Have you actually sold a game?

well title says it all :3 is it worth spending months on a game or is it just a waste of time? i mean you need to be really lucky to make a living out of indie game development no?
have you sold a game on steam or any other platform?

We are about to start selling on Steam … in 8 days time to be exact. The question here is not whether it is a waste of time or not … but more what are you expecting from it.

I get the feeling that you are on the path that thinks Indie Game Development is a sure fire way to get rich … quickly … please correct me if I am wrong. The truth of the matter is that it takes a real gem of a game to get you rich quickly … the rest of the time it is like anything else in life … you need to work at it. Is this first game going to make us rich … probably not, although we are hoping it will … it has however taught us how to make a game, how to get it through Steam Greenlight, how to get it on to Steam, and how to market the game. Are we experts at this … no, but we are using this game as a learning experience and we will do it better next time.

I personally make games (through Gobbo Games) for a different reason, I make games that I ultimately want to play and being able to sell that is an added bonus.

I guess you need to evaluate why you are doing this and what your end goal is. Making a living is admirable but it requires hard work, dedication, and a clear business plan … this is more true now because it is easier for most people to be able to put a game together and therefore your game has to be extra polished and extra special to rise above the chaff that surrounds it.

I have a couple of friends here in South Africa who are making a living as an Indie Game Developer (Rogue Code and Rogue Moon Studios) and to prop up their coffers they do contract work on Unity and Windows Phone development. Who knows what the real answer is … but I think if you work hard and put your first game out there, you will quickly be able to gauge where you fit in.

Good luck.

He said “i mean you need to be really lucky to make a living out of indie game development no?”

No mention of getting Rich. and yet…

Did you even bother to read the rest of my post … I focus on making a living and not on the getting rich. I also asked for the OP to correct me if I am wrong. Are you deliberately being obtuse or just trying hard to be a troll. How about you get in on the conversation instead of making pointless posts that have no impact on the conversation at hand.

i love this talk “The No Hit Wonder: 11 Years and Still Going. How?”

he is very funny and the talk is vey open mind

yeah that’s ok.
I just corrected you.
its funny you get “that feeling” he expects to get rich just from what he wrote. interesting…

FYI not trolling or being obtuse.

Indie, amateur games, are still selling; but nothing like 8 years ago.
From 8 to 5 years ago, I have sold tens of thousands of “crappy” games I’m so ashamed of that I don’t even talk about them nor let ppl know that I am the one who made that **** ^^

For the next 2 years after that, I knew that the “bubble” would burst soon, so I used those games as portfolio to begin working for other people instead of expending money trying to make more games by my own =]

It turns out today you need millions invested in marketing to succeed making mobile games, and Steam is heading the same way;
So now I just work for people, maybe I will make a “my game” again someday, but I’m not in a hurry… Since 2012~2014 the world is a lot different now.

I have one game in iOS and Droid store made with a small dev team.
I have another one on Droid that I created for my kids.

Both sold nothing. LOL.

If you insist on building authoral, individual independent work, I’d encourage you to invest on VR and always invest on the newest tech after that.
The reason is, as a small company/solo developer, to survive you have to always be many steps ahead of the hordes; there’s new opportunities in VR and there marketing is not priority just yet, but that also is going to change once that market matures and grows from “niche elitist” status that labels VR for now.
Mobile on the other hand is already mature market, you won’t penetrate that echosystem easily, no more.

I’m kindda tired of that “race”, so I am out for now :stuck_out_tongue:

i think that voxel, lowpoly games are pretty much increasing as its easier to develop games with minimal graphics :3, when youtubers play this simple indie games they become pretty popular. a sad thing is doh a lot of people abuse early access to get money then they stop working on the games :confused: just look at cube world it had such potential still the developer never really did anything with it even doh a lot of people wanted to help him make the game.

The truth is that the game market is so oversaturated that it started to throw up games. Many people got the opportunity (aka bedroom developers like myself) to work with engines, which are much more accessible than a decade ago. I will not say that Unity started it, but it was the engine, which was the catalyst for more game development.

Another important factor is something I call safe havens. Nowadays most developers don’t risk to do something completely new, because it can backfire, when people simply are not ready to delve into a new mind set or innovative key mechanics. It is all about playing it safe and be atleast in the top ranks of a certain genre. Even an indie developer with a one hit wonder can’t just cease to create games. Games are short lived nowadays and will be replaced with newer, maybe better versions of something after a month or two.

I asked myself several times, if I want to go down that route. If it would not be about my unimaginable passion for games, I would say stay away from indie game development. I also decided to not go the safe route (which might be insanely dumb), but try to create something completely new, which could even have a special genre.
When I think about it, I’m basicly going back to the roots. When the game market was still niche, there was no such thing like a genre. The risk was higher to flop than to succeed. Games like Giants:Citizen Kabuto or Sacrifice didn’t do well and they tried a lot of new things. Part of it was also the high hardware cost at that time and their high hardware requirements.

I didn’t sell a game, but I am doing my first serious attempt. But how it will play out is still unknown :). I wish my fellow indie developers a lot of strength, luck and success even if it doesn’t make sense encouraging my competitors, haha :D.