The TRUTH About Making Money as a Game Developer...
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
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► Description
Chapters:
00:00 - how to make money as an indie game developer
00:40 - method 1
02:47 - method 2
04:46 - method 3
07:29 - Brilliant
08:31 - outro
When starting indie game development, it can be very common to think that you'll strike it rich. But indie game development is largely a business that sees very few high profile successes compared to other fields. Its easy to get caught up in the stories about legendary indie game dev millionaires, but that is not commonplace.
In this video, I try to answer the fundamental question of how to make money as an indie game developer. I've tried to identify 3 main methods for monetization of game dev, and really any side project.
I do think it is important to note that although your indie game, or game development in general made not be a huge financial success, it is a huge accomplishment to release an indie game at all! Regardless, I hope these methods on how to make mondey as an indie game developer are useful!
Comment down below any other methods for indie game dev monetization that I didn't mention!
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This video is sponsored by Brilliant.
► d i s c l a i m e r
I do not claim to own any or all of the pictures/footage that may be shown in this video.
All of my opinions are entirely my own and do not represent any company I work for or am affiliated with.
Any financial topics discussed are not financial advice.
Channel produced by Rainy Sunday LLC.
To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/ByteofMichael You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
Strange question, but are you in need of a game music producer?
Simple rule: be the 1%
My thought exactly 😂
Or make 100 games.
@@anonymone453 Well the ammount of time is the factor you should keep an eye on. If your Idea is good, you can make one outstanding game many people want to by. But If you use the same time für 100 games you will flood the stores with trash. I believe the love and afford you out in your own product will Show up in selling
Nope, go make a mobile game.
@@DLAXTOXyou still need to be the 1% there as well. Platform do not matter really. Product and marketing does
The problem is simply that way too many indie game are just bad, look cheap and ugly...
There is a believe in the indie community that your game has to look bad or pixels art... Very few wants to make the effort to actually learn how to make their game look good.... They are simply not entrepreneur... They think they just make a game in 4 months, get some wishlist and money will come. Some said that $40 a month for marvelous designer is too much,... That show the mindset. I remember one time someone simply asked why indie do not try to make beautiful game on itch because it can be easier to market... They went hard on that guy, they insulted him, trashed him for just asking why they do not try to make better looking games.
So do not blame the sky and the gods for your game failing, just look at the product you released.
This is a very subjective and generalizing view and definitely from a consumer perspective. And while I understand where you're aiming at, from a marketing perspective you're a single data point, a 1 in those, say, n=400 type of market studies. For each bad game you show me on steam, I could show you two good looking, mechanically well designed games that are/were not successful and one that looks bad, but is successful anyway.
Why the good failed and the bad still succeeded is the million dollar question and if anyone could answer that, they'd be making tons of money out of that info. If you're really interested in marketing I'd recommend Chris Zukowski's talks. It's not a guarantee for success, but definitely improves the odds to know the market from a non-consumer perspective.
@@powertomato I know Chris Zukowsky and you are falling to this trap of the ugly game.... An ugly looking game in a nice niche will still sell more than a good looking polished game in a bad niche... Still a bad looking game in a good niche will sell way less than a good looking game in that same niche... Do you know unrecord? That game is selling itself do you know why..? Great visual
I recall seeing a a few game devs on Reddit asking for feedback on making their games a financial success, when the reality of the origin of their game was that it was super niche and developed as an inside joke among they're close friends.
There was no thought of the general public or the broad audience they went and invested a year of work into something that was only funny and cool to their five friends, and confusing to everyone else who reviewed them. They made excuses to keep things the way they were rather than make the recommened and necessary changes to reach the masses.
Its pretty normal for people to say they want one thing, success, but because they know it takes even more work and even more learning, they instead actually desire another, to stay in their comfort zone and keep the status quo, and just call successful people 'lucky'.
@@BraveAbandon I am making a game. I went way out if my comfort zone.
I learned how to properly texture a mesh (because I want my game to have a wow Factor), I did an extensive market research to find which genre I can make my game to increase the odds of success.
I invested in software, courses and hardware... Why? Because I see this as a business... I went as far as learning C++ because it is faster than blueprint, learning to optimize my game ect...
You are 100% right, anytime I see someone talk about their “failed game” on Reddit or forums, “I spent x years and my game is failing” I look at their games and understand exactly why..they either look horrible or play horrible and that’s the cold hard truth why would anyone want to buy your game when there’s 10,000s out there that are more polished.
Professional SWE here, starting into game dev as a hobby. Excited to be making games whether or not it makes money.
Fun fact however: Steam allows people to sell Steam keys of their games however they want (humble bundle, for example) and if they are sold outside of Steam, Steam won’t take a cut despite it being in their Steam library and from a Steam key.
You can't have a lower price than steam though.. that always made me question how they bundle games cheap in humble without affecting the steam prices.. thoughts?
@@Iamjake1000 I would say either they lower the price on steam with a sale temporarily as well but advertise the humble bundle deal, OR it simply isn’t well enforced
@@Iamjake1000 humble has each bundle up for a month or so right? i guess that could count as a "sale" since its there for a limited time? that or maybe 3rd party sellers aren't affected (i tried to read steam guidelines but they didn't specify this) and (maybe) the rule is made for developers/publishers that are their own sites/launchers up and aren't allowed to have full price lower than on steam (they are allowed to have sales). Also i have heard of humblebundle just basically run out of keys few times (i believe there was Warner Bros bundle recently that had this issue where MULTIPLE of the games either didn't work because of localization limitations or buyer didn't get a key at all). Steam only gives 5000 keys as default and devs can pledge for more if needed - but i bet steam does some basic manual check at this point and can deny the request (maybe this is what caused bundle to run out of keys? that or there was communication issues with WB devs/publishers.. or they just were not prepared).
Humble Bundle has its own store. I bought bundles from them in the past and games from its store... Most are steam keys but a few are other.... Well, I have seen few GOG keys too,
Problem is not this. Problem is the game itself and marketing.
Many indie devs are simple not good business or product (game) people.
And the competitions today is a lot harder = even more focus on above is needed.
This... Way too many indie blame everything else but never question the game they released.. one indie team during a post mortem said "I did not know my game has to look good"...
@@joantonio6331 I might sound harsh but many lack the ability to take a stance back and give a third party view on their game. And it’s nothing odd. It’s HARD to have this “eye” also it’s hard to make unique good looking games.
I’ll been working in game dev professionally now for over 30 years and it’s still the biggest challenge for me.
I think the key thing is as you say. To be able to take accountability for the lack of this. No one expect anyone to make a super seller. Especially if it’s your first game and you make it alone or with very few people / tight budget. Still then don’t act surprised or as you say blame other things if the game don’t sell well.
@@joantonio6331 Five Nights at Freddy's does not look good, Flappy Bird does not look good. Nor are they very good games mechanically.
The online market alone around chess is 150 million $ *anually*. Chess doesn't look good.
The hard truth is you can market your game 24/7 on social media, make a good looking, fun/engaging game and still fail. Knowing why games succeed or fail is a million dollar question. If anyone knew exactly, they'd be making tons of money out of it.
Diablo 4 isn't free to play. its a 70 dollar game with monetization. Just odd you showed that as the free to play game section.
Maybe immortal. It is free
Nowadays it is difficult to stand out from the crowd with self-developed games on the modern games market. You should keep in mind that the teams of large companies such as Ubisoft, Nintendo, etc. consist of a team of over 100 people. Of course, they are more capable of bringing us professional and clean games than we as a single person dev taking the matter into our own hands. With experience alone, we need about half a year to a whole year to make the game even functional. With 2D games we now have even worse cards on the market, because the expectations of the players will soon exceed the computing power of my computers. We have to spend a lot of time making the game good enough for people to pay for it. On the other hand, we would otherwise have to do it like other companies: find a small team and divide the profits fairly.
You can make 3D game! More giant companies can't rotated experimentate correctly for example. For this need indie devs
the graph at 2:15 is interesting but a really weird choice, is the Y axis....logarithmic? how does it scale like that? Why is the Y axis dollars instead of the percentages along the X axis?
Could I ask what program what shown at 6:53?
Substance Painter
adobe substance painter 3d
whats better? to make small games on mobile quickly or get more money with longer time developing on steam/console
Make what you love. Don't sell yourself as many did. It's not worth it
Make small games that you'd like to play. Ive made 4 big games, and am making 2 more, after them, its small games from here on out...they end up making the same revenue. (In my experience)
if for money. small games/ if for you fun such big game,which you want
Start search publisher...good publisher.
ok
Its not a what
Its- its not a what
You sound soo much like Joffedy
I'm gonna make 0 also...I'm just making games I wanna play...cause MOST games nowadays are just BOOTY...
There is good games u just font know them