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How to earn £12,000 in one year from game development?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Arowx, Sep 10, 2011.

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How much do you earn from games development

  1. $10,000 or Less - Just for Fun

    139 vote(s)
    64.7%
  2. $30,000 or Less it's still a hobby

    8 vote(s)
    3.7%
  3. $30,000 or More making a living from it

    68 vote(s)
    31.6%
  1. Arowx

    Arowx

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    The Challenge:
    I have a 365 day runway (until 9 Sep 2012) to earn £20k (about $32k) from games development.

    The earnings value is based on a UK minimum wage calculation of about £6 per hour 9-5 job, and factoring in that I will have to pay money to make them, buying in music ect, and overheads for payment providers?

    Resources:
    Me, Unity, PC, Mac, iPod, Android.

    Currently I manage to produce game 'Prototypes' like these http://www.kongregate.com/accounts/Arowx/favorites

    Hurdles:
    Art, 3D Animation, Procrastination, Funds, Motivation, Experience, Marketing

    Forfeit:
    If I have not hit or exceeded this target by the deadline and proved I can make a living from games I have to dust off my CV and get a job!

    So what advice would you give or better still how do you do it?
     
  2. ivanzu

    ivanzu

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    2,065
    You can quit right away if you cant make good looking games i would suggest you to do games only for ios and android because they will bring you money.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  3. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Fast turnaround on ios. Set up a structure where you can bang a game out quicker than in 3 months per game, you really don't want to hang around. Don't be afraid to reuse an earlier game's codebase reskinned or whatever. You just want to make the 20k at this point.

    Marketing isn't a problem, you just need to do it smart and submit very polished games. And do that within 3 months per game. By sept 2012 you want at least 4-6 games on appstore earning 30k or more. Keep making games. Port the most successful of them at the end of the year.

    Play to your strengths. Do *not* pick a game style you don't already know. R&D will kill your development times dead. Don't bother being original, be smart, and fast.

    Document any outsourcing you get because the tax man *will* find you. Before april get an accountant (face to face, not online) and let him sort out your well documented finances. Don't worry much about that though.

    Summary:

    1. make a business plan which includes your workflow, with time allocated for development and marketing

    2. document any outsourced work, save all your purchases and receipts

    3. get to work on polishing and shipping ALL your prototypes on ios today. Just ship them all on ios, make some early cash. Mirror each paid download with a demo version + iad or admob. If you're dead smart, you can have 2-3 games out on ios in the first month (by porting).

    4. play to your strengths, ignore graphics styles you cannot do. Pick a style you can do very well. Oh and avoid primary colours - it makes your game look cheap.

    5. Just get working now. Pick a game you've half finished, finish it and ship it. This is war. it is business. you can't delay!
     
  4. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Sounds like ios is the main contender as a target platform, is andoid an option?

    @hippocoder Thanks for the great feedback. 2-3 games out in first month, that would be a challenge, not sure I'm that smart!

    Any other takers before I take hippocoders advice and start finishing me next game?

    I'm using Kongregate as a testbed / advertisement for my games plus I get quick feedback on what people think of them, is this a good idea?

    Is it worth investing in the ios pro license?

    What about in app purchases and the Freemium model could this work for smaller games?
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  5. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    1. android is S***. Ignore everyone else on these forums you're really not going to get far doing that vs ios as a business platform to make early money. The devices might be fun but you have vastly less chance of making some good cash. It's a good port-to platform after ios. Android will suck up HUGE amounts of your time with support, devices that plain don't work and having to deal with a store you have to run manually (including refunds) on the off chance you have a polished enough game that hive of pirates will even buy.

    2. kongregate? are you out of your mind? thats a time sink right there. You don't need morons from kongregate. You need to finish your game and ship already on ios + marketing. Kongregate alone is a waste of all the time you could spend emailing, making a trailer and shipping your game.

    3. not worth investing in pro license unless you're hitting higher budgets, know shaders inside out etc. Instead go basic for now, use scene 0 to show your loading text + logo (minimal graphics, not full screen splash) so it switches from the unity splash screen quickly. Scene 1 will contain your game.

    I am not trying to be rude, I'm just telling you exactly what I know works from my perspective without frills. You need cash, you need to eliminate kongregate (it doesn't market your game at all whatsoever and the people are freeloaders en masse). Leave android till later (it may even be ad revenue only).

    In short, grab basic ios and shoot for shipping a port within the month, you need to do this to learn how to ship on that platform ASAP. This is about money, not your magnum opus. It's about gaining enough momentum to break through and be independent.

    The magnum opus comes when you personally can afford the time to do it. Classic time is money right here. GO GO GO!
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
    imDanOush likes this.
  6. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    ps. watch less TV. if you only have less than a year you need to really focus. Don't burn out though, that'll slow you down more.

    Re: ios. set that up early, as sole trader. You'l need form W8-EN and file an EIN in philly (USA) to submit to apple or you'll get screwed by 30% of your profits being held by the US. Full docs on tax and banking bit in itunes connect. Easy process, just time consuming. Get it out of the way early since it involves posting forms to apple in america.

    In one year you will most likely have well over 20k if you follow this path. Aim to ship first game sometime in october.

    Later, port to android, throw it at unity's union. If you reach your 20k goal, immediately port to pc/mac/kong and let them bring in some passive income... but leave those till later and focus hardcore on ios for a bit.


    Ask me when the games done! :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  7. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Cool advice hippocoder!

    Well I've put up a blog post highlighting the challenge the forums I've put the question out on and I'm also e-mailing a few of the indies I know about!

    http://blog.arowx.com////blog1.php/2011/09/10/the-challenge-day-1

    Now I'm going to take your advice and get to work on completing my first ios game!

    What about Android as a test platform quicker turnaround and possible feedback?
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  8. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    No.

    No feedback, no blogs. Just a worklog on your desktop. I've told you, focus on where the money is. It isn't other people giving feedback, let that wait till its fully finished then just hack whatever changes are needed on the end. You don't need people, you're smart enough.

    My first ios game took a week and made 14 grand. I'm sure you can get moving mate :)

    When you've made your years cash, why not worry about making a much better game then?
     
    imDanOush likes this.
  9. bug5532

    bug5532

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    Hey Arowx, I am currently trying to do the same thing as you. But I dont own anything apple so am going to go down the android road, after what hippocoder has said im now a lot more worried than I was, but meh, worth a shot right?
    Good Luck, hope you succeed :)
     
  10. Waigo

    Waigo

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    Have you ever develop games before?
    Making games requires much more than you think.
    For iOS, the quality line of the store is getting more higher than years ago.
     
  11. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I'm not anti-android, but nearly everyone except those that failed to market right on ios made more money on ios, its a captive market that works well. True, the bar of quality is higher but if you push well and get seen, you'll make your targets. As for android, well, money can be made, but its a lot more intensive work to make money and everyone I've worked with or know personally, hasn't done as well on the platform. That doesn't mean you shouldn't, it means that it's harder and therefore not as high a priority.

    What works for me might not work for you at all. That's worth bearing in mind.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  12. dogzerx2

    dogzerx2

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    @Hippo: Sorry for my extreme ignorance, by ios are you refering to the iphone, or macs altogether?

    If you're talking about the iphone it really makes me want to invest in unity iOS, and on an iphone!

    Does iOS work with unity free?
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  13. Moonjump

    Moonjump

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    iOS is iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Macs use OS X.

    You need the $400 iOS extension to Unity free.
     
  14. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Yeah you don't actually need unity pro at all. I do, because I use both render to texture and the extended sound stuff like reverb and so on, so it was a no brainer.

    For the most part, occlusion culling and static batching seem geared towards FPS games rather than what you could do with unity ios basic, because in basic, its sufficient to cull whatever's offscreen (platform games etc).
     
  15. CharlieSamways

    CharlieSamways

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    @hippo: reading all this sounds crazy.. it sounds like its soo easy to make a living from a months work a year? If what your saying is true I really am contemplating on learning Unity and basic code.
     
  16. GiusCo

    GiusCo

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    On paper it sounds well, but quality is going up big time and you need to come out with polished products: there are many stories of decent products selling quite bad actually. One detailed, success story shared here in the forum is from Martin and his racing game, but he is not at break-even yet.

    As for you, being very young you can go on improving your skills at your own pace and pave your way as a contractor, which is the easiest way to make an income here.
     
  17. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    He sounds just like me. My little hippo is all grown up. *sniff*

    :D

    To re-iterate and reinforce many points:

    Forget your magnum opus, save it for when you have the luxury of time. Build a machine that you can crank a handle on and turn out a game.

    Don't create new technology until you can afford to, stick with tried and true ideas.

    Reskin any games you currently have ready and get those out the door. Get yourself used to the delivering process. Polish up something simple and ship it. Do it again, again, again, and again.

    Don't try to make an all singing, all dancing version up front. Get it out the door, then go back and add fancy things like online high scores, social integration, etc.

    Get your core game play done early.

    Don't spend money you don't have. The only reason I use Pro is because clients insist that the splash screen is removed.

    Track everything you spend and everything you earn. Everything...

    Only build a blog about the development process if you want to get congratulations and slaps on the back from 15 yr old dweebs or you are looking to build a name and reputation for yourself so you can get hired by a company to create games for them. It is a great resume builder, it is a lousy marketing tool unless you are making hard core games. You've got one year, you aren't making hard core games.

    If you do build a development blog, keep it on a completely separate, totally unrelated domain to the marketing specific web site. Do not muddy your message. If you pick up client work, keep that on a completely separate, totally unrelated domain to the game website. Make sure your development blog doesn't out rank your marketing website when people search for your game.

    Pick a strong name that you can own in Google so that no matter what search engine the consumer uses they can find your game on the first page of results.

    Build a game specific website. Build a game specific page on your larger website. Info dump on features, lots of call to action statements, lots of pictures, oversell the game.

    Forget about analytics or anything that isn't core game play until after the game has shipped.

    Push Android out to a late part of the development cycle. Every client I have interacted with in the past year has been "we must be on Android" and my work plan for them has been to push Android out until well after web, PC, iOS, Facebook (in that order) and a few other biggies, Mac before we finally get to Android. It really is a problem platform, huge numbers of consumers but the platform is fragmented and the consumers are freeloaders wanting almost everything for free.

    Forget Kongregate or anything web based that is ad supported for making money unless you a) push it out to after your game has shipped on other platforms or b) use it as a test bed to ensure there are no egregious bugs in your game. Do not do tight integration on platforms that don't pay you lots of cold hard cash on a regular basis. Kongregate is not one of those. Neither is Wooglie. Ignore your non-paying customers unless they are reporting bugs.

    Unless you have a highly anticipated hit on your hands, i.e. you're Popcap and you are upselling your next big game to players who already own your current crop of games don't worry about pre-marketing your game, just make sure you have a marketing plan. You can market your game years after it has been on the market, just don't forget to actually market and advertise otherwise you won't hit your numbers.

    Send out review copies to every single large, medium, small and piddling little review website you can find. I don't care if the guy running the website has ten readers, send him a review link. Get a press release professionally created, send those out with the link. Follow-up. Hit up the really big websites multiple times (don't spam) until they listen.

    Every time you make a change to your game or port it to a new platform, send out a press release. Use a press release writing and sending service if you can.

    Spend your early dollars on making people aware of your game, not on fancy tools that won't add immediate value to your bottom line. We're all geeks, we all like shiny new toys, and as programmers, we will sit and lament that we can only ship our cool new game if we have that expensive tool. Forget that, ship the game first, you can go back and fix your mistakes later. This isn't console development.

    Avoid competitions like the plague, e.g. IGF unless you are just looking to get a boner from all the congratulatory hugs of other developers. Your paying audience doesn't give a s**t.

    And finally, stay away from FPS, MMORPG, RPG, platform, or any nonsense that requires networking until you have made some dough. They are a huge time suck that won't net you very much unless you actually have a much, much longer runway. You can make money on these things, but it is highly unlikely you can achieve it in just one year.
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
    andreyshade likes this.
  18. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Quality bar is rising all the time: I have a massive edge as I'm an artist first and programmer second. Plus working with me, is a hardcore AAA artist, so I can't lose presentation wise.

    ps. papa JustinLloyd is right :D
     
  19. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Wow some good advice!

    I've just been porting Lightning to my Android phone, just as test bed and it ran, well I need to change the controls lots but it worked!

    Unity is cool ;0)

    My Mac dev environment is based on a really old Mac and it's Veeeeryyy Sllooow, this could be a problem!
     
  20. I am da bawss

    I am da bawss

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    Oh don't listen to them! MAKE MMO! THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS! ALL THE COOL KIDS ON THE BLOCKS ARE ALL IN ON IT!
     
  21. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    There are people on these forums making a s***-load of money for very little work**, they just don't talk about it very much. I charge clients a lot of money for my advice and software development skills.

    ** A lot of work by other people's standards.

    The first one is free.

    P.S. I voted but you missed a zero off the end of third poll option.
     
  22. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Dev on android, get controls perfect etc etc, then use the ancient mac for the final bit of compiling etc.
     
  23. CharlieSamways

    CharlieSamways

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    Woah, scary to think you make so much money O.O; Im thinking about investing into these books on how to be a better freelancer and how to sell yourself but they cost $100 and don't know whether its worth it. Right now I guess I just need to keep improving, then maybe ill come to you for information :L you seem to have your 'game' together. quite motivating listening to peoples success.
     
  24. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  25. CharlieSamways

    CharlieSamways

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    Very inspirational ;)
     
  26. jasonkaler

    jasonkaler

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    Lol. What would be even better is to make the MMO button every second poster is asking for. If you sell it for $1 a pop, you'll make a million right there!

    Doesn't matter what industry you're in - Lots of work = lots of money.
     
  27. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    Every time your name pops up on the forums I think of Jason Kaehler, an ex-colleague of mine.

    http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonkaehler

    I think we should start a collaborative project to make that MMO button that we give away for free and link to whenever we see an MMO post pop-up. We could make a range on them: FPS, Zombie, MMO. It just instantiates a bunch of simple prefabs in a procedurally generated world and all the user has to do is supply all the underlying code. ;)
     
  28. RoyS

    RoyS

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    Curious, is this a goal you have made for yourself or pressure from family? That's quite a goal. Some excellent advise was offered here.

    I'm fortunate to have a partner who supports my game development and gives me encouragement.
     
  29. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    its not worth buying books for, I never learned from books. I just learned by doing, I think in programming, since its so high-level now, it is more about the doing than some complex learning path.
     
  30. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    I am a great advocate of good quality books. Get a decent C# reference or JavaScript reference if you are just starting out with those languages. Ensure you get a reference-type book not a tutorial-type book if you have some programming experience in any other language. Once you are up to speed, read books on technique rather than on technology. But, that said, you don't need books to do because you can easily use them as procrastination tools. I don't care where you get your learning from, but learn by doing. You can look at it this way, no matter what mistakes you make in game development, nobody is going to die and nobody is going to jail.**


    * E&OE applicable to idiots.

    You want inspiration about failure, try this:
     
  31. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    That's motivation 101 right there. BRB going to get the girl of my dreams.
     
  32. justinlloyd

    justinlloyd

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    Here's an anecdote from real life: I was out wandering around Watford back in December of 2001 with a long time friend of mine who is also a well paid software developer/entrepreneur. We were discussing current relationships. My friend had just finished up with one and was wondering how to approach a woman and ask her on a date without suffering rejection -- he was good looking, great personality, fun to be around, had many girlfriends in the past, rarely if ever had to ask, they always asked him, just as it had been with me -- and I said, pointing at the security guard, "Do me a favour, go ask that security guy for the time."

    Off my friend sauntered, "Excuse me do you have the time?" he enquired.

    "Sorry, I don't have a watch on me." was the reply and my friend walked back over.

    "What you just suffered was rejection. I could see he wasn't wearing a watch. So tell me, what's the difference between asking a girl for a coffee and asking someone for the time?" You could practically see the flash of light in my friend's eyes as he hit that "Oh S***!" inspirational moment.

    I love it when you can be there to witness someone wake up.
     
  33. janpec

    janpec

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    Since you arent good programmer it will be very hard to develop anything decent for PC. It seems that IOS should be your better choice, but even there you will need some programming experiance to make some decent gameplay. I would suggest you to start learning C# or Javascript otherwise it will be hard rocky road. If you can get someone to help you with programming i would suggest you to develop platformer for PC and Mac and try to work your way towards Indie humble bundle. This is the best choice, since you have guaranteed income which is far more than 32k, all you need to do is some decent platformer, afcourse you will need some help on programming.
     
  34. Arowx

    Arowx

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  35. janpec

    janpec

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    Sorry i havent been checking them out becouse honestly i dont think that games on Kongregate are correct step into game industry if you want to make some money. If you want to make some money either start doing it big with some PC games, platformers are proven best way for guaranteed profit if you can make them decent. Or on other hand if you dont have enough skills for PC games do IOS development. If you do IOS development make sure that you get all informations how to develop-market game and earn some profits.
     
  36. Adeno

    Adeno

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    Nice to hear good advice from the usual people again! Good to know I wasn't the only one who was thinking that Kongregate and those ad-based sites seemed kinda harsh on the reward part. I mean, you need a couple thousand views to earn a few dollars? It's like my time as a Yahoo Associated Content Contributor, I needed 1000 unique visits to my articles just to earn $1.25 lol!

    As much as I'd like to develop for those modern phones, the sad fact is I don't own any of them lol! I guess I'll have to focus on pc development first, get things nailed down in terms of being able to program what I want, sell some games (but I'm not sure where to sell pc games...Steam?), then use some money to buy those new phones and a license for Unity to be able to develop for those.

    Anyway for advice intended towards one-man game dev teams, what I can say is:

    1. Be a Gamer - it really helps a lot when you have experienced all sorts of games. You'll know the mechanics of the game and whatever system is uses that makes it fun. Knowing how a game works will definitely help you when you're in the planning stages of what should be in the game's framework before actually programming it. Results in less sudden changes that may or may not mess up the game you've been working on.

    2. Know What a Game's Development will Require - it is very easy to get sucked into the idea of making the next best Free-To-Play, Pay-To-Win (lol!) MMORPG. Look at games such as Vindictus, Mabinogi, Kal Online, Ran Online, and many more! These games are very successful despite being free, but of course they have the game quality to help them influence people into spending money on their "real" life cash shop items. The problem is, if you're a one-man game developer, MMORPGs are simply going to be almost near impossible to make in a timely manner. You'll need servers (that means you gotta know network programming, databases, etc.), this is the very first major problem you'll face, and it'll be VERY expensive. Knowing what games you can develop within a realistic time frame without having to sacrifice quality would be the key to a more successful product.

    3. Know What Actually Sells - games that sell are being bought by people for a reason. If you're a one-man game developer, chances are you won't have the same resources that big game companies will have to produce something like "God of War" or "GTA 4" with the same quality, including cinematics, music, presentation, etc. So what's the next best thing? Check out what other indie game devs have success in selling! Are the best selling indie games action games/fighting games/puzzles games, what? By knowing what's being sold, you'll have a general idea of what majority of the consumers of indie games like the best. You might also want to check out GameFaqs and other game related sites to see how the gamers themselves actually feel and think about these games.

    4. Know Your Limitation - this is probably the most important part for me. So you're a one-man game dev team, what's possible for you to make? MMORPG? Nope, too much to handle. Puzzle Games? Possible! Side Scrolling Games? Still possible! 3D Action Games? Possible but might take time because of 3D models! Knowing what you can do with each game type would help you give your entire focus on something that you'll actually be able to work on. For example, sure, 3D games are awesome and almost mandatory in today's gaming world, but can you really create 3D models on your own or at least have the resources to get quality models done? If not, then you have to stick with what you can create confidently and then polish it. The idea is to aim to create a game that you yourself will want to play again without thinking "What the crap, horrible gameplay, why can't I move? I jumped, why did I die? What the hell was the game developer thinking?!"

    5. Know What Make Games Horrible - even for people who grew up as gamers, they might have not been exposed to "horrible" games at all. It would benefit you to know why certain games gained notoriety in the first place. Was it too hard? Were the controls messed up? Did the game development team go "Screw This!" and just released an unfinished game complete with flickering enemies, extremely inaccurate collision detection, and questionable gameplay for a quick pay day? Since it's impossible to play almost every game in existence, it would be good to have a general idea of at least why certain games failed.

    Fortunately, there's one place that I love to go to when I want to find out why crappy games failed. Go watch The Angry Video Game Nerd at http://cinemassacre.com and watch over a hundred episodes as he mocks and finds faults for many games. Sure it's comedy, but the guy truly makes valid points when bashing games lol!

    Anyway have fun, just wanted to share :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2011
  37. janpec

    janpec

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    Agree with most of what you said. I would just like to add if you enter into PC development and you want to earn some money you have to think not just twice but think about it every day if your game idea that you are developing is doable in some "short" time. Even that you might have picked smaller game to develop with low number of assets, maybe there are some really harsh features showing up later durring in development and if those are crutial and you cannot do them in some decent time it would be best to step of project (if you are one man developer and you are doing it for day job). This is very good if you discover this obstracles in first month of development.

    However i will be honest here. If you want to develop some decent PC game which maybe is not platformer i trully doubt it is possible to do with 1 man especially in 1 year. It is fact that most developers are either 3d modelers or programmers. Those who are skilled on both parts are representing less than 5% of developers so in general we can speak from vision of either 3d modeler or programmer. So in short you wont be able to develop FPS, RPG, RTS game with 1 man team. You will need some help, the best what you can do is to get some trusted programmer or 3d modeler to help you on project, and when it is done you split profits with him. Sadly getting someone that is trusted and stays with your project for long is so hard (speaking from my own experiance, in all 3 years i have had chance to recently meet only 1 programmer that has been really loyal to project and most important is on the good skill level, so when everything that has needed to be done on game, was done and was done good).

    But i will point it out again, if you are solo developer, get good unique idea for platformer, you dont have to do magic, all you have to do is come out with good game theme and nice art style, it will work for sure. Then try to submit game to Indie Humble Bundle. This is the most realible way to actually earn some stable resources if you can deliver good game.
     
  38. Arowx

    Arowx

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    What about the new trend in freemium games, could I make money with a freemium game on ios, android, PC or Mac?
     
  39. Adeno

    Adeno

    Joined:
    Aug 7, 2011
    Posts:
    184
    A month ago I actually sent a letter to the Humble Bundle guys and asked them what the requirements are for being included in their bundle.
    I asked whether there's some kind of guideline of what you can or can't include in your game, like too much violence, blood, and political stuff and the like. Anyway here's their reply:





    The moment I finish and polish up a game, I'd ask them if I could send them a copy to try out for eligibility and if they say yes, I'll send them one and hope that they'd sell my game with the bundle lol!
     
  40. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    Wait for unity to support linux first :p
     
  41. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Just don't wine about the lack of unity support in linux ;P It's late I couldn't resist!
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2011
  42. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    It's coming :) but pc sales are the hardest thing on the planet to make money out of. Harder than android or even kongregate unless you have a casual game thats really high polished and you don't get stiffed by bigfish.
     
  43. janpec

    janpec

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    That is the best about Indie humble bundle, they are developers just like you, not some high resource capacity companies who are giving you narrowminded rules for your games. I have been chatting with them a lot and i can say they are really great people if you want to collaborate with them. About Linux support dont worry that much i am sure if you will develop game with Unity PC and Mac support will be enough for them.

    Freemium games on IOS arent new trend, take some research on it to see which option brings the best results. There are many articles about some actual salles with different approaches. Freemium games on PC and Mac dont exists, probably pre-order is something similar to this. Actually the only closest game that is using a bit unique PC sale model which is similar to freemium with development updates is Overgrowth, made by the same team that is behind Indie humble bundle. So what they do is they charge you for preorder and as player you have ability to test every week new release build of game. For example this allows you to start charging for your game in three months of development, but you have to take some responsibility then and actually really finish the game, otherwise you are doing some robbing there:D
     
  44. rockysam888

    rockysam888

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    bookmarked
     
  45. dogzerx2

    dogzerx2

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    Do I need a mac to compile into ios? What would be a good model to get?
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2011
  46. Chickenlord

    Chickenlord

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    May 13, 2011
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    At least a system where you have mac os running, and thats usually a mac.
     
  47. dogzerx2

    dogzerx2

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    can I get away with some old mac? what model you think I could do ok with?
     
  48. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    I do work a lot on a first gen macbook pro (the first ones that came out back in 2006, they are not even 64bit) and it's, mostly, fine.

    So if you get something that came out within the last 3-4 years, you should be fine.
     
  49. ProjectOne

    ProjectOne

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    Aug 9, 2010
    Posts:
    442
    If it is just to compile I guess you can get away with older machines, if you also need to generate 3d and 2d content, or maybe even music, make sure you have something powerful enough for those tasks. But I guess you already have a PC and only need a mac to compile, I have a 2008 (if I remember well) Mac Pro and so far no problems overall.
     
  50. xe-cute

    xe-cute

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    Jun 17, 2011
    Posts:
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    I bought a 2nd hand intel (make sure it is intel) based mac mini off ebay 2nd hand which does the job for me. I reckon I could sell it on at the same price I bought it for if things do not work out. For testing I also bought a new 4th gen ipod touch (which I already use everyday for all kinds of things love it) and my sisters 3GS iPhone (I needed a phone anyway).