivety at best, stupidity if they know I have a bona fide condition.
Don't panic. You've made a great thing and credit is due, but at the same time you're in the middle of what could just be a brief peak of interest. The odds are good that it won't always be like this (unless you want it to.)
Your graph reminded me of a scene from The Simpsons where 'Disco Stu' presents a graph entitled "Sales of Disco Records, 1976-1977" showing a massive upward swing. Seeking investment for his idea, Stu indicates "If these trends continue... aaayyyy!"
Not trying to talk you down at all - but if this level of interest is unwelcome to you, the chances are good that it will get better. Most things run out of momentum pretty quickly if you're not actively keeping the ball bouncing.
This hacker experience game with 6000 registered users in a day is going too much viral. Your have really a great taught, definitely there are alot of people who don't care about money what they want is just success as they are not greedy people. I personally say that you have made a great fun project whether you earn money or not or you shutdown the game.
It's free to play, you don't owe anyone anything. If you get emails and don't feel like answering, just ignore them. If you get praise, print it out so you can look at it whenever you feel down.
This is the correct answer. OP, you really shouldn't feel bad about not responding to people emailing you about a free-to-play game.
Besides, most of them are probably just writing to tell you how much they like it, or wanting you to partner with them.
You don't have to answer any of them. Just put up an autoresponder explaining that this is a free game and you're a university student and can't respond to email.
I mean, this is what Google does and many/most people love Google products.
Some people do care about the experience they provide, whether people are paying for it or not. Their pride in the game is important. They feel it reflects poorly on them if they're not providing good service. I can see how this would provide unwanted pressure when you're trying to study hard.
This is totally logical, but psychologically hard.
When I was a student I had totally-free online stuff I built lead to a stream of requests for upgrades, additions, bugfixes, etc. -- and the unreasonable ones are easy to discard, but some requests would be polite, friendly, and include offers to help. I'd agree to make the seemingly-small tweak, or accept the help, and then realize after a week that I didn't really have the time, or that my TO-DO list was being pulled completely out of whack....
Better to not publish your email address at all, perhaps, or make very clear that emails may be eventually read but very likely not responded to.
Hey, please do what you need to be healthy! Great game BTW!
(I know some with social anxiety, and it sucks that society is so dysfunctional that we don't make simple accommodations which help us all realize our potentials. Hope all goes well for you.)
Listen, you need to stop programming for a bit and get some professional counselling IMMEDIATELY...admitting you actually tried to kill yourself in a public forum is a huge red flag.
Please, put all this stuff on the back burner and take care of your issues...
Remember, every day you're out there doing things you love is a victory. Do whatever is best for yourself. I agree with others, maybe you should just put the game on rest and do something else for a while.
Hi, I think trying to sell the game is a pretty good idea. Since you probably don't have much experience in selling software (services), just a small tip:
I read in your article that you offer a bit of support. If you manage get to make a deal with someone, do make sure that in your agreement you explicitly mention for how long you will offer support. Make it nice and short, like 3-6 months, perhaps just a few weeks.
If you are tired now, you will only become more tired if your support of the project goes on, and it will keep worrying you if there's always someone who contacts you about things of your project.
If the amount offered justifies it, perhaps find out if your university can get you in touch with a nice contract lawyer that can go over the transaction for you, but don't worry about it too much. There's not that much can go wrong, as long as the agreement is clear that everything is supplied 'as is' and the support is properly time-constrained and makes no promises beyond 'best effort', and especially if the other party is allowed to inspect the goods before receiving them, not much can go wrong.
If you are the worrying type, you could put the funds received in a savings account and not touch them for a year or so, so you'll always have funds to settle any disagreement.
> Please keep in mind I spent two and a half years building this game as a side project, so make a serious offer.
I hear you are stressed out by dealing with the resulting success of your game and are willing to shutter it to save your sanity. I also hear you want someone to 'take you seriously' in making an offer for the game. Those two statements, if I am hearing you correctly, are in direct logical conflict with each other and may lead to causing you more suffering. The technical term is cognitive dissonance, literally believing two things at once. In your case you appear to hold the opinion that the game is worth something and you must be paid for it to release it, yet you thinking about continuing to manage it will lead to a loss of sanity. Resolving this logical dilemma sounds impossible, unless someone pays you a lot of money or you really intend to shutter it.
I would suggest that if you intended to shutter it because of suffering reasons, you would have already done so by now. That may be related to the fact those-who-create live to do so. I am one of those people! If that is the case, you must face the fear of continuing the game's existence.
Attempting to face a fear you are capable of facing will help move you forward past this event. Perhaps Open Source it, or take the other suggestions offered in the thread. I appreciate the fact you took the time to tell us about it. Creating brings joy.
Remember, your suffering is your choice. Only you can reduce it. Only you can wake up in the morning and be grateful you are here in this reality and then attempt to reduce your suffering by facing your fears for the day. Nobody else will do this for you as we're all trying to do it for ourselves each day. Best of luck to you, my friend; today is the first day of the rest of your life!
Whatever happens with your game, I hope you realize that a lot of people enjoy what you've built. You are bringing good stuff into this world and the world is a better place because you're here.
If you ever start to feel down or like life is not worth living, email me - address in my profile. I'll try to do what I can to help.
> 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral
Going viral isn't a certain number or speed of adoption. It's a method of adoption. If most of these members joined because of referral by other friends, and they in turn are continuing to invite others, then yes, it's going viral.
Nothing has demonstrated that it's referrals by friends -- it saw a small amount of attention on HN, and from that the inevitable reposts on Reddit. Further if the definition were so limited, then we could say that everything has "gone viral", making the phrase meaningless -- instead there is some level of scale necessary, which I don't think this level of success meets.
HN is a finicky, short-attention span beast, by design. A front page of HN, and tens of thousands of uniques, often yields zero residual "value" (seriously, zero. The most lauded piece on here with endless upvotes and you're lucky if a single reader reposts it anywhere else or mentions it, beyond the karma seekers who stick it on /r/programming).
I don't get this post. 6000 unique visitors in no universe yields thousands of emails (again, due to the short attention span probably 5000 clicked back ten seconds in), unless the game itself generates enormous amounts of operator notifications and mechanical turk type behavior, in which case the game is unsustainable for anyone.
The model of getting a project to some level of success and then offloading it is an entirely reasonable one (though really the tough luck story I think undermines the pitch), though at the current level of success this project is, sadly, currently close to worthless. Having a very temporary spike of a niche user base is not at all sustainable.
> Going viral isn't a certain number or speed of adoption.
Going viral is certainly speed of adoption. By definition. It's not an absolute number, it's a growth pattern over time.
Two days is not enough to decide that something went viral.
6,000 registered users is a very low number, even if it happens within a few hours: a simple exposure on the front page of HN or Reddit, or even better, being featured on Google Play or the iTunes store, will result in user sign ups in the order of the 100k's.
My "show HN" went peek on HN and then back to what it was before.
He is smart: Everything seems fine. From the media we know about all the companies, which have established business models with such figures. But they are the 1%.
Taking over (from him) is already so hard: If you were the inventor of [X], you would have done [X]. Taking it over and going on: ~IMPOSSIBLE~
Congrats on the success. Allow me to give you some advice before you sell, having been in almost your exact position at your age:
- Lots of emails/press attention is a good sign and no reason to give up on a project. Focus on improving the game and ignore the emails if you have to. They don't matter
- I too had a game go viral (0 to 3 million accounts in about 6 weeks). I was getting multiple acquisition offers but up until that point it was the most exciting and stressful time of my life. I got absolutely no sleep for days on end. But it paid off and I learned more practical knowledge in those short few weeks than my entire college career.
- When the time was right I sold, not because I was tired, but because it was the right time for the game and for my future
- Shortly thereafter I developed another game which I considered selling early on like you are doing now because I wanted to move on to something else. I decided to continue improving it and it ended up lasting 5+ years and grossing several million $s, far more than I ever thought was possible with the initial version
- This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it into something you're extremely proud of.
- Your growth is promising but the traffic right now is too low for you to get any serious offers in my opinion. Keep on grinding, it'll be worth it
>This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it into something you're extremely proud of.
That comes through in all the meticulously detailed, earnest and honest information you posted about it. It sounds kind of like you're trying to find a good home and trustworthy owner for a beloved cat who you can't keep in your apartment any longer. Just remember, your cat (i.e. your audience) loves you too. Good luck whatever you do!
Pretty cool that you made the forum automatically create account when the game account is made. It's the small touches that make the difference between something people will use and something people love to use.
Like other people commented, I don't think your user numbers will hold up in the long run -- not because of the game, necessarily, but because people naturally try stuff out and then never return.
Nonetheless, I'd consider buying it, but not at any price that would make you feel good about spending two years coding the thing.
I believe that this particular post is more about what someone should look into when facing unexpected success than driving a good sale price: so far, no one has posted this was a good idea to sell.
My reaction is: pay a litt major to respond to e-mails for couple of hours a day. Most reactions are: get a serious business partner. Debating that is a lot more relevant than an ad -- hence the tolerance.
Unless you're calling BS on the guy's reasons for selling, which he has disclosed in comments, I think there's a fully legit HN story here, above and beyond "app for sale."
Nope, my post was just meant as some random fact. You can easily put a price on an infinite stream of constant payments.
I don't believe the project is able to generate an infinite stream of 750$ payments. But if it could, that would be roughly it's value.
By the way, for an investor it does not matter how much effort (1 year, 5 years, 100 years) the author did put into the project. For the present value of the project only matters what monthly payements there will be. If someone can forecast these payments, he can also put a price tag on the project.
So it might also be, that there is no more interest in the game in one or two months ... then it would be roughly worth 0$ to 750$ (even if it took much effort to implement it).
Huh? You are questioning the commenter's sincerity just based on how often they want to post a comment on HN.
Witch-hunting does not really make HN a better place.
The computer gaming market doesn't function like most other markets; the idea of considering that monthly income as recurring indefinitely is rather odd.
Of course, You are absolutely right. The author said he had no idea how to value his work and I was thinking... Hmm, he might try to use financial math formulas such as the NPV as help. If the game makes $9000 profit per year at a discount rate of 3% you could value it:
$8738 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 1)
$17221 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 2)
$25458 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 3)
$41217 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 5)
$76772 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 10)
$133897 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 20)
$284390 ... (makes profit for N years, where N = 100)
And no software is able to make profit for 100 years.
(disclaimer: my calculation might of course be wrong, I didn't put much thinking into it)
If only it was as simple as using personal time and emotion invested as a large part of the equation that determined a softwares value... we would all be rich :)
Find an understanding partner. Since you obviously don't have a clue about anything besides programming (sorry, harsh words, but I don't have the time to type out a list of mistakes you did here), it'll have to be business dude that handles stress and load well.
Have him insulate you from the support, monetization, PR, and so on, and let him assemble Terms of Use to be very generous towards you as a programmer in a way that you don't have to respond to reported bugs (especially concerning monetization) immediately but leisurely.
Agree with him on the priority of types of fixes/improvements and have him deliver lists of tasks to you on a weekly/monthly basis.
Have that business partner on a probation period first, to see is he supportive of your persona and then split profits with him 50/50. It'll be a great opportunity to learn from him strategems of handling stuff you cannot.
Aim long-term. These types of games are something people stick around for quite some time. Adjust monetization model accordingly. These numbers you have or project right now are meaningless from that context.
Do the right thing and good luck.
As a side note, an analogy to first-time parents is an appropriate one here. A lot of them panic a lot when they find out baby is on its way. But I'm not ready! I'll make mistakes during parenthood! Will I be able to support it!?
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 209 ms ] threadTalk with God about dinosaurs... or make money.
If you make money, you don't get the angel perks. Best songs in eternity.
He should step back, take a breath of fresh air, and then get back to work.
First, it's hard to put a value on it. It isn't clear than the buyer would make enough revenue to keep up with the expense of keeping it running.
Second, you aren't obligated to respond to everyone who sent you an E-Mail or message. Wait a couple of weeks, and then start looking at them.
Third, you aren't considering user retention. You had 6k unique visitors today. There is no guarantee you will still have 6k unique visitors in a month.
Fourth, as long as your income from ads and payments cover the expenses, leave it running.
Finally, if you do retain an audience of 1k+, now you have a customer base for whenever you launch your next project.
I really don't know what to do. Many people told me if I hire a team, or at least one developer, this would help me get going with the game. This does make sense.
However I've been extremely stressful for the last hours. I guess this really is a bad decision, but one that would free myself for university and other projects I have.
The problem is I can't stand to spend my whole day working only on Hacker Experience anymore. I already have other projects that I want to work full time with.
Happy to hear any advice from you. I have no experience at all with business, marketing or even start-ups. I'm just a programmer.
Thanks!
That's a general lesson in life. Know yourself and know when you're being afraid, when you're being irrational. And postpone taking decisions that can wait a few days.
See, I've been wandering on HE a couple of hours yesterday, and your project seems to have some serious execution flaws (bad ui, downtimes, social based income, etc). Nothing serious for a side project but these are definite blockers if you ask for a 50k something.
Not mentionning the stack: slackware (honestly?), php and python (why two langages?), no framework. The last one could be the main reason you are struggling to keep it afloat, and that at least throws a big red flag: "I'm gonna head troubles if I'm gonna buy".
And the business side doesn't seems to be worth it.
My 2 cents on selling/buying webapps : I would be keen on paying 10K on a website-based business with 10 long-time customers paying 100$ each month. That's not the kind of deal you seems to be after, but I think this is somehow the standard for serious buyers on the market. Why so low you may ask? Because if I understand your project to the point I could buy it, then that means I can replicate your little business. I'm only buying time, and I think it would take ~10 months to build that webapp and gather some ~10 customers (maybe yours, now I know your flaws...).
And that means buying a strong problem solving webapp, not a niche online game. If the webapp is very well executed then I would maybe push to 15K per 10 recurring customers, not more. And I don't care the market size: it's for the potential 100 recurring customers that I would be in, not for the seldom social viralisation peak with an only 1 or 2% conversion.
In a nutshell: don't loose your time trying too hard to sell it. If it sells then congrats, but you should spend your time fixing the UI to keep your players onboard, writing a great FAQ that handle the tickets, and boosting your infra so you that you're not needed around when it collapse.
Because after that you're done: let it live alone and enjoy your 1000$/month. Based on my experience there's little chance you'll reproduce that for the years coming.
But that's still a good feat for your age and experience, kuddos and congrats to you ;)
Your point about maintainability might be more valid.
I implied that, when a distro is missing dependency management, it should be the last on your picking list. I'm an Arch guy myself, but my own servers run on wheezy (because 'life').
One way I managed to cope with it was setting up an autoresponder that redirects over to a FAQ to help with most common issues / requests. If something wasn't covered via the FAQ people still came back to me and I jumped in to help.
As most of the others here replied: Don't jump the ship and sell immediately - try to power through the next few days and use this as an opportunity to learn.
Cheers
Being tired doesn't allow you to think straight.
As for handling support, an autoreply to a faq can save time. Zoho also has a free plan for their support system https://www.zoho.com/support/
If you did get someone to buy it for say $60k (or $10k?), and they ended up making millions, would you feel ripped off? If they end up not even making back what you paid, how would you feel?
You can also just sit on it for a while, and see what happens, see how your attitude develops. Yes, that might mean you end up losing the chance to sell it (note, it's not clear you have that chance now), but you say you didn't really do it for the money anyway. You could wait a month or two, remembering you don't need to respond to every email or support ticket, and see what happens. Does the success continue? Does it trail off? Are you still stressed about it and want to get rid of it, or do you have a renewed enjoyment?
There's nothing forcing you to rush, you are in complete control here. I suspect you are worried about doing the 'wrong' thing, and maybe being judged for it, and maybe then feeling like you missed out (on making money, or whatever). Don't worry about it. You didn't do it for the money. It's an experiment to see what happens.
If part of your stress is feeling an obligation to your users, maybe actually turn off the freemium pays (for now), so it's all free. If you're getting enough income from adsense to pay your costs, just let it coast a bit see what happens.
Also find a partner, if you were working on this with someone else, you would have much less stress. Working alone is very unhealthy and extremely stressful. Either partner with someone or balance life and work which might be hard since you have to study too. Go to forums where other programmers that love making games are and find someone to become your partner.
Seems to me, you could find another University student looking to grow traffic as part of their studies. Collaborate on this.
Take another small share and pay somebody to do a little support for those users worth responding to.
As others have said, you could potentially benefit from this in the future.
Right now, you are just a programmer. Continue that. Do well, grow.
But, a programmer who understands some business has serious potential. Seems to me you just created the perfect lesson plan. This little project won't take that much to treat like a business and if you make a couple of friends, who knows where you all might go in the future?
You would be able to learn how to better execute on an idea, get a lot of very interesting user metrics, have a following, show income, etc...
Consider this. I would in a second. A few hours here and there just isn't going to impact your studies. However, those few hours here and there could really educate you in ways you will find difficult to realize in a strictly academic environment. This is worth more to you than you currently realize.
Nice work :)
Plus, as a dad of a 4 month old, this looks like the perfect pasttime when the small one wakes up in early morning.
Please reach out. You have done an amazing job and should keep it up.
You just made me sign up.
Your game IS satisfying (though I have yet to play it for a while, this is just my first impression). Listen to the folks here at HN, take your time, weight your options. Put your sanity first. Just wanted you to know another stranger on the internet found a bit of nostalgia and bliss while playing your project.
nitpick: I miss a command line :P
best of luck!
The Flappy Bird guy ran into similar situation, but he kept it running. Perhaps there are some lessons to take away from that.
Also, how much time do you really need to put into this project to keep it running?
This is also a reason why I prefer working on PaaS's for solo projects.. For the most part I can do other things and not put too much mental effort towards it.
> These values are estimated, but I believe one can get at least $20–$25 per day. That’s about $750 per month.
Until you actually see your first payout, the estimate is meaningless. I've heard of many cases where people saw significant estimates and google turned around and shut down their accounts before the first payout.
There is an ongoing class action lawsuit against AdSense for this behavior. Relevant discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7776282
You know the rule: Don't make any decisions hungry, angry, or sleepy.
I wish you luck and happiness. Nice work.
A few thoughts:
- 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral. It's a promising start but too early to use that adjective (and the numbers are also pretty low).
- The fact that you are trying to sell something you worked on for more than a year just because you can't keep up with the email volume is... suspicious. Especially if the income estimates you give in that article are accurate. Why not just ignore your inbox for a few weeks and come back to it later?
- I think the answer to the question above is obvious: you know your success is temporary and you're trying to cash out while you can. Sorry for my cynicism, just being honest.
Some people don't think only on money. I created this game as a fun project, for fun, without expecting any revenue. (If I did, it would be pay-to-win).
I tried to kill myself last year a few days after I gave a talk at a FOSS conference. Some people can't handle pressure, email volume or too much social contact, specially if they have something called social anxiety, depression, and other things that I do.
I understand your suspicious.. However you are assuming I'm a crazy-for-money guy like... many people.
If no one buys the game I'll probably shut it down. For my own mental sanity.
I guess keeping it "as is", without any support, is better than shutting it down, but I don't know if I could simply ignore it.
I would try it before (if) shutting down, though.
If you do decide to shutter the server, set up a Github repo and mirror your code under a licence like GPL3, then maybe at least someone else can pick it up and keep sharing more cool stuff with it. It's what I did when I got out of roleplaying games.
Ideally, if you put up a graph of your costs per month (including what you feel you should get paid to work on the project) and a graph of donations per month, or something, then people who enjoy your game will be smart enough to help support it financially for you.
I wish you the best of luck!
Remember when that used to be called 'being shy'?
Social anxiety is a very debilitating and tortuous thing, as is any form of chronic anxiety.
It's insensitive/cruel to mock someone's diagnosis when you know next to nothing about the details.
There are larger arguments about overdiagnosis in the US, etc., which is all interesting, but if you're talking to an individual about painful experiences in their past, bear in mind that generalities cannot become rules.
Please don't kill yourself over a game. Release it AGPL and be done if you have to.
OP, you probably see Klinic every day on your way to school. They have trained counselors 24/7 at:
Manitoba Suicide Line 1-877-435-7170 toll free 24 hours
http://www.reasontolive.ca/about-us
Your graph reminded me of a scene from The Simpsons where 'Disco Stu' presents a graph entitled "Sales of Disco Records, 1976-1977" showing a massive upward swing. Seeking investment for his idea, Stu indicates "If these trends continue... aaayyyy!"
Not trying to talk you down at all - but if this level of interest is unwelcome to you, the chances are good that it will get better. Most things run out of momentum pretty quickly if you're not actively keeping the ball bouncing.
Besides, most of them are probably just writing to tell you how much they like it, or wanting you to partner with them.
You don't have to answer any of them. Just put up an autoresponder explaining that this is a free game and you're a university student and can't respond to email.
I mean, this is what Google does and many/most people love Google products.
When I was a student I had totally-free online stuff I built lead to a stream of requests for upgrades, additions, bugfixes, etc. -- and the unreasonable ones are easy to discard, but some requests would be polite, friendly, and include offers to help. I'd agree to make the seemingly-small tweak, or accept the help, and then realize after a week that I didn't really have the time, or that my TO-DO list was being pulled completely out of whack....
Better to not publish your email address at all, perhaps, or make very clear that emails may be eventually read but very likely not responded to.
(I know some with social anxiety, and it sucks that society is so dysfunctional that we don't make simple accommodations which help us all realize our potentials. Hope all goes well for you.)
You tried to kill yourself after a conference??
Listen, you need to stop programming for a bit and get some professional counselling IMMEDIATELY...admitting you actually tried to kill yourself in a public forum is a huge red flag.
Please, put all this stuff on the back burner and take care of your issues...
I read in your article that you offer a bit of support. If you manage get to make a deal with someone, do make sure that in your agreement you explicitly mention for how long you will offer support. Make it nice and short, like 3-6 months, perhaps just a few weeks.
If you are tired now, you will only become more tired if your support of the project goes on, and it will keep worrying you if there's always someone who contacts you about things of your project.
If the amount offered justifies it, perhaps find out if your university can get you in touch with a nice contract lawyer that can go over the transaction for you, but don't worry about it too much. There's not that much can go wrong, as long as the agreement is clear that everything is supplied 'as is' and the support is properly time-constrained and makes no promises beyond 'best effort', and especially if the other party is allowed to inspect the goods before receiving them, not much can go wrong.
If you are the worrying type, you could put the funds received in a savings account and not touch them for a year or so, so you'll always have funds to settle any disagreement.
I hear you are stressed out by dealing with the resulting success of your game and are willing to shutter it to save your sanity. I also hear you want someone to 'take you seriously' in making an offer for the game. Those two statements, if I am hearing you correctly, are in direct logical conflict with each other and may lead to causing you more suffering. The technical term is cognitive dissonance, literally believing two things at once. In your case you appear to hold the opinion that the game is worth something and you must be paid for it to release it, yet you thinking about continuing to manage it will lead to a loss of sanity. Resolving this logical dilemma sounds impossible, unless someone pays you a lot of money or you really intend to shutter it.
I would suggest that if you intended to shutter it because of suffering reasons, you would have already done so by now. That may be related to the fact those-who-create live to do so. I am one of those people! If that is the case, you must face the fear of continuing the game's existence.
Attempting to face a fear you are capable of facing will help move you forward past this event. Perhaps Open Source it, or take the other suggestions offered in the thread. I appreciate the fact you took the time to tell us about it. Creating brings joy.
Remember, your suffering is your choice. Only you can reduce it. Only you can wake up in the morning and be grateful you are here in this reality and then attempt to reduce your suffering by facing your fears for the day. Nobody else will do this for you as we're all trying to do it for ourselves each day. Best of luck to you, my friend; today is the first day of the rest of your life!
1 point by wiex 6 minutes ago | link | edit | delete
I am going to spend $71 on it add me on skype: messagepromc I love the game reply
1 point by wiex 6 minutes ago | link | edit | delete
I am going to spend $71 on it add me on skype: messagepromc I love the game reply
1 point by wiex 6 minutes ago | link | edit | delete
I am going to spend $71 on it add me on skype: messagepromc I love the game reply
1 point by wiex 6 minutes ago | link | edit | delete
I am going to spend $71 on it add me on skype: messagepromc I love the game reply
If you ever start to feel down or like life is not worth living, email me - address in my profile. I'll try to do what I can to help.
Going viral isn't a certain number or speed of adoption. It's a method of adoption. If most of these members joined because of referral by other friends, and they in turn are continuing to invite others, then yes, it's going viral.
HN is a finicky, short-attention span beast, by design. A front page of HN, and tens of thousands of uniques, often yields zero residual "value" (seriously, zero. The most lauded piece on here with endless upvotes and you're lucky if a single reader reposts it anywhere else or mentions it, beyond the karma seekers who stick it on /r/programming). I don't get this post. 6000 unique visitors in no universe yields thousands of emails (again, due to the short attention span probably 5000 clicked back ten seconds in), unless the game itself generates enormous amounts of operator notifications and mechanical turk type behavior, in which case the game is unsustainable for anyone.
The model of getting a project to some level of success and then offloading it is an entirely reasonable one (though really the tough luck story I think undermines the pitch), though at the current level of success this project is, sadly, currently close to worthless. Having a very temporary spike of a niche user base is not at all sustainable.
Going viral is certainly speed of adoption. By definition. It's not an absolute number, it's a growth pattern over time.
Two days is not enough to decide that something went viral.
6,000 registered users is a very low number, even if it happens within a few hours: a simple exposure on the front page of HN or Reddit, or even better, being featured on Google Play or the iTunes store, will result in user sign ups in the order of the 100k's.
My "show HN" went peek on HN and then back to what it was before.
He is smart: Everything seems fine. From the media we know about all the companies, which have established business models with such figures. But they are the 1%.
Taking over (from him) is already so hard: If you were the inventor of [X], you would have done [X]. Taking it over and going on: ~IMPOSSIBLE~
- Lots of emails/press attention is a good sign and no reason to give up on a project. Focus on improving the game and ignore the emails if you have to. They don't matter
- I too had a game go viral (0 to 3 million accounts in about 6 weeks). I was getting multiple acquisition offers but up until that point it was the most exciting and stressful time of my life. I got absolutely no sleep for days on end. But it paid off and I learned more practical knowledge in those short few weeks than my entire college career.
- When the time was right I sold, not because I was tired, but because it was the right time for the game and for my future
- Shortly thereafter I developed another game which I considered selling early on like you are doing now because I wanted to move on to something else. I decided to continue improving it and it ended up lasting 5+ years and grossing several million $s, far more than I ever thought was possible with the initial version
- This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it into something you're extremely proud of.
- Your growth is promising but the traffic right now is too low for you to get any serious offers in my opinion. Keep on grinding, it'll be worth it
That comes through in all the meticulously detailed, earnest and honest information you posted about it. It sounds kind of like you're trying to find a good home and trustworthy owner for a beloved cat who you can't keep in your apartment any longer. Just remember, your cat (i.e. your audience) loves you too. Good luck whatever you do!
Like other people commented, I don't think your user numbers will hold up in the long run -- not because of the game, necessarily, but because people naturally try stuff out and then never return.
Nonetheless, I'd consider buying it, but not at any price that would make you feel good about spending two years coding the thing.
My reaction is: pay a litt major to respond to e-mails for couple of hours a day. Most reactions are: get a serious business partner. Debating that is a lot more relevant than an ad -- hence the tolerance.
The formular for the present value of a perpetuity is just
Given 750$ per month (9000$ per year) and a 3% annual discount rate, then an infinite stream of 750$ monthly payments is worth today 300.000$.By the way, for an investor it does not matter how much effort (1 year, 5 years, 100 years) the author did put into the project. For the present value of the project only matters what monthly payements there will be. If someone can forecast these payments, he can also put a price tag on the project.
So it might also be, that there is no more interest in the game in one or two months ... then it would be roughly worth 0$ to 750$ (even if it took much effort to implement it).
(disclaimer: my calculation might of course be wrong, I didn't put much thinking into it)
Have him insulate you from the support, monetization, PR, and so on, and let him assemble Terms of Use to be very generous towards you as a programmer in a way that you don't have to respond to reported bugs (especially concerning monetization) immediately but leisurely.
Agree with him on the priority of types of fixes/improvements and have him deliver lists of tasks to you on a weekly/monthly basis.
Have that business partner on a probation period first, to see is he supportive of your persona and then split profits with him 50/50. It'll be a great opportunity to learn from him strategems of handling stuff you cannot.
Aim long-term. These types of games are something people stick around for quite some time. Adjust monetization model accordingly. These numbers you have or project right now are meaningless from that context.
Do the right thing and good luck.
As a side note, an analogy to first-time parents is an appropriate one here. A lot of them panic a lot when they find out baby is on its way. But I'm not ready! I'll make mistakes during parenthood! Will I be able to support it!?
And most kids still turn out just fine.
Cheer up. :)
Ignore it for a week, don't think about it.
I would hardly call that going viral, plus it's only been two days. You're too optimistic, thinking too big.
If this is anything average you'll find that most of the traffic will die off after a month.