
Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game - Impossible
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JosephRadak/20181128/331531/Why_I_lost_42500_making_a_VR_game.php
======
joenathanone
Check out the reviews of the game.

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/528930/Fruit_for_the_Vill...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/528930/Fruit_for_the_Village/)

There are three reviews and they are all negative. Maybe the only reason he
didn't make money is it's just not a good game.

~~~
dleslie
It's a narrative game at that. They're incredibly niche even when they're not
VR games.

~~~
freeflight
No offense, but "it's a narrative game" seems to have become the new excuse
for games that lack any interesting gameplay or actual content and thus have
to play up the "artistic angle" by pretending to tell some amazing story.

Looking at the Steam page for this its genre is listed as a clicker, a review
points out there's literally no progression for the clicker gameplay part,
that's a bad clicker right there because those are usually all about the
progression.

You can't make an oversight like that up with narrative, if the gameplay is
driving away the player then you can have the most amazing narrative in the
world, most people still won't experience it because they won't get past the
bad gameplay.

~~~
fossuser
There are a lot of great narrative games:

\- Firewatch

\- Life is Strange

\- Tacoma

\- Gone Home

\- Oxenfree

\- What Remains of Edith Finch

It's probably my favorite indie genre and when done well it's a lot different
than anything else out there.

~~~
_dps
For anyone who cares about this genre, I'll throw in strong recommendations
for

\- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

\- Virginia

\- SOMA with the monster interactions turned off (they don't bother me, but
with interactions it's not strictly a narrative game)

and moderate recommendations for

\- Dear Esther

\- Ether One

\- Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

~~~
Doxin
"The beginners guide" is another good one.

------
hesdeadjim
This is pretty poor analysis on his part about why the game wasn't successful
and what it means for the state of the VR market. From a talk at the Game
Developer's Conference last March it was shown that the average Steam game
makes about $30k in it's first year. That's non-VR.

According to the Steam hardware survey, about 1% of users own a VR headset.
This paints a pretty grim picture about what an average VR game can expect to
make on Steam.

However that's what you could expect an average game to make. You make
exponentially more money the more standard deviations you are from the
average.

A few things that push you in the direction of success: an obvious and
interesting hook, a compelling trailer, some basic marketing, and quite
obviously fun mechanics. I have not played his game, but I can tell from a
glance that it is missing the majority of those requirements.

It may be survivorship bias, but I can back this up with experience. I made a
good-but-not-great VR game that hit all those major success points, and
combined the PC and PS4 have grossed us mid-six figures.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> and combined the PC and PS4 have grossed us mid-six figures.

Which platform brought in more sales?

~~~
hesdeadjim
Can't share exact numbers due to NDAs, but it's pretty even.

------
pavlov
The story is informative -- VR games don't sell well, except if you can time
to new hardware -- but the math behind the $42.5k number is dubious.

Can I value all my hobby projects at $60/hour too? Over a million USD
accumulated losses during my adult life so far...

~~~
excalibur
I'd be happy with $60/hr for my day job.

~~~
anoncoward111
Currently making $17/hr pre-tax and it is liveable in my suburban area. With
overtime which is generously available at 1.5x pay, I could afford to raise a
family even, and this job feels much more stable than other tech industry jobs
I've had in the past.

I currently work for Star Gas, which is a northeastern USA based company that
delivers heating oil to over 600,000 customers with revenue of about 1B per
year (but razor thin profit margins of about 55m per year).

~~~
peteradio
What is the cost of living? That seems rough almost anywhere to support a
family. What do you do?

~~~
anoncoward111
I started out in customer service making that rate, and I've also done sales
and billing adjustments at the company for the same rate of pay. Those roles
are more like "internally advertised", whereas customer service is externally
advertised because of the high need for these roles and the relatively high
turn-over rate in the position because of the type of work (shouting customers
who are angry about price or tardiness of service lol).

My half of the rent and utilities is currently $1000 a month. A car payment,
phone payment, insurances of various kinds and some food and entertainment
spending cap out at about another grand per month, so $2000 total. With no
overtime and after taxes, you start out at about $2200 a month in post tax,
very reliable income. If you are willing to do 10-12 hour days, you can pull
in about $4000 a month with no college degree and, to my experience, no crazy
office politics or externalities.

It might not be enough to support a stay at home spouse, 2 kids, 2 range
rovers, a large mortgage, vacations and shopping, and a robust family medical
insurance plan, but it is definitely enough for a normal apartment in a normal
suburb, driving an older vehicle and enjoying some westernized habits like
eating at a restaurant or doing lots of christmas shopping :)

Thanks for asking, because I actually left tech sales completely for this
field instead and I am pretty happy with the forced change of industry so far
(oracle laid me off!!!)

~~~
disqard
Thank you for sharing these details! I value the insight into how diverse the
"making ends meet" dimension can be, even among people connected to tech in
some way.

~~~
anoncoward111
Thanks for asking, it was a pleasure :)

I've lived off of less than $300 in Thailand and Chile before, but that's
basically enough to afford only food and a room... and in my case in Chile,
food and a tent in the mountains!!

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zamalek
I'm not sure if a clicker game is a good choice for VR. Playing VR takes a
fair bit more effort than "open the game" and is hence better suited for
deeply engaged titles (something that you are concentrating on and plan to
play for more than a few minutes). Clicker games are time-wasters (you're
waiting for the compiler or similar and have a few minutes). They are
disengaged titles.

~~~
SallySwanSmith
This was my thought as well. I usually buy games from HN to support people
trying things, but the idea of spending uncomfortable time in the headset for
an idle game just puts me off. If I'm going to play an idle game, it'll be
while the tv is on and I'm in comfy clothes or in bed.

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ryanseys
I lost $10 reading this post.

~~~
leowoo91
Earned $5 laughing at this comment.

------
_ah
Presumably, there are interesting skills and experiences obtained from this
project which can be applied to future projects or leveraged for a better /
higher-paid day job. If the time investment is being valued at $60/hr, it's
only fair to perform a valuation on the incremental training as well. This
seems like a case where the numbers are easily skewed in either direction to
fit a desired narrative.

Still, I acknowledge that it's very hard to spend a year of your life on
something and only end up with $700 in-pocket.

------
setr
The biggest concern I have is that he justifies it based on the idea that “he
was pushing boundaries”... but really, he wasn’t: just because something
doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it should (or would be interesting if it did), and
at least from his description, it doesn’t seem like he made any real use of
the vr medium. He just... wrote a pc game(?) and slapped a vr interface on
top.

Vr chat pushes boundaries. It plays with the medium in a fashion that is
_only_ available to that medium. A VR computing environment would be pushing
boundaries. A VR mirrors edge might be pushing boundaries (kinda; its more
like mirrors edge was a game that imagined what vr would be like, and executed
that vision under pc constraints. Now that vr is actually available,
transferring over would be the obvious thing to do). A vr god game might push
boundaries, if they do it right.

But cookie cutters and VN’s? I don’t see how you'd get anything out of vr in a
straightforward port. By the time you actually got the medium doing something
useful, it’d probably look nothing like an “incremental narrative game”

------
lovehashbrowns
Seems like an article that was written to get purchases from people that like
supporting this kind of indie development--pity sales. Which, honestly, I
wouldn't mind, except that the article itself is pretty bare of any actual
content. The cash figure is made up, the game itself is apparently awful, and
the information in the article doesn't support the conclusion(s).

------
Animats
VR goggles are dead.[1] At least for this generation.

[1] [https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/proof-vr-sales-
numbe...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/proof-vr-sales-numbers-
sinking/)

~~~
onedr0p
A buddy of mine sunk about ~$2,000 into VR just as a casual gamer and not is
not including the cost of a PC. He bought Oculas at launch, bought the
controllers at their launch and bought many other accessories for driving and
flight VR games. I initially thought VR was a fad but was still skeptical of
its success. At this point I believe my skepticism is over. He and my other
friends that bought headsets never use them anymore, it's been a year since
they have played. They still defend their purchases, to them they say they got
their moneys worth out of playing.

EDIT: One other thing I forgot to mention. Having the space to play and
dealing with the wires is a huge frustration I saw my friends deal with. Every
time they wanted to play they had to spend over an hour setting it up to just
play for an hour or 2. That is unless you had a dedicated space for it. I hope
no one wants their living room cluttered with wires going across the floor and
VR accessories laying around.

~~~
Animats
It's frustrating. The experience is fun for 20 minutes or so, but it's
downhill from there. I've used both the HTC Vibe and the Microsoft HoloLens,
and enjoyed them. I've tried VR headsets all the way back to Jaron Lainer's
original prototype. But I wouldn't spend two hours wearing any of this stuff.
This seems to be the general opinion of people who can tolerate the things.

About 25-40% of the population becomes nauseated [1], which is a problem for a
consumer product. That's higher than roller coasters. VR is just not going to
be the Next Big Thing. Simple overlays in AR, maybe.

[1] [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/virtual-reality-has-
moti...](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/virtual-reality-has-motion-
sickness-problem)

~~~
onedr0p
I would definitely fall into that percentage. That mixed with myopia was a
definite no-go for me, trying to wear the headset with glasses was too much of
a hassle for me. If I didn't wear glasses the screen would be blurry and I
would start to get a migraine after 30 minutes of playing. I am still
interested in what AR has to offer.

------
notjustanymike
Honestly just sounds like a boring game. Wouldn't have been fun without VR, so
immersion isn't going to be some kind of magic bullet. The steam page does it
no favors; I couldn't find any examples of gameplay, and both videos show the
same general content. I suspect no one bought it because, well, there was no
reason to buy it.

------
filamentWow
Kind of pretty much clickbait, since no real money was expended across bank
accounts between two or more separate parties.

The author expounds on an appraisal of hypothetical money, if one imagine's
that he paid himself all labor costs to perform the work.

He spent several months working on a video game that didn't do well, and made
zero dollars.

Did I lose $6,000 dollars on a hypothetical bitcoin I never paid for in
August, when the value dropped last week?

No, I left the $10,000 dollars in my bank account, and I still have $10,000,
and/or whatever real goods or services I purchased with said money.

~~~
jowdones
Makes me vomit in my mouth when I read this sort of self-sufficient "I payed
myself $60 / hour". You know what? An amount can only be quoted if you're
PAYING someone else, it's only then when it stings.

These sort of entitled-clueless individuals wouldn't pay $6 / hour for an
UpWork contractor to make a game 10x better than their crap.

~~~
talltimtom
For accounting purposes he likely did actually pay himself the money,
transferring it from the company to himself, and adding the perceived value of
the game to tho company, which can write off the loss going forwards.

~~~
jowdones
Where I live (EU), if I pay myself "for accounting purposes" $60 / hour, then
I own the state $24 / hour in taxes. Did he actually pay =~ $20,000 in taxes?
If so, respect, he did pay himself $60 / hour. But I bet a castle that he
"payed himself" $60 / hour just like I pay myself a castle per hour when I do
side work. (Which is also why I so nonchalantly can afford to bet one :P)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
AIUI you can keep the wages in arrears, in UK tax is due when you actually
receive the money.

This is sensible: otherwise you might owe taxes if your employer company
collapsed and you weren't paid, but without having income to pay it.

------
jerkstate
that's not $42,500, that's 820 hours

~~~
peapicker
Another thing that's crazy is that writers, artists, 3d model animators, and
voice actors[1] never make $60 an hour doing this kind of work, and yet he
lumped those things under "developer time" high-level wages.

[1](Unless they're famous people for their particular talent category)

~~~
jblow
Union voice actors make hundreds of dollars per hour typically (a standard
good but not-very-famous video game voice actor makes 2x scale).

------
ngokevin
Nothing really to do with VR itself. If anything VR is more favorable for an
indie developer as there are less titles on the stores and a more fervent /
willing base of users (for desktop VR users), and more room to be creative
with interactions versus leaning on visuals.

But making money from indie games is tough in general, it takes a long time,
execution is difficult, and marketing is needed. Can even apply to just
general making money from app stores or software. Need to have a good idea,
execute, market, and stand out from the rest. App stores though give you some
boost in discoverability.

------
Mikeb85
So he actually lost nothing, apart from a bunch of free time, making a shitty
game that no one wants, then blames others for him not making money at the
rate he thinks he deserves. I've seen better looking atmospheric games made in
game jams...

------
pj_mukh
"Platform holders need to make it easier for VR game developers to get their
games onto their platforms and reach the people who want the game they’re
making. This goes beyond just financial, this goes towards publicity,
mentorship and more."

This point needs to be fleshed out more. What is say the Oculus App store
_not_ doing that the iOS app store is? As a _user_ (not a developer) of both,
I'm not seeing a difference.

~~~
maccard
It doersn't really - The poster made a crappy game, didn't market it, didn't
test it, and seems to blame others.

There are 3 reviews, all negative, with show stopping bugs even 6 months after
they first reviewed it. Poster says he didn't market it until 6 weeks before
release. This is just shovelware, unfortunately

~~~
Impossible
Yes, in this case there isn't much more platform holders can do, even if they
feature his game on the front page indefinitely it will get flooded with
negative reviews and sales will be low. You can't compare VR platforms with
iOS especially, but even Steam or a console market, because the number of
users is orders of magnitude smaller (250K-1 million VR users per platform).
In this case the best a platform holder can do is fund development so he can
potentially make a better game (hire a programmer and an artist for example),
but it doesn't seem like a situation where the concept was amazing and he
failed on execution.

------
reilly3000
Read the stories of also-rans from any medium and you'll find the same: lots
of 'reasons'. We live in a winner-take-all world. Being truly innovative and
enjoying the rewards that come along with it are exceptionally rare, and most
certainly succeed by filling a need that isn't met. I haven't messed with VR
since Oculus DK2's were brand new, but I'm certain the amount of vaporware.
What I Need is an outsized, impossible experience that justifies the medium
and my expensive purchase of tiny face monitors. The very idea of a clicker on
a medium that involves physical pain if I play it too long sounds like the
last thing I need. Kudos for trying though, its more than I have done.

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al_chemist
He earned $60 per hour and billed (himself) 820 hours. Title should be changed
to "How I earned $42,500 making a bad VR game". And he should tax it.

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discobean
It cost 43,200 to make and it sold 42,500 net, that's ok if he did it himself,
for a first effort, nicely done.

~~~
talltimtom
It didn’t sell 42,500 net. He writes that his net profit was -42,500. Note the
minus in front. He sold ~100 copies.

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theNJR
I lost $50k making a VR game show. That was fun!

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zygotic12
Notch was only in it for the money! Not!

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throwaway7658
phrasing it as losing money this way is dishonest attention seeking.

If a friend told me a group lost $10k making a game over the weekend, i'd
freak out

~~~
talltimtom
It is a business loss. And if the business paid this though borrowed money it
could end up going bankrupt, yet he’d still have the 42k$ that his company
paid him.

