How much will your first indie game make? | Hacker News Reader

How much will your first indie game make?

ramiismail.com

22 pointsbemmu21 comments

It is interesting to note how the biggest earner (High Vaultage) is a straight up generic launcher game clone.

The general fault of indie game developing is the lack of proper motivation. Most just try to grab some money without real development team, and hope to live of it. Now, that can work, but rarely. Succesful attempts at that are succesful under many conditions: being meticulous with development, aiming for lowest common denominator gameplay, not trying to innovate and preferably clone popular mechanics, and having discipline to ship it. Examples: Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, Kingdom Rush.

In my book, that's not indie, it's built on monetization from starting game design. And that's precisely why it fails.

The process at most sucessful indie games was actually quite opposite. Let's create something we want to play, and meanwhile or even just at the end of it, try to monetize. Or not even bother with it. Examples: Braid, World of Goo, Meatboy.

EDIT: Added some reference game titles.

Are you calling Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, and Kingdom Rush non-innovative or are you saying they're the mechanics that everyone copies? None of those games had original mechanics, but they each added something new to their respective genres (Especially Cyclomaniacs).

I'm a fairly successful flash game developer, and while I do try to innovate with some of my games, I find just as much success by using popular mechanics. However, I do try to add in a twist or two. All games can be traced back to a similar game that came before it, building something with monetization in mind doesn't make you any less of a developer.

There's also a huge difference between flash games and normal PC games. It's not economically feasible to spend a long time making extremely high quality and unique games in flash since there have only been a handful of games to ever earn more than about $20,000. As you said, the goal is to get as many people as possible to like it, not target a niche that really really likes it. Meatboy was a flash game to begin with, but it was nowhere near the quality of the Super Meatboy and I can guarantee it made nowhere near as much money. The mechanic used is also nothing original.

>> Are you calling Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, and Kingdom Rush non-innovative?

Yes, I do. In fact, the author does too.

4:24 PM [dsirijus] LongAnimals, for the record, do you think Cyclomaniacs is an innovative game?

4:24 PM [LongAnimals] no

4:24 PM [LongAnimals] it's a ripoff

4:24 PM [dsirijus] thank you

>> there have only been a handful of games to ever earn more than about $20,000

Yes, a handful EVERY MONTH on just a particular distribution channel. https://www.fgl.com/report_monthly_site_sales.php

Despite what LongAnimals thinks, he brought opponents and upgrades and levels to a dirtbike game in flash which had never been done before. Unless there was a console game or something he copied, then I would call it pretty darn unique. It may not be a completely novel idea, but it's a hell of a lot more innovative than most of the games you listed as being successes on Steam.

According to FGL's stats only 1 game has made more than $20,000 in the past 6 months from what I'm reading. That's how much money ALL GAMES TOTAL make, not how much single games make.

Try clicking on Dollar Value - Accepted Bid from the drop down menu. After you do that click on the red bar at the far right of the screen to see the breakdown of sales for that month. Then hover your mouse over the red dot at the far right to see how much money the largest game made that month. Most of the games that gross over $20,000 from sponsorship actually do so outside of FGL or through performance bonuses.

Thank you for bringing this up. I would still draw the "indie" label at a small dev team, but those games you mentioned - at least Burrito Bison - while fun, and it has some interesting bells and whistles but at the end of the day isn't particularly meaningful - just press a button and sit back, maybe have a few interactions with it in-game, buy a few things, wash and repeat. They're still "indie", but perhaps in a whole different level of games, compared to Super Meat Boy or Braid...there is no way the intention wasn't to make something addictive that would monetize well. But, it is the Flash game market and to make a living off of that, that's what you have to do, I suppose.

Thanks for reminding me why I even do game development. Occasionally I get too wrapped up in marketing and the like...trying to think how I'll make any money off of it, and while important, what's the most important is the actual game itself (who would've thought?). Although to reiterate, I do understand why Flash games tend to usually be different in terms of intention - it's hard to deviate a lot from the formula and still manage to have food on your plate.

To add to stats, my first game sold for less than a thousand :P

I'm not trying to be judgmental. Like you said, you need to put food on the plate.

I know you're not - I just wanted to point it out for the audience who isn't as familiar with the Flash game market.

Beside the point: why do the pictures lean when I mouse over them? Who thought this was a good idea? What does this accomplish?

They want to take you on a boat ride.

Also, the font size could do well a few points larger.

This really tripped me out the first time I did it, I thought I had too much caffeine already!

Actually, I kind of liked it.. though I have no idea why. Gimmicky.

Selling the game to a single, publisher-like entity through negotiation seems like a pretty old-fashioned way to do it and an especially bad fit for a low-budget indie game.

It would have been interesting to compare numbers if some of the teams would have thrown their project to e.g. Kickstarter or sold it directly to consumers via Steam or similar service.

That would require much bigger production and creative quality.

If all of their other games are flash games like High Vaultage then it makes sense to use the normal sponsorship model. The only other real ways of monetizing in the flash industry include ads and non-exclusive licenses which generally both make considerably less than a primary or exclusive license of the game.

There is no way first time game developers could get their games on steam. If High Vaultage was their best game then they would be laughed away pretty quickly judging by how it scored on the popular portals such as Kongregate and Newgrounds. As an experienced flash game developer myself I have managed to make a game in a day that scored better on both those sites and probably also received more plays overall. In order for Kickstarter to work properly for a game you need to have a pretty huge following. First time developers have no following; so unless they strike a chord with the gaming community, it would be fruitless.

I find it interesting that a portion of their grade is influenced by factors somewhat outside of their control. Just because they were unable to successfully negotiate a deal during the seminar doesn't necessarily mean it's a game that won't sell, they may just need another round of negotiations. Plus if the motivation was to complete negotiations for a good grade, then why not just offer the game for $1? Was there some kind of threshold they had to meet to be considered a "success"?

But it is an interesting concept. I've seen similar thoughts with web design courses; teach web design/development while building a website for a paying client.

On wholly another level, you're great.

The most awesome thing to do on that semester would be to create a game you love, and if it doesn't sell, sell it for a buck. Creative on so many levels.

Well, many people make games that they loved making and then release them for free. Money is not always the only factor involved.

But my comment is about the course itself, not the games they make during the course nor their emotional attachment to said games. The purpose of the course was to learn something about business and that hopefully results in a good grade. My question about the threshold is because, from what I read, it might be possible to learn something, make a good grade, and not make any money. So was making a certain amount of money a requirement to be considered a success to get a good grade? I see nothing wrong with my question or comment.

Your sarcastic response is not helpful.

Haha.

It wasn't sarcastic at all, I just applauded idea of passing the course by selling for a $1.

I apologize then, I totally misunderstood your post.

Shouldn't the answer overwhelmingly be $0?

The median of the revenue of an indie game is definitely very close to 0.

What they've done here is pretty impressive, congrats to the organizers and students involved.

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