
How much do indie PC devs make, anyways? - danso
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidGalindo/20150129/235301/How_much_do_indie_PC_devs_make_anyways_Part_6.php
======
gmu3
Indie game dev Jason Rohrer (Passage/The Castle Doctrine/Cordial Minuet)
recently had a forum post about his income. I'd link to it but he's requested
people not link to the Cordial Minuet forums:

We made $140K from The Castle Doctrine (and other games) in 2014. We made a
bit more from TCD in 2013 as well, with the grand total somewhere up near
$180K.

The TOTAL tribute received from all Cordial Minuet games so far is $683.4939.
Of course, I also paid out $420 in prize money for the first tournament. Thus,
the total income is only $263.49. I've been actively working on Cordial Minuet
since June 19, 2014.

Cordial Minuet is my 18th game. I made 12 games that made nothing or close to
nothing. My 13th game brought in a few thousand dollars. My 14th game brought
in about $100K. At that point, I had been making games for about 5 years, and
trying to make a living from independent software for about 7 years.

~~~
jere
While I'm a big fan, Rohrer might be a bad example. He's simultaneously well
known (your average dev is not) and yet lives a very austere life style and
puts artistic goals ahead of profit. For instance, his latest game won't
provide a livable salary unless it's supporting _millions of dollars_ being
gambled per year.

However, I'll say Cordial Minuet is a great game: exhilarating and pretty
deep. Doesn't hurt that I've won over $1,000 (results not typical).

~~~
downandout
Out of curiosity, how do you start a game on Cordial Minuet? At first glance
it appears to just be a bunch of gibberish on a landing page.

~~~
jpgleeson
It's currently only in beta so Rohrer has to email you a key to get access to
the download

------
otakucode
This is the sort of future I have expected for awhile now. Fewer multi-
million-dollar celebrity-making hits but far more people being able to make a
comfortable living off of serving a niche audience. Now that distribution is
worthless, creators don't have to chain themselves to "publishers" who skim
almost every penny the creator creates. Back in the Bad Ole Days before the
Internet, distribution was such a titanically difficult problem to solve, they
earned that skim... but they really have no call to it now. That opens things
up dramatically.

~~~
avgarrison
This is what I have found. I started indie game dev a back in 2009, and I'm
finally to the point where I'm making a very comfortable living, but by no
means a millionaire. However, having a small company with some fellow devs is
now in the realm of possibility, which is a long-time dream of mine.

Edit: My games are mostly mobile. I am really excited about the figures he
posted for Steam. I just got one of my games greenlit on Steam (SimpleRockets)
and I hope I can sustain further development on it.

~~~
stevecalifornia
Thank you for including Windows Phone in your distribution. I just bought
SimpleRockets!

------
drzaiusapelord
>Android managed to do fairly well with $9,605 in sales for 2014

This is pretty impressive. Usually the narrative is "don't bother with
Android, no one will buy because they all pirate." His Android app made almost
70% of his iPad app.

I have a game I'm working on - a simple visual novel/point-n-click/hidden-
object game. I see games of this type selling in the tens of thousands on
Steam. There's a huge market of non-FPS gamers, mostly women, looking for fun
and smart content. I personally love these games, they're relaxing and often
have a decent story to tell.

My dream here is 10k sales at $10, which is doable with the right product that
can be made by a very small team or even one person. I don't know if I will
hit that, especially my first time around, but its fun to think that this is a
practical goal for a one person dev. (I do coding, art, and music, but to be
fair I might need to buy music as I pretty much suck at it even by video game
standards.)

>Today, Cook, Serve, Delicious has grossed over $610,000 in sales across
mobile, Steam, distro websites

This is really inspiring. I'm so happy for his success.

>Steam accounts for 78% of that financial figure.

I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot
mobile is and how lame PC's are. Sometimes I kick myself for missing the big
mobile revolution. Steam is quite the juggernaut still, even with its 30% cut.

edit: when finished can i show it to HN or is that against the rules?

~~~
wlesieutre
> I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot
> mobile is and how lame PC's are. Sometimes I kick myself for missing the big
> mobile revolution. Steam is quite the juggernaut still, even with its 30%
> cut.

It may just be my personal prejudice based on my friend-group, but my
impression is that there are a lot more people on PC willing to seek out, try,
and talk about unusual/obscure games. More people on mobile tend to get their
game recommendations from the "Top Paid" and "Top Free" lists, and if you're
not Angry Birds or Minecraft Pocket you're not likely to have a lot of people
notice you.

Not that PC gaming doesn't include a huge contingent of people mainly play the
big releases (CoD etc), but even among my esports buddies who play DotA all
the time there's still a lot of excitement about smaller studios.

EDIT: Speaking of, anybody want a copy of _Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons_? I
picked up a couple of extras during the last Steam sale to give away since
it's not nearly as well known as it ought to be. Difficult to describe by
genre, but I might call it an interactive fairytale? Requires a controller
(each thumb stick controls a character).

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It may just be my personal prejudice based on my friend-group, but my
> impression is that there are a lot more people on PC willing to seek out,
> try, and talk about unusual /obscure games. More people on mobile tend to
> get their game recommendations from the "Top Paid" and "Top Free" lists, and
> if you're not Angry Birds or Minecraft Pocket you're not likely to have a
> lot of people notice you._

I want to add myself as a data point for you. I don't explore games (or apps)
in the Play Store, because 99% is crap. Randomly picked app/game is something
barely functional and evidently made for ad income. This makes me install only
the reputable apps (like Dropbox, Acrobat Reader) or ones that were
recommended by friends, on HN (I've bought an app just this month from a
recomendation here), or somewhere else. As for games, I don't shop for those
often on purpose, so unless someone suggests it to me, I probably won't find
it. PC games tend to be easier to encounter, I have more avenues to check
their quality before installing, and... there's this feeling that I have more
control over what I install on PC than on my phone.

------
danso
Just out of curiosity...anyone here actually play the OP's game? I bought it
awhile ago because it is one of the few "Overwhelmingly Positive" games on
Steam for the Mac (which no doubt helps the OP's sales there)...it's one of
the dumbest games I've ever enjoyed...And I mean "dumb" in a good way...it's
absurd to think that, after a long day of real work, I can get entertainment
out of frantically flipping burgers in your shoddy shack of a cafe for virtual
customers from 6AM to 10PM...but it's a testament to the game's solid design
and polish. Props to the OP for good work, and also, making something that
shouldn't be fun, _fun_.

~~~
yannyu
Worth noting, there's quite a pedigree of this sort of game in the Japanese
gaming market. There were all sorts of games on the Saturn, Playstation, PC
Engine, and others that has the player make burgers, cook fries, make ramen,
rice bowls, etc. A recent example is the Yoshinoya game for PS2:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt_sZwVoQv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt_sZwVoQv0)

In a similar vein to the "dumb" or mundane games are things like truck driving
simulators (Euro Truck Simulator), train driving simulators (Densha de Go!),
and passport control (Papers, Please).

------
corysama
Related: Octodad is an indie success story. They just published a numbers
infographic. [http://i.imgur.com/1YYPJiI.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/1YYPJiI.jpg)

Discussion with one of the devs
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/comments/2u8bsh/octodad_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/comments/2u8bsh/octodad_dadliest_catch_year_one_numbers/)

~~~
soup10
Octodad is a delightfully original and high quality game. The fact that it
hasn't won any significant awards and has mediocre ratings is pretty damn
funny. Good thing the market actually decides which games are successful and
not idiot critics.

~~~
_random_
Yeah, market loves games that are f..ing people right in the brain: Candy
Crush Saga, Clash of Clans and other 3 word combinations slapped on
psychologically-tuned IAP "fun".

------
kelukelugames
I've read all 5 previous parts and they are worth it.

But if you want the conclusion here it is. Keep in mind he was fairly
experienced before making this game. And I'm sure the blog series helped with
game sales.

>Just two and a half years ago, I questioned my decision to even make Cook,
Serve, Delicious after that awful first weekend of release. Today, Cook,
Serve, Delicious has grossed over $610,000 in sales across mobile, Steam,
distro websites and my cut from the Humble Bundle, with over 100,000 copies
sold. Steam accounts for 78% of that financial figure.

~~~
larsiusprime
As someone who has written a similarly successful series of blog posts sharing
game sales data, I can attest that does NOT help with game sales, at least not
in any directly measurable way.

~~~
aresant
Good content WRITING is about 20% of the job.

Good content MARKETING is about 80% of the job.

It's a misnomer to think that the stories you see in the headlines have
arrived there organically. PG has a brilliant article on this topic. (1)

It does happen sometimes - you write great content and you're rewarded - but
there are much more methodical / reliable way in honing your PR / growth
hackery skills.

Simple tips:

1) There are PR guides written by some of the big blogs to explain how to get
coverage without a PR agent (1)

2) Market to social communities like HN / Reddit where you can create
relationships with people directly and - without being a "UPVOTE ME" scum-bag
- get your content promoted because it's great and the community likes you.

3) There are multiple content-marketing services that you can use like
Taboola.com or Outbrain.com (typically used for other industries but could
work for you).

4) Hire a PR agent! The OP cleared $600k on his game and if your game is
similarly good to his game and all that lacks is proper marketing then get
serious about it. In my experience you can get a young / hungry PR person for
$2 - 3k/mo to pay attention. More traditional $5 - 10k/mo. The best get $25k+
They get paid that much because there are typically clear returns.

I love HN because it's so cross discipline, just my two cents as a marketer.

(1)
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

(2)
[http://indiegames.com/2013/07/five_pr_tips_indies_really_nee...](http://indiegames.com/2013/07/five_pr_tips_indies_really_nee.html)

~~~
larsiusprime
1) Articles I've written have been on the front page of HN, Slashdot, and
major subreddits multiple times.

2) My game has grossed more than the OP. We're doing just fine without a PR
agent.

I'm not complaining about coverage, we've gotten about as much coverage and
done as well or better (in a slightly longer timeframe). This feels a bit
weird b/c my point is not to talk about my own game, but the context
establishes my point.

My point is to provide data that contradicts the hypothesis "geez you wrote
this article and people liked it! Bet it helped sales, huh?" I have seen many
positive post-mortems by many high profile game devs, and every one I've seen
share data on the "did your articles increase sales" has never shown
correlated sales spikes of any significant size. My experience is exactly the
same.

To further explain: positive written PRESS does not correlate to sales spikes
all that much either, unless you attain simultaneous, saturation-level
positive coverage across everything.

Ask the OP if his articles have moved the needle on sales. I bet you $100
they're tiny blips at best.

That's not to say these articles are not worth writing -- just that they DON'T
lead to sales spikes.

To be clear, thanks for your 2 cents. Just trying to make it clear where I'm
coming from.

~~~
aresant
Totally clear. I inferred the opposite "I wrote the same posts and it didn't
matter". Thanks for the added context of you've done the same thing, had the
same exposure level on posts and seen insignificant results. Appreciate you
taking the time to respond -=

------
bojo
I've been building a mobile title for the last 6 months in my free time with a
good buddy of mine. We've sunk about $10k into art/business, and have a small
IOU list for the music, translation, etc. Very fun experience, but somewhat
stressful not knowing if there will be any payoff or not in the end. The F2P
market is also pretty hit and miss, and mobile discovery is of course
horrible.

We're trying a Japanese crowd funding site at the moment, mostly for the
advertising than the cash. We will be targeting Japanese and English on our
first release.

[http://camp-fire.jp/projects/view/1426](http://camp-
fire.jp/projects/view/1426) \- kind of gives the gist of what it is about.

I can only pray we break even, let alone be as successful as Cook, Serve,
Delicious! Very inspiring to see hard work like that pay off.

------
IkmoIkmo
Really awesome to read this, I've been reading his blog for years now and I
still remember him making a few hundred dollars off of a game. Or making $4k
in 1 year of sales of a game that he built with 3 people between November and
June, while he worked as a barista to pay the bills.

It's absolutely wonderful then to see him generate $600k in two years of
sales. He's obviously committed to game development long term and this will
allow him to do just that without huge financial worries for a few years.

That having been said, his earlier experiences are the typical ones. (making
$2500 in sales after spending 6 months on development and 12 months selling).
It's a really though market.

------
marcusestes
I recently started a podcast about the financial side of the indie game
business. On our debut episode Neven Mrgan (of Panic and co-creator of The
Incident and Space Age) to open up about his sales figures.
[http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidGalindo/20150129/235301/How_...](http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidGalindo/20150129/235301/How_much_do_indie_PC_devs_make_anyways_Part_6.php)

------
lifeisstillgood
What strikes me is the way he missed the steam deadline.

It was actually painful in my stomach to read - all sorts of words like
"unprofessional" or "cannot release it in that state". Yet the apparent
support from the community (hey it's a beta, get some sleep) is amazing - and
I think bespokes a new less Big Bang approach to releases that I am going to
try and push at worl

------
hellbanner
I'm attending indiecade.com next month, hoping that by showing my game to
people willing to travel for an indie game conference, I'll get increased
word-of-mouth & marketing>

Does anyone have experience doing similar?

~~~
lazerwalker
I assume you mean Indiecade East
([http://indiecade.com/east](http://indiecade.com/east))? Indiecade is a
fantastic event, but I think of it as much more an event for indie devs to
shoot the shit and have fun than a great place to find an audience.

You'll probably get to show your game to some appreciative fans, and you'll
probably have a great time, but I wouldn't necessarily assume it'll be that
great for your game. Might be slightly different if your game is being
formally featured, but even then...

~~~
hellbanner
Yeah, thanks. The Schedule looks like fun and I'm hoping to connect with other
devs. (For communication, collaboration and the hopes that they share my game
dev with their networks).

------
Immortalin
I have been building a app store/site for indie apps/games in the past few
months, I am hoping that a smaller community would give indie developers
greater outreach.

------
hudell
I'm developing a game on my free time too. I've already worked more than a
thousand hours on it and I still don't know if I'll go commercial or not.

~~~
hoggle
What's holding you back?

~~~
hudell
Having to pay for many assets that are free for non commercial projects.

~~~
eropple
I'm in a similar boat. Not that I can't afford it--working in tech for a day
job makes that much less of a problem--but more that actually finding the
people to produce assets. Reliable art folks are really, really hard to come
by. I've had artists disappear after doing a couple trials, _before even
getting paid for them_. It's bizarre.

------
shenoyroopesh
Wow, 78% from Steam!

Does anyone know if there is enough demand for educational games on Steam?
Worth porting from mobile?

------
jameshart
Well, assuming that some indie devs make nothing at all, and some indie devs
are Notch, I'd say, anywhere from zero to $1.7 billion.

~~~
ccvannorman
To expand on this a little more, game development has an extremely long tail -
perhaps <1% of games are Angry Birds or Minecraft, 2-3% may do decently, ~96%
never make cost.

~~~
TillE
You're including all the zero-effort garbage that floods the app store in your
speculative figures. And even those might break even because the budget was
probably $12.

Look at the "real" indie games market (for the sake of argument, exclude
anything not sold on Steam or GOG), and things look much more favorable.

~~~
learc83
Exactly. Every time I see a discussion about this someone brings up "There are
10,000 new games a month. Making money is pure luck."

When you remove all the student games, the angry birds clones, the board-game
clones, and the just plain terrible games, you're left with a much smaller
pool of competitors.

Being an indie developer is like being an actor. Everyone thinks that it's all
about luck, but they forget that 99 out of a 100 people who move to California
to make it in Hollywood, can't act their way out of a paper bag.

If you move to LA, and you have actual acting talent and the looks to match,
chances are you can make money--maybe you won't be a huge star, but you've got
a good chance at earning a living.

~~~
_random_
Good analogy. One can also become a "porn" actor: producing lots of poor-
quality ad-driven Android games (which is most of Android games).

