6 Real Examples of Indie Game Sales Numbers [2021]
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- Are you wondering how many sales your indie game could potentially make?
If you're on a new indie game dev journey, one of the first things you'll learn is that most indie game developers don't succeed financially with their first game. This doesn't mean their games are inherently bad! It’s just that financial success isn’t always easy.
This video is the second part of our series about indie game revenues and how you might think about the prospects for YOUR game. We will explore six games and feature both games that were financial successes and games that weren’t. We feel this may help you guide your game to a better outcome at the time of its launch.
► Check out the Games
► Celeste - store.steampowered.com/app/50...
► Battle Royale Tycoon - store.steampowered.com/app/85...
►► / codemonkeyunity
► Starlight X-2 - apps.apple.com/us/app/starlig...
► Himeko Sutori - store.steampowered.com/app/66...
► Monkey Labour - apps.apple.com/app/monkey-lab...
► Dead Cells - store.steampowered.com/app/58...
► WATCH: How Much Money Do Indie Games Make? [2021] ►
• How Much Money Do Indi...
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![How Much Money Do Indie Games Make? [2021]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ftUWPIc389c/mqdefault.jpg)
![How Much Money Do Indie Games Make? [2021]](/img/tr.png)
![How Much Do Video Games Cost to Make? 5 Real Examples! [2019]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w37Zes6zlkg/mqdefault.jpg)
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Thanks for watching! For more Ask Gamedev, check out How Much Money Do Indie Games Make? [2021] czcams.com/video/ftUWPIc389c/video.html
Thanks for the video! Could you please link to the sources you cite in the description?
Oh hey that's my game, thanks for including it!
Hopefully my stats help others get a better understanding of what kind of numbers you can hit without being a mega hit. I'm not a millionaire but I'm still in business after 8 games!
I've been watching your videos for months now, and I never realized you're behind Battle Royale Tycoon!! That game is impeccable!
@@cmonbruv Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity man I watched and learned from a bunch of your videos too, and I was about to comment on one to let you know your game was on this video
How long does it usually take you to make 1 game? A year?
@@andreypopov3400 Yup that's about the average. My fastest was Game Corp DX which took 3 months, very fast because it was essentially a remake of a previous Flash game I made.
The longest, possibly Battle Royale Tycoon at around 18 months.
a thing that i will never forget is that making money with games isn't easy but the feeling of making something that moves is incomparable
Making games is certainly a labour of love
@@AskGamedevyeah
its an amazing feeling juts bringing it to life
Hey! I'm Karl, one of the co-creators of VG Insights. Thanks for the mention in your video! The research on indie game revenues is all from the free part of our platform, so if people are interested, they can check out the exact subsection of games and their revenues.
Notice the Dead Cells story: lots of experience making smaller games, releasing an action platformer roguelite before the genre became too crowded, refining in early access for a long time (it’s a roguelite after all), and porting and localizing to maximize reach.
Anyone else get a sudden wave of motivation when AskGameDev uploads?
This comment brings us great joy
Please do more of these. This series is really useful for finance in the gaming industry (a topic which not many talk about)
Thank you for the feedback. We agree that it can be hard to find financial info for other titles.
I'm interested in how indie devs can compete with the "game pass"/binge gaming approach that big game companies are using to compete with each other currently. Working together in collectives seems like a better approach than what we're doing now.
Maybe indie devs can create our own game pass service
To me:
Releasing a game is a goal.
Making a game people like is an accomplishment.
Making income on that game is a bonus you add, and an acknowledgement that your work is worth other's time and investment.
How many of those 10K games released on Steam were asset flips and tutorial projects? That's the real question.
There's a video on GDC of someone who actually researched that and factored it in.
Not many.... right? Steam has a $100 submission fee, would be odd to spend that much to throw a tutorial project on the store.
@@Zodiacman16 You'd think...
Search for "steam removes 173 games". These games were "developed" by one person.
Great Video!! On one hand, motivating, on the other...scary? Thanks for putting out great content for indie devs :)
Would be nice if you explained NET vs. GROSS profits, because that $9.95m for Celeste would be more like $7m once the platform holders took their cuts, plus taxes, etc.
Code Monkey is kind of a different story though, he is also producing videos and other ways to generate revenue, so his game revenue probably accounts for very little of the money he makes. There are a few other Unity Devs like that as well, they're more about videos and selling courses from UDemy then actually building successful games...which is fine of course, but it's something to think about.
Same for some of the devs using Godot
That is true nowadays since I'm focusing my time on CZcams and courses, but it's not the case for the time I was working on my games.
Game Dev was my sole source of income since I made my first Steam game in 2013 and I only started making primarily income from CZcams/Courses since 2020.
Keep in mind I live in Portugal where cost of living is relatively low, if I can earn at least $1000/month then I can live as a Game Developer.
@@CodeMonkeyUnity I used the wrong term when I said that "very little" of the money you make comes from games...I mean, if "very little" was 50K, then you'd be making millions off courses and YT which would be amazing. ;)
My main point was that you had other revenue streams related to gaming that contribute to your bottom line, which is always good.
The cost of living is a huge thing too, I'm in the opposite position where I living in one of the most expensive places in the US so any game would need to make thousands a month to just pay for health insurance if I wanted to quit my day job and make games...but that's a different topic for a different day. :)
@@CodeMonkeyUnity this is fascinating because being in the UK I have long considered how this makes surviving in game dev that much harder than many other parts of the world. And its survival you need in order to continue full time and thereby, hopefully get better (at all game creation/selling aspects) and keep the dream job alive. Its like "so you want to make video games for a living? Step 1, be a kid living with your parents or move to Thailand".
120k and his take home was only 50K... JESUS WOW Steam rakes you
And it's not surprising that so many indies take Epic's deal.
Depending on what country they live in taxes also would hurt you pretty bad.
Steam takes 30% of your gross profits, but you have to factor in that after that, you pay taxes on the revenue that depending on the country can be anywhere between 15% - 25%. In the case of Portugal, I believe it's 23%. Plus, on top of that comes all the money you spent during the development period. In the end, what's left is the actual profit.
It sucks, but at the end of the day, game dev is a business, a though one at that.
@@GPsnipereye its a dead one if you arent the major company.
I'm always looking for indie games on Steam. I've noticed that good-looking art + decent (or even slightly buggy) code sells better than mediocre art + good code.
I believe it. Thumbnails and steam pages/trailers that stand out are are massive help when convincing people to buy a game.
My game Partition Sector is an example of this. A Steam curator described it as having "awful graphics but good gameplay and some really nice ideas". Sales are tiny.
@@Arganoid Search ''Universal LPC sprite sheet generator'', or Bitmapflow (both free). Universal LPC is like a dress-up game, and Bitmapflow creates in-between frames for pixel art. Maybe you can use them.
I found your channel today and I just had to sub! Your channel will blow up and is more relevant than ever! Thank you!
Thanks for subscribing!
Thank you so much for making these videos!! ♥️
Thank you for watching!
5 millions copies for dead cells.
Congratulation, happy to hear those numbers going to a studio that isn't a classic ubi square EA blizzard etc.
Nice for them to have enough to build New original franchises
Now I'm more motivated
Thank you 👍
I have one wish: could you make a video for game and creative directors in video games, just like you did it with art direction? That'd be nice!
Thanks for inspiration, would be create to mention game engines for each game and dev time spent. Battle Royale Tycoon developed in Unity engine is absolutely a winner if its really created by solo developer. Nowadays the indie times is over, without investments and team already impossible to get revenue, especially in mobile markets where only sharks stay in the top who spend for promotion 100 000$+ per month.
Just what i needed
Glad we could assist!
I think getting 4000 from hobby would be great, but I don’t have that high hopes yet.
Im making a game! Its called "Dwerve" and its a tower defense dungeon crawler RPG! Its so scary to have no idea how it will all play out, wish me luck 🍀
I'm making a tower defense game, and I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the various choices for releasing your game. Do you start with a demo, a beta, a kickstarter? Free to play or charge $19?
If you're monetizing in game with stuff like pay to revive much like a mobile game then you should consider free to play with mobile monetization strategies. If you are primarily focused on steam, I would set a price of $15-20 depending on what your competitors are doing and be sure to not undervalue your game or you could lose sales. See what people are willing to pay for your game when you finish it, ask around.
3:10 Selling 500k copies at 20 USD absolutely does NOT net you 10 million revenue. Steam takes 30% off and then various other taxes apply. If the game uses Steam Price Matrix, which makes prices different in different countries, this means that large proportion of copies do not sell for 20 USD. Some time ago people from Argentina (or players who used VPN) played only 20% of full price, on top of which there are discounts. For any game that has discounts (sales), vast majority of copies are sold during sales, greatly reducing the average revenue per copy. Overall I would guess that for 20 USD copy, a company might get 8-10 dollars and depending on how it's paid out to people, personal income taxes may reduce it further to something like 4-5 dollars in e.g. Europe. So instead of 10 million revenue which new developers might think they see on their bank account, on your bank account you would see 2 million revenue, which is divided between the team members that have revenue share.
I need PAX to come back so I can hang out with the Dead Cell friends. Love setting up that castle.
Hi vid guys. The one thing tht has me, is 5:15 where the guy makes 120k but only gets 50k. Thts crazy, your paying more than half in costs. & what kind of taxes, a break down video would be an asset. Thanks.
Steam cut is 30% and you can figure on about 30% in taxes, plus he mentioned chargebacks and refunds which is hard to calculate. I think I read somewhere that chargebacks usually is around the 2-3% mark.
These kind of vids motivates me to keep going with my current game. Inshallah I shall be in your list one day. Take Care :)
Good stuff. I wonder what % of games hit even $1000 in sales. It would be interesting to have better stats.
So I can't seem to find the video, but I did see another channel breakdown some of the Steam numbers. One big thing that really skews the numbers is that many cheap games on Steam are people just buying some assets off the Unity Store and putting out games that are effectively shovel-ware. Maybe this has changed a bit in the last year or so, but I have a feeling it hasn't. Many of those don't earn more than $1,000 but they also cost almost nothing by way of time and effort to put out.
The same video determined that a good price point as over $10 as those tended to earn at least $10,000 in their first year (if I recall that correctly). If I find the video I'll post a link, but the main crux of the video was about not putting out super cheap games on steam and expect to compete...of course Among Us completely blows this theory out of the water of course, so take it for what it's worth. ;)
@@andrewshandle RIght, games like Among Us are exceptions not the rule. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
Someone's comment, on a different video: ''The money I make as a dev is enough to pay for the games I buy'' (on Steam)
@@daniel-zh9nj6yn6y Oh that's funny. I think when you're first into it just getting a game on Steam would be an achievement in itself.
You can check that kind of information on VG Insights. It's about 1/3 of steam games that never made >1,000.
nice ;D
Ahem.
1:create it the game sell that
2:use the game made as an example as to what your assets can make and sell the assets as a bundle.
Pls make a video about core ......plzzzzzzzzzz
Can I really make anything or anytype of game in core🤔🤔🤔
Why don't you tell about core games plsssssss
Dead Cell's china launch makes it seem like a great demographic. A good translation and you've got millions of possible customers
Please make a video on mobile games revenue made by indie developers.
Ask gamedev. Can u make a video about making a 2d multiplayer mobile games such as hill climb racing 2 and head ball 2 etc for indie game developers. These games appear simple. Do u think it is more profitable to make these type of games instead of just making single player story games?
My take away from this is, make a good game that people aspire to play and you'll succeed. Make a game that there's no real reason to play and you'll probably fail. I played a game when watching this video and tried to guess which title was successful and which wasn't, and this simple metric got me 100% accuracy. The games that flopped were not very promising to begin with. Quality is very important when making a game, but it also needs to be something that people always wanted to try out. Monkey Labour or Battle Royale Tycoon in the video are cool game concepts, but it's just something that nobody really asked for. These mobile puzzle games from Frozax look to me just like random facebook games that you play when you're bored. But a successful game must be something that hypes people up. Look around in gaming boards, reddit, reviews etc and see what people really ask for, what do they dream of, etc.
While I kind of agree with your statement about "making a game that there's no real reason to play", ideally many players just want to play a _good_ game. Like, there's no reason why Valhiem should be so successful. On it's surface it's a PvE only Viking Survival game, which is a super crowded genre, yet by P/E ratio it will probably the most successful game of 2021. As they say at Pixar (or used to anyway), an idea is worth $20, it's the execution that's with 20 million.
Interesting, it sounds like you think my game Battle Royale Tycoon was a flop when in fact it was quite successful.
The definition of success depends heavily on game to game and how the big the team is and how much you spend on it.
For Battle Royale Tycoon it was a solo developed game and I live in Portugal which has a low cost of living.
It took 18 months to develop and for that amount of time making $50k is already very good and it continues to sell little by little over time.
A game does not have to sell millions of copies to be successful, especially if you're a solo indie dev.
Why no guess estimate hard numbers?
It just means that those that are making money aren't buying that many games or else everyone would do well.
I thought you have 1m subs .. what the only 100k
In case of Starlight it seems quite disgusting to me to build money revenue strategy on feeding players with ads... I like to pay for good products, I don't want to be blackmailed with unsolicited advertising...
I got so tired with aggressive ads in games that I started considering gacha to be superior at this point.
nice
what about hollow knight?
I would be more interested by games on the mobile market
i have good idea for the game.wish me luck guys
I get the guy making this video has to entice you to watch. But for would be developers, look at the big number shown, then realise you'll only get a third of that.
One tenth of games making that much sounds pretty high
I'm curious to see how much Among Us has sold and got in revenue.
I real like it
Your first game won't make money, so skip it and start with your second game.
5:51
Hey
I'd love to earn some of those numbers on some of my games.... lol.
The indie scene is rough.
anyone have sales numbers in 2024
i always get motivated becus of Ask Gamedev
That is exactly what we want to hear!
Third
www we
Can you mobile indie plz
Second?
Good video, but it was interesting that after tax and everything, one only had a 1/3 of the money. I would also like to see more 'failed' games
sorry mate