The costs of making indie games
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- Опубліковано 8 тра 2024
- Wishlist Regulator City: store.steampowered.com/app/18...
Wishlist Gauntlet of Power: store.steampowered.com/app/23...
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I'm Pascal a Dutch independent game developer since 2004 known as Orangepixel. I created various games including Residual, the Gunslugs series, Heroes of Loot series, Space Grunts series, Stardash and the Meganoid series released on PC, mobile and various consoles.
This is the best type of game dev content, the real business side is so important yet so few creators ever cover it, love to see you doing this content 👊
Because for indies it is beyond terrible. The median game on Steam has lifetime earnings of $800 and that number is going down as the shovel-ware content explodes.
@@briandecker8403truth. its inherently a high risk high failure industry and just knowing the risk exists doesnt mean you arent still exposed to it 😢 better than nothing though
This is why as an indie, you should strive to create genuinely good games which have good marketability. The main reason most indie games fail is the the devs fail to do the proper research, don't advertiseat all and just instantly post their games@@briandecker8403
@@briandecker8403 Too many devs just don't take the business of it seriously. How many release games that are knowingly half-baked, or make absolutely no attempt at marketing? If you look at the stats filtering for games that put in *some* effort, it's not nearly as bad.
Also, mobile has been a shovelware wasteland for like 15yrs, but indies & small teams still make money there (less this year, due to the ad market, but still). And console is still a solid play if you are serious about making money with your games.
That's the goal I had for this channel! 😎
congratulations for the 20th anniversary! and good luck!
Thanks and thanks! 😁
Hi, Pascal. Greetings from Poland.
Could you please cover following topic: "Sales tail of old games". I mean games which are already existing in your B-catalogue with release date 1+ years from current date.
What is your discounts strategy for such games, bundles strategy, updates strategy, marketing strategy etc.
What are approximate sales of games 5+ years old (not real figures but some comparison with the first year of game life sales etc.)
I know you got a bunch of games, so it maybe full answer will require a lot of data processing. But maybe you may come out with 1 (best case) and optionally 1 (common case).
Personally I got my first game (released in 2019) with regular price 4.99 usd.
I launching maximum possible discount - 86% on Steam as soon as discounts cooldown allow to do it (once per month). There are no sales of that game without discount. But Iam ok with that.
Just want to hear some thoughts from more experienced guy like you, Pascal.
Cheers.
+1. Although we get details in the year-end numbers, it'd be cool to see trends/"big picture". Curious to see if Next Fest & the subsequent launch of Gauntlet of Power causes a "bump" in your other games' tails 🤔
I'd have to look into that, not really track all data, but could perhaps collect data on like a 10 year old game and what it did over the recent year. 🤔
@orangepixelgames this sounds like an interesting topic!
@@orangepixelgames Doesn't have to be your whole history/catalog, but maybe just one or two representative games on one or all platforms. If NDA's apply, just don't tell us which game [or platform] 😄
It is always wonderful to see Orange Pixel games in my Steam, itch, and Switch libraries 8)
That's good to hear 😁
Thanks for the video, wish listed your game and looking forward to it. Appreciate the info as always
Cool thanks 🤘
Great inside data of the real day by day in an solo indie game dev company. Good luck in this journey!
Thanks!
So excited for your launch! 🎉🎉
Me too!
I wish you the best man.
Good luck! :)
Appreciate the deep-dive, burn-rate is the real killer for indies. For contrast, checking accounts in the States are only free if you have regular payroll/client deposits above X amount, or maintain a minimum balance [can be $2-5k at the larger banks]. Both lawyers & accountants are plentiful, at least in cities.
Health insurance is the main concern - more devs/small biz owners *should* get some short-term disability or business-loss protection coverage too, since it's fairly cheap, but everyone thinks they're invulnerable 😅
Used to do accounts-payable & business taxes, so I handle all that myself. Only gets dicey here if you've got employees/contractors, or need to amortize equipment or inventory costs.
Most US State Bar Associations also provide free & low-cost legal clinics, plus the Federal Small Business Association & their State/local counterparts help with anything gov't-related, incl tax credits, licensure & permits, and becoming a gov't vendor, if applicable. All for free, and very handy!
Luckily never needed legal help! Only had the threaten some distributors with it when they didn't pay 😅 (good old days of J2ME games and distributors)
@@orangepixelgames Ah, I ended up on the wrong-side of a trademark-infringement C&D once - very scary! Luckily I have good friends who are corporate lawyers, and the local Bar clinic did the rest. IP law is fascinating, but intense - if I ever decide to quit actually writing software, I'd probably "retire" to consult for software lawyers :)
Love your games. You should try to build 1 game a month for 6 months. Maybe use some of your previous prototypes. We could vote on them :) Some should be mobile focused, some console focused.
great idea, and i know he can make games fast, ive seen it.
Fun content for the channel, not sure it works out for my actual game business.. and that's still my main gig 😜
Best of luck Pascal! We're all rooting for you
🤞😎👍
Good luck!
Thanks!
What about the disks that are on the left side of the cabinet? :)
What about them?
@@orangepixelgames They can be considered as an investment in development! As a source of inspiration. How much do they cost? :)
Ha! True, but they aren't in my case 🙃 and no idea what their cost was in total, but it's many years and many discounted games!
As a fellow indie dev I can't support this message enough. So many dev logs analyze the "success" of game releases without even considering the burn rate of the dev team. A billion dollars in sales means nothing if it costs a billion dollars to make.
I've seen many companies fold in recent months, that I honestly thought were doing fine with how their games did.. so yeah!
you going to give us sales figures graphs in jan then mate? :) all compared. good luck.
End of year video as always! 😁
I'm on 8% conversion rate (40k WL) so be prepared for variation from that 20% :)
I'm prepared for even 0 sales 😅
Good luck my friend.
Thank you!
Banks wanting to make money for no apparent reason? I'd say that the yachts that the bank CEOs buy are quite apparent...!
Ha! Yeah I guess that's an apparent reason
Yeah dude. That bit about 10-20 Euro per month to have a business account? That's whack. These banks and credit unions benefit from holding our money. They should be paying us! (Which they somewhat do in the form of interest.) At least for the U.S. banks in my area, they only charge monthly service fees if your daily balance falls below a certain amount, which could be as low as $100 USD. So just be sure to always have $100+ USD in your account to earn that amazing 0.045% interest rate. Haha. Though I guess it might be understandable if you go for higher tier business accounts that offer premium services and it'd have a fancy name like Platinum Business or Elite Business. Thank you for sharing!
The last three years have flown by since the last release of Residual 😅
They have!
If I would overcome my laziness Itch IO is the best for a tip for your content? I really would like browser demos i am a linux user and I dislike exe deb files its messy. not of this age.
Last weeks video talked about different game stores like itch, steam,etc! Itch is great but not to earn a lot of money 🙃
@@orangepixelgames In terms of taking cuts ? steam takes 30% for example i would like to maximize the tip. google and steam are already rich
Yeah and the game will probably become available on itch, but it's a dwarf compared to Steam, and on the game developer end of that it means that there is way more potential (and actual) sales.. and with way more it really means WAY more.
7k Wishlist when u are entering with only 4k in the steam festival? That's a fail expectation, I think. Nowadays things are very different, Pascal. if you get 400 there I would call a win.
It's a tall order yes, but got a few other things brewing between now and the Next fest, so we'll see how it all works out. 🤞 Last event the game was in gave about 2000 wishlists
20% conversion is too optimistic :) I hope you get it though.
Its the average so its not optimistic
It's on the high end, but also average (might have been in launch month, not week) we'll find out! 🤞
Curious. Are you able to save up for retirement?
Yes, will it be enough? Dunno! But in these days, I don't think any of us have a certainty about 'retirement' 😏
Hey Pascal,
Wish you to become the next Notch, if you know what I mean
Think he became very unhinged and unhappy with all that money... So maybe I'll pass on that 😁😜
Good luck!
Thank you!