My Recent Nine Months as an Indie Developer | Hacker News Reader

My Recent Nine Months as an Indie Developer

eiswuxe.de

106 pointspotomak40 comments

Hi,

I'm the creator of the blogpost and I just discovered the discussion here. I would love to answer all questions and take a stand on things like "ads on a kids application". But the article travels the internet so fast that I am not able to check all discussions regularly. So I would like you to ask your questions in the comments section of my blog if you really expect an answer. Its the only place where I 100% check all comments each day. Hope you understand.

cheers, Eiswuxe

It seems like games like these really live or die on the strength of their artwork. I've considered doing something like these myself but I have no idea how much it would cost to hire an artist to do this kind of work. Does anyone have any experience contracting out app art?

Would also like some advice on contracting app art. A game I started as a personal learning project, is growing and some good consistent art would be of tremendous value to it.

At my company we just ended up hiring someone, but for our past projects we worked with contractors (in fact, all but one of us was a contractor).

There are tons of people out there that are dying to get more work in the indie game scene, and some of them are even good.

Adam Atomic wrote up this piece about contracting pixel art a while back: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamSaltsman/20090724/2571/Pi...

You may want to dig through the pixeljoint and way of the pixel if you want that particular style. If you are looking for artists more generally, the tigsource forums have both places for posting portfolios and job offers. I think that polycount forums may have places as well, but I am not as familiar with that one.

The point is that a ton of game artists hang out online, and you can get to them through there. I am pretty sure that some of the superstars do contract work as well. Paul veer did super crate box's animation, and as of 6 months ago was taking on freelance.

However, the artist we hired was an ex-coworker of a friend of a guy that we met at a hack day, so just getting out there and meeting other game developers can help as well.

Regarding costs, it is generally cheaper to hire an artist than a programmer, but not by much. Maybe 2/3 - 3/4 of the cost of a good programmer. You certainly are not going to get solid work for free.

I had the chance to work with some amazing illustrators before. It's actually not very hard to find them, just go to the places where they usually hang out. For the kind of designers I'm looking for, that would be deviantart and to a lesser extend dribbble.

Finding designers and working with them are two separate problems though. They speak in a different language so communication can be an issue. Also I found the design crowd to be very opinionated (just like us developers).

Textual requirement specifications don't work so well, instead replace them with sketches and concept ideas, color palettes, mood boards and a lot of IM communication. Also try to keep the iterations short, ask them to show you the work in progress at least a few times a week. You may also try synchronous design sessions, as described here: http://taptaptap.com/blog/the-design-session

..I came up with a farm that has certain animals on it. Tapping an amimal would make it wiggle its head and make a noise. [..] All my apps are available for free on the android market featuring ads

Is it strange to have ad supported games for toddlers? What possible benefit could a company get on a click-though from a toddler?

I really enjoyed reading through your reflections, it is always fascinating to see how success comes from the most unlikely angles :)

(edit) elipses

Benifit from clicks on a game like this? My guess is none. They don't know it happens because the ads are not being targeted, or if they are, they're targeted at the parents who own the device and browse the web using it etc.

The kids will give a very high accidental click rate, but need to call mommy to hit the back button/close safari, which is enough time for the click to register as legitimate and not accidental.

So yeah, pretty spammy, but money is money.

I already tried to place the ads in a way that minimized accidental clicks. But you can never prevent it. People even email me if I can refund an iOS purchase because their kid "accidently unlocked" the full version via in-app purchase (even though I warned about that circumstance in the app description AND iDevices have a feature to disable in-app-purchases for exactly that reason).

I designed the apps with the idea in mind that kids should never play those games completely alone. But that leads to a discussion about education in general which is much to big to start here.

The main reason for my apps is not that the parents get some peace during the day (even though a lot of people use it exactly for that) but that kids learn together with their parents, like they always should do. An iDevice / Smartphone is not a toy for toddlers with which you can leave them alone. But this stuff is way beyond my control.

Question: What if you had not stumbled upon the idea to build the toddler games? Would you have soldiered on on a low income or packed up and returned to corporate life? and after how long?

Due to the fact that my first son was born in december 2011 (and that I knew that this would happen:)) I would have tried to prototype and release stuff to "stumble upon anything succesfull" until the money from my grant was used up (march 2012). Then I would have tried to survive as long as possible with my savings, and then, when I would not see any light at the end of the tunnel, would have returned to a day job in order to support my family.

If I would have to take care only of myself, I would have tried to continue even with a minimum income.

Can I ask how much the grant was? (Didn't see the amount mentioned in the article) and did the grant come with specific terms or was it just "here's some free cash, go have some fun :)"?

I always wondered why Angry Birds puts ads in the top-right of the screen instead of the unused space at the bottom. Then I realised that they make money when I accidentally click the ad when I actually mean to explode the bomb bird...

I wonder what conversion rates are on mobile ads, seems it's so much easier to "accidentally" click on them.

My takeaway from this is that finding untapped niches is the key :) (also, you are not your customers - if you enjoy 8-bit blocky games, you'll only sell them to other people like you).

I suspect there are vast, nice niches being underserved.

I am reminded of Patio's advice and this:

http://www.kaisdavis.com/blog/you-are-in-the-emotion-busines...

"I think the underserved market is pretty much non-geeks."

My kid has a number of free ad supported apps on my iPad and they drive him mad because if he ever accidentally clicks them, they fire him out of the app.

He has no interest in the stupid adult things they promote and always just goes back to the app to keep playing. I wish they would either limit the apps or make them paid for - kids apps are not a suitable place for ads.

It's a shame he used Corona. We made that mistake for our first two games. Don't get me wrong, I really like LUA, but Corona, to me is a scam. And here is why: LUA allows you to quite straightforward plug in 3rd party libs (DLLs/SOs), but they intentionally crippled this in Corona; it's not possible with the 'normal version' (you pay 100s of $ for; http://www.anscamobile.com/pricing/). You need to buy an enterprise support 'thing' (it's not a license, it's a one-off) which costs, and I kid you not, $40.000 per 'feature' you need added. So we started porting our games as this kind of crippling, to me, is just lock-in-and-steal. If you wrote a significantly large game in Corona and you need something from iOS/Android which is not in there yet, you are going to pony up $40k (multiple times maybe).

And yes, we could've known this upfront obviously. But I think quite a lot of Indie guys skip over this point at first.

Which framework do you recommend? I know of Unity, Marmalade, Corona and Cocos2d-x. (I once tried porting an SDL application to Android and gave up, after many many hours sunk.)

We currently ported all parts of the Corona API we use to Monkey (http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/) and I created a LUA2Monkey script which does ~80% of the translation (at least for us ;). When done I'll release that stuff in Github.

I did not need to include any 3d party lib into my projects yet, so I was quite lucky with the quick results and ease of use. But its still a shame if corona works that way, from an ideologiocal point of view.

I am always keeping an eye on other frameworks and decide before every new project if corona still fits my needs or if its better to invest some time and learn something new. So maybe I might switch to monkey code / unity / stencyl / whatever in the near future.

"First I wanted to argue that it was a real 'game' and not just a 'press this button to fart' app, but one thing why I started my own business was because I did not want to mess around arguing. I wanted to code." (emp. mine)

Ouch. I'm afraid he's in for a rude awakening at some point in the not too far away future.

I went through rude awakenings for the last several years because people spent more time arguing than being creative and producing their stuff. Besides that, if my undertaking goes out of business, I want at least have some fun while doing it :)

There's a line of thought on startup success that basically says that customer validation is more important than creating a good product:

http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful-entrep...

it basically says not to kill yourself building the product before testing that there's a market for it. Create a minimum product (MVP) instead :)

You did that with your Farm for Toddlers game, found your niche, now go ahead and be successful :) (I guess you already are, by my standards :) )

Edit: by the way, thanks for sharing and being open with your revenues and your experience

Its true that you should not start a company on the idea of "I dont care what anybody wants, I just want to do as I please". I try to find a good mixture of what "looks promising" and what is fun for me to do. Atm, those toddler games perfectly fit that scheme. Sure I try to push it all into a direction where I can build more "typical" games.

Sure, and it's cool that you've taken the jump. It's just that 'just wanting to code' is the exact opposite of what running a business, even a software business, is... Of course the alternatives are even worse when working in the corporate IT sector...

Indeed. In a far far distant past I started out as freelancer for that reason. I have never argued (and verbally fought) so much and coded so little in my life. But I kind of like that aspect as well; I was a 'want to only code', but I apparently like doing sales as well, and account management, and project management. Only thing I detest are taxes/money related matters. That always messes up my month; I always celebrate the moment one of my companies reaches the 'now we can hire someone to do the money crap' moment.

I asked there, I also ask here. It seems he lives in Germany. Somebody knows how much he gets after taxes? He probably has also to pay for pension (~16% - ?) and health care (~ 15% ).

I'm not an expert, but I think this is getting pretty close:

* You can certainly deduct some expenses from the tax.

* You can earn around 8,000 € "tax-free". If you get more, you can substract that amount

* As an indie developer (or as a freelancer or someone with a small company), you are responsible for your own health insurance (but you are required to have one). Public health insurance fees are 15.5% (but it is capped at around 500 € per month, which is still a lot), private might be a bit cheapter, depends on the company

* It is wise to spend some money on a retirement plan, but not a requirement

* Then you pay 30 % in tax (I don't know whether health insurance is tax-deductible)

So, if you make 50K in revenue, you can substract business-related expenses, another 8K for the income that is tax-free and pay 30 % on the rest. That is your income, which can be used for health insurance, pension and everything else (again, I'm unsure whether health insurance is before or after tax).

This is when you are not married. Marriage reduces the tax, but I don't know the numbers.

In opposite, when you are employed, you pay 40.5 % tax, which includes everything (governmental retirement plan, health insurance, "public service fees" (don't know how you would call them)).

Edit: Added some more info

I should probably add even more info:

* If you are a freelancer and your income depends primarily on the time you invest, you should aim for a higher income, because obvioulsy vacation and sickness don't earn you any money.

* As someone with a product that provides a more or less reliable income stream independent from time you put in, a yearly income of around 40-50K is certainly good and sufficient, to make a living. Eiswuxe said he made 3,500 €, which is a yearly salary of 42K. Not too bad and he can expect to steadily increase it, since more and more games are added to his portfolio.

* Don't be afraid of taxes when you are self-employed. They aren't that much different from being employed. The main differene is that you are responsible for a steady income.

* Go to a tax consultant (Steuerberater). Good ones offer you a free introduction, where you can ask questions. As a gentleman, it would be nice to use their service then at least once (if they seem to be reasonable). They can fill your tax return (Steuererklärung) for around 150-200 €, if you are employed and don't have tons of bills that need to be entered in a computer.

For me at least, talking to a tax consultant gave me a way better understanding of the whole subject and even took away some fears what would happen, if I quit my job and start traveling the world while "only" making 50K in renevue per year on the side with my product.

From the revenue generated you can deduct your business expenses, health care (around 250EUR base, can be 400, depends on your situation), pension expenses (if he wants to pay that) and than you have to pay income taxes.

Lets say he has 2500 EUR of pre-vat income after those expenses he would have to pay income taxes of roughly 500 EUR (32%) leaving 2000 EUR net income.

What's 'pre-vat income'?

your income before taxes, so gross salary - health care - pension stuff...dunno how americans call it ;)

Yeah, it was just a snarky way of saying that you meant 'pre-tax', not 'pre-vat'. VAT (Value Added Tax) is a specific tax, one that only end-consumers pay.

Thanks WA and kayoone.

So, let me get this straight:

- Health insurance can be considered as a fixed 500 monthly ammount. Question: Can it be higher?

- You are not obliged to pay for pension. Here I doubt a bit. Independent workers pay 26% of their income for pension in Italy...

Which means (in thousands):

=======

+50

-8 - no tax income

-6 - health insurance

----

-0.7 * 36 - income taxes

----

25.2

+ 8

----

33.2

33.2/12 = estimated monthly 2760 euro

=======

If that were true, that is really good.

Health Care: self employed can choose between private and public insurance, private being less expensive for younger people (starting around 150 EUR or even lower for basic plans) but rates go up quickly when you're getting older.

Public insurance rates are related to income but are capped at a certain rate (slightly adjusted year by year), so you're not going to pay more than like 650 EUR or so, even if you're making millions. But they are more expensive to start with (I think around 300) and they offer only basic plans (no special treatment, no alternative medicine, etc.).

As you can not easily switch back from a private to a public plan, it can be a tough choice.

Retirement: when self employed, you really can opt out of retirement plans, there's no obligation.

Minus capital expenses, various sorts of outsourced work (art, accounting, ...) and fees left and right (bank, chamber of commerce, ...)

In a startup phase you can avoid most of them, and they're all not very big but still add up.

Also, this is without pension contributions (if I'm following your calculations correctly?), whereas an equivalent full time job would include them.

Still not too bad, but not an equivalent of what one would make in a 'regular' job, even when keeping risk discount factors low.

He doesn't mention this in the post, but how is VAT in the Apple Store/Android Market handled? Are Apple/Google resellers and do they claim that therefore they're not required to withhold VAT? Or do customers pay $1.99 * 1.20 or 1.19 or 1.21 depending on where their CC is registered?

Because if no VAT is withheld anywhere, it's only a matter of time before the tax man will come knocking on dev doors...

I was wondering this myself; does Apple include their VAT information in EU? They are a company in Luxemburg and Ireland; which one sends the checks and does it include their EU VAT number if it's the Luxemburg SARL? Basically in the EU if you do business with a company, you don't have to pay VAT.

On the other side, for the buyers the 'invoice' contains nothing about VAT and their have been lively discussions if there is VAT, should be VAT and if there is how freelancers/companies can get that VAT back (again, company-company payments don't have to pay VAT, but getting it back across borders can be quite hard, especially when it is unclear if there is any).

Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RheixSV...

Edit: It seems like it's back up now.

> but one thing why I started my own business was because I did not want to mess around arguing.

To me, this is the key thing he did that enabled everything else. That, and observing actual appreciation in real life (those kids).

I know simple isn't the same as simplistic. But still, how many games like this could exist before their profit drops to be like other games? I don't think there is a high entry barrier to creating them?

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