Realistic Amount Of Money To Be Made With Unity And Android?

I've been getting into Unity lately, and I just thought about how much money is possible to make if I only develop for Android and possibly Windows Phone. If I were to make fun, little arcade/high score games for only Android and possibly Windows Phone, would I be able to afford a new Macbook Pro within a reasonable amount of time? I need a new computer soon and I want to make a transition to Apple. I'd use the Mac with a dual boot of Windows and Mac OS X. Another reason for wanting a Mac is for technical reasons such as the possibility of iOS development and Xcode and I just like Mac OS X.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

It depends entirely on your skills.

 

Is it a realistic goal for someone who is sort of new to all of this?

 

I would say not.

 

Indeed. I would say that it is "possible", but very, very unlikely.

To reiterate what Tyler said, it is going to depend on skills. If you are new to this, you can't really even evaluate your skill level yet. But you have start somewhere.

It is very unlikely your first game will make any profit. But don't let that discourage you. Once you get a few games under your belt you will have started to get a much better idea of what you can do and how to improve. Your first game might not let you buy a laptop, but your tenth may let you buy a house. And there is no shortcut between 1 and 10. Keep at it!

 

The general reputation android has is for being full of pirates. Many developers report the iPhone as being a more profitable market.

I haven't developed for either, I'm just parroting the feel I get from the forums.

 

General reports, and also based on my experiences (generally), it is 20% of the revenue of the App store when for the amount of users. Much less if it is a pay only (once) app. Ad revenue (from what I have heard, no experience with it) is roughly the same.

 

I can only speak for my experience, but I've made enough from my first game to pay for Unity Pro.. And to be honest its just a crappy puzzle game that is Android only. I should add the game is ad supported and this is over a period of 1.5 years.

If you are doing it for the money...then you will probably be disappointed... Monetization remains an afterthought to me. I would much rather focus my efforts on gameplay first. My opinion is if you make something fun and worth playing... money will come along with the players. Obviously there is quite a bit more to it than this, but its my 2c.

The hard part to me is coming up with a great idea that has not been done a million times over or that takes a team to accomplish

 

I'm in your same mumbling state, digging into Unity free for a while with the desire to make games for Android for fun and of course for make some dingding, cos I need also to eat sometime. What is keeping me down is the huge investment Unity is asking me to do to just try to see if I am worth for it - 3K is really too much to risk and there are out there way cheaper options like the Unreal engine which with just 20$ allow me to try a leap into the unknown safely. What is keeping me from jumping there is that I already know and love Unity, I dont' wanna C++ or to stick my hands in overbloated game dev tools, hoping that, sooner or later, Unity billing policies will open to more reasonable alternatives for a wider spectrum of devs, even low-end indie devs like me.

 

There are plenty of developers who are successful using Unity Free. You are not required to buy it.

 

Free will do fine for your first few games. You aren't going to know what to do with the pro features anyway.

 

with successful do you mean they made cash? I would really like to see one of them - free or not - because I didn't happen to download any android game with the ugly Unity black screen logo loader in 6 years.

 

One of the more commonly known games was Thomas Was Alone. It was developed within Unity Free. It no longer has the logo because of the upper limit of Unity Free ($100,000 gross revenue annually).

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/02/25...tore-is-a-path-to-more-ambitious-indie-games/

If you need more examples I believe @Andy Touch has a list of them somewhere.

 

I think more of then than not, if you think you need pro, then you aren't ready for pro. In other words, more often than not, if you can't do it in free, then you won't be able to do it in pro. Especially for mobile. Because I have an asset on the store, I just got temporary access to pro. Seeing what the soft shadows and bloom did for my game makes me really really want pro. In fact, I don't want to release the final version of the game until I have it. But what I want and what I need are two different things. Almost everything that pro can do is about increase the visual quality. You don't need that, you want that. And gamers, especially mobile gamers, aren't going to care.

 

well that is what I call a good example - BTW I played it on PC, unaware it was made in Unity.
ok I feel more relaxed now and maybe this answer is good for undefeated_monarch as well

 

This.

Also, if the concern is that $3k is a risk because you have never built a game and don't know if you can then Free is perfect. Build a game in free. Even if you never plan to release that one. Then the person will know if purchasing Pro is worth it. Unity free is an awesome deal for new users. No strings, no monetary investment. All the features in pro are there to make games better, not to make games.

 

Heh... this is exactly why I left indie so long ago. As my games got better and more successful, I wanted to do bigger and bigger games. Starting working a small team, then indie studio, startups, and then big studios. Rather than limit my scope, I expanded my resources.

 

Now is probably also a good time to mention that $3k is a relatively small amount of money for starting a business. There are a whole bunch of people out there in other industries that would kill for $3k startup costs instead of $100k or more.

 

I almost said something similar. No one is going to give you free restaurant and equipment to see if you actually do it. Monetarily speaking, game dev is really cheap to get into. The real cost is time.

 

Of course not. By almost any definition making successful games pushes you over the 100k limit. You must buy pro. And since you have pro, you kill the splash screen.

 

Not only that, but most localities won't even let you start a catering business from your home kitchen, because so many people die from food cooked on consumer stoves....or something. So even for the most bare bones of food service business you need a food truck or a separate room (sometimes separate building) for your kitchen. Thankfully, in our field we only need a separate room if we want the tax write-off. And most retail outlets take more than the 30% that people complain about our outlets taking. We are really very fortunate with regards to startup and operating costs. That doesn't stop the complaints though. I guess it's just human nature to want more for less.

 

The flip side is the flooded market. Low entry barriers has it's downsides.

 

No kidding. From 2009 to today I've went from I-can-support-myself income to apparently-I'm-a-caveman-now income.

 

I would call a huge success to earn enough to repay me a Unity pro license making a game with the free flavour and for what Ryiah said above seems a target pretty much reachable. We'll see...

 

Mobile development has a lot of competition now with each platform having different ways of marketing the games. Android seems to be primarily free games as an example. I have also read posts mentioning Blackberry as a small market that doesn't receive much attention but I don't know that much about it myself.

Edit: Found the thread again. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/has-unity-abandoned-blackberry-support.294566/

 

After hating Blackberry for years, I fell in love with the Playbook I bought for development, and after using my Z10 I can't stand using my iPod or Android devices. So, I'm now a true believer. But Blackberry themselves has pretty much told developers that they want us to publish games on the Amazon market and let the App World be for business class software. At least that's the impression pretty much everyone got when they made the announcement about including the Amazon market on the device. I don't really use apps on my phone besides the browser, a weather app or two, and Facebook, which may explain why the lack of apps compared to other platforms isn't a deal breaker for me. But I still don't really like the idea of non-native apps becoming the standard. Either way, Blackberry seems to have abandoned games for Blackberry long before people speculated that Unity had.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the responses. I just wanted to say that I just turned 15 years old and I was wondering about the possibilities with Unity. My first goal is to create a working game and bring it to Android. Just the thought of having my own game working on an Android device is satisfying enough!

I was just thinking that maybe it could be possible with a few games to afford a MacBook Pro, not because it's Apple, but just for some technical reasons and their reliability.

Lately, I've been starting projects, but never finishing them. Now, I plan on forcing myself to finish a game, especially since I have this week off from school (March Break ). It'll just be a simple game considering that I'm a beginner at all of this and I'm learning Unityscript since I personally like the syntax more than C#, I don't know why, I just do. As for Boo, no one seems to use, so I'd say good luck at finding any tutorials on it for Unity.

I have a Moto G 2013 (great cheap phone by the way) that I'd use for testing and such. Obviously this phone isn't a beast, I'd say it might even be below average in terms of Android device specs, so if my games can run on my Moto G, they are likely to run on many other devices.


Which is better for a small, beginner game? Free with in-app purchases and ads? Or pay once? I also plan on testing with that.

Also, keeping in mind that I've never actually finished a project (I've started using Unity as my first game engine 1 month ago) how long should a simple Android game take to make in hours, days, or even months! My games will not have superb graphics since I can't even wrap my head around Blender. I find using Blender and 3DS Max (student license) much harder than programming and Unity, but that's just me...

Thanks!

 

Also, money is not my main motive. I just have a horrible laptop. I would love to get a new one. For gaming (just like any teen boy would ) and for game development mainly Unity. If have the latest Mac OS X running alongside Windows 8.1, and then eventually Windows 10...

I have one thing that concerns me about game development. It's the graphics. I cannot use tools like Photoshop or Blender or 3DS Max. I don't know why. I can use Unity, UDK (to some extent) but none of those tools for the graphics. Are graphics really that important on mobile platforms?

Again, thanks!

 

I would count on at least a month. Both of the two simple games in the Imperial Nostalgia game listed in my signature took me about two weeks and I've been coding professionally since 2009 and as a hobby since the early 90s. Of course, it depends on the amount of polish you want to add. I could spend hours tweaking a single texture, or the position of a single UI object if I let myself, and I often do let myself. Then I end up going back and re-tweaking it a couple of times anyway.

But I wouldn't get hung up on how long it should take. If it takes longer, you'll end up feeling frustrated. And I can assure you that it will almost always take longer than you expect. I didn't count on either of those games taking two weeks. I'm not counting on the next one taking two weeks, but I know it probably will.

 

Totally free is your best bet. On your first app ignore monetisation altogether. Treat it as throw away, just get it out, and get as much feedback as you can.

Here's why

• Monetisation turns off users. For it to work you app needs to be good enough
• Monetization requires a huge user base to be successful
• Your first app is going to suck
• Getting 400 downloads and no revenue will be a better result then getting 100 downloads and 22 cents

 

So basically, I should make it completely free, with no ads, to maximize downloads and feedback?

 

Also, if any of you guys have gone through Computer Science courses in College and University, what is it like? Are most people that are there already quite familiar with programming? I've just recently started programming and I'm 15 and was also wondering if this is a little too old to begin a journey in computer science? Thanks again

 

Let's be honest, the game makers, Ketchapp, their games aren't of high quality, yet, they must still make quite a lot of money because their games are on a lot of people's devices and I've also heard that they use Unity as a game engine? The graphics in those games are so simple, they can be easily made in Paint on Windows!

 

As a Computer Scientist (CS Degree) I can say that 15 certainly is not too old. I'd forget about money for now. Intend to make something fun that you would like playing. If at the end you decide it is great, you can monetise it. If not, release it for free and start making something fun again.

I've programmed a ton of stuff and released a few games in different engines. Some have made me money and others have not. My current Unity project is something that I cooked together a few years ago to inspire some young people that anything was possible. I've decided to polish it up a little and release it. I have no idea how it will be received. It's very basic and uses primitives within Unity for all of the graphics. I find it fun and challenging and so do some others that have tried it.

 

The original reason that I brought money in this discussion was to upgrade my current computer.
I have many reasons for wanting a MacBook Pro instead of my current laptop.
They seem more reliable. Xcode. Mac OS X is quite stable. Dual boot Windows and Mac OS X. Etc...
My final reason for wanting a new MacBook Pro is that it'll motivate me even more to just continue making games for mobile devices and even bring some games to iOS. An Apple computer is need to bring apps to the App Store anyways, I also have an iPad Mini 2 that I can test my games on.

Other than the whole MacBook Pro idea, I just do this for fun. Recently, I've been enjoying programming and Unity more than actually gaming. My PlayStation 3 has been collecting dust for awhile now! Hahha!

Again, thanks for the responses!

 

By the way, my current laptop is an HP Pavilion g6 2235-ca.
The specs are:
8GB DDR3 RAM
Intel i3 3110-M 2.4GHz
Intel HD 4000
Hitachi 750GB HDD
Windows 8.1 & Windows 10 Tech Preview.

Also, I'm very picky on how my electronics look visually, and honestly, this laptop looks cheap, not only that, but once I brought it to school for a project, and my friends accidentally knocked it off of my desk and now there is a crack in the corner of the keyboard that bothers the heck out of me for no good reason...

Anyways, enough of me rambling on about stuff...

Thanks again for the help!

 

All of these guys are giving you really good advice. Your best bet right now is just to focus on actually finishing something....anything really... to get your feet wet. You can worry about great graphics and monetization later.

Having an older android device to test on is actually a good thing sometimes... During production of my first game I used my oldest device (Moto Droid X) as a base for benchmarking... if the game ran well on that device, I was sure that it would run well on most. Granted, this also means you will not be producing the next Dead Trigger or Quake on mobile any time soon. but if you are starting with goals like that...then it is likely you will never finish anything.

The best advice I can give is just to make something you love... something that is fun to you. More often than not, other people will find it to be just as much fun as you do ... things like this have a way of making you spend a lot of time obsessing over them. The feeling you get when you finally finish something that you worked a month or longer on can't be beat imho. Just have fun and commit to finishing something that you love.

 

About having an older Android device, I have a Moto G 2013, which I think would be good for benchmarking considering that it is a bit on the lower end side of current leaders on the Android phone market.

Yes, obviously I won't be making the next Dead Trigger haha That was my original problem when I had first started. I basically told myself to make a First-Person Shooter, and never came close to finishing the basic mechanics of that game.

Also, I do agree, this is some pretty good advice, and I really appreciate it!

I find that the hardest part at the moment is the graphics because at the moment, I can't make anything pretty. Another difficult part is coming up with an idea that hasn't been done before with little coding skills. At the moment I'm using Unityscript in... well... Unity. I've already learned the bare minimum of C++ a year ago, and I've also learned a bit of Python a few months ago when I first got myself a Raspberry Pi B+. (I suggest you Google search the Raspberry Pi if you don't know what it is. Hint: Credit card size computer, running a Linux distro, capable of making robots, and costs $35).

Again! THANKS!

 

I'm not sure where you are located but generally speaking there are many ways to make money that will be much faster and more guaranteed than making games. Here in the USA a 15 year old can get out and shovel sidewalks and driveways in the winter, mow lawns, light landscaping and other work in the summer to earn money. The return on investment (mainly just your time and effort) from such activities is much higher than if they spent the same amount of time making games. Heck when I was a teen I made $100 to $200 in a day just from going out and shoveling snow. Sure it was an all day thing and damn tiring by the end but very good money. From late Spring to Early Fall I made a few hundred dollars per month just from mowing lawns. The reason people say focus on games to learn and improve instead of making money is because it is much more effective for you to focus on making games for fun and focusing on making money in other ways. You will get much needed game dev experience and make money much faster to upgrade your dev gear. So many people seem to be coming into game dev to make money and they don't seem to understand when you are first getting started it is unlikely you will make anything (at least meaningful). By the time you have made 6 to 7 simple games and worked as much as you can off the computer to make money you should have both the gear you want and the experience you need to make a game that will make you some money.

 

I think some are misunderstanding my main goals here. I can still make games with my current laptop. I want to make fun games. I have fun using Unity. The whole money part was just a secondary thought. Sure, it would be nice to make money quick, but I know that that isn't a reality. I most certainly don't expect to make a living off of mobile game development!
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that, money involved would be like an extra.

First off, I live in Canada, but my exact location is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farms. Sure I can make money shoveling snow and mowing lawns, but I'm mainly looking at gaining experience with game development. Money is just like a bonus. That's all. I never came here expecting to make a million bucks with only a few games.

Now, just forget about the whole money part of this discussion...

Again, thanks.

 

You'll make near to nothing on Android.

 

Okay. Well you can't really blame people for replying talking about the money aspect when your thread title seems to be specifically asking about the money part of it: Realistic Amount Of Money To Be Made With Unity And Android?
I certainly thought you were focused on the making money aspect.

On the doing other things to make money to be able to upgrade your dev gear what I meant about that is if you want to upgrade your gear you need money, right? Instead of trying to get that money from game dev do other work such as shoveling snow, mowing lawns, hauling brush whatever. You can still get experience with game development when you are not doing those things. When I returned home physically tired from those long days of shoveling snow I enjoyed a big cup of hot chocolate while spending the evening hours working on games. It is not a only one or the other thing. One is the way to make money to upgrade your dev gear. The other is time spent on game dev to improve your skills. They can work together to get you where you want to be as fast as possible.

 

Yes, sorry about the title. I understand. My fault...
Anyways. Guys, thanks for the great advice. I'll put it to good use.

Thanks!

 

whoever says there's no money in android is wrong!

I've got over 6500 downloads and I've made at least $10!

#prolevel

 

How many months did it take?

 

that's approx 4 months

 

Just leaving this here. You can make your own conclusions.

 

Notice too that the vast majority of those are free. Better start learning how to handle ads and IAPs.

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/app-prices/

 

just read to the right column: "Crossy Road has now generated $3 million with Unity Ads"