Your Indie Game Is Worth More Than You Think
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
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My game "Land of Zombies" got only 240$ of sales on Steam (6+ months). And I was too much depressed about it. I made the game for 2 years, and it is my first game. Now your video motivate me again to start working on a new game. By solving all previous mistakes that I made. Thank you Mr. Thomas...
That's 20$ more than my first one 🥸
Judging by your trailer that game looks quite good. I am surprised it only made 240$ on sales, maybe the game was too short and there wasn't enough replay value?
I made $10k from my first game only on Google Play. $45k from App Store. Now preparing to launch on Steam. After then Switch >> Xbox >> PS
gonna do you a favor and point out why your game underperforms. The first glaring issue has nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with your description of it on the storefront. You need an american with some talent to rewrite it completely for you. The other issue is the lack of things to actually talk about. Your game has very basic features. You go in a map and shoot zombies with various guns. This is essentially as complex as a budget NES game. You need a good story, weapon upgrades/modifications, maps with puzzle/platforming elements, and fun movement controls like sliding, taking cover, ziplining, grappling, etc.
Just walking in to a map and mindlessly shooting zombies is not an engaging experience by todays standards. Hope this helps.
@@carcasonne9049 Yes it a small 3 level game. I was inspired by call of duty zombie mode.
Hey Thomas! Love the "I don't wanna hear it" part. I'm a father working in a full time job to support my family and at the same time I'm working on my indie game. As Schwarzenegger once said: You make the time! 💪
Same here. Working full time dad with 3 babies! Llleeetttsss gggoooo! Midnight developers!🎉
@@NorthGameStudio me but with school lol
I'm not even aiming for a successful launch, I am aiming for a failed launch, I've worked on so many projects with no release at all, I've been using Unity since version 3. I don't think my time has been completely wasted, but what I've really learned is the lessons of tightening scope first hand.
I needed to hear this today. I can see from the comments below how common the disappointment of a game released could be. My game released yesterday, Petey Pedro unBEETable Adventure. I'v been working on this game for over 5 years. I hand drew everything and created all my own special effects. Tons of play testing so that it plays as flawlessly as possible. When you release the game and you don't see it moving as much as you thought, it does break your heart. Because I had an absolute blast making this game. I dont feel like i WORKED for 5 years, i feel joy because i WANTED to play my game every time i play tested it. This video just popped on my feed today and I have to say you brighten my day and you gave me hope to just ...wait....take a pause...regroup and move forward. Thank you for this kind of content.
From flash games way back in the Mochi days, to my latest indie games (no asset packs nor asset flips, I make the games and soundtracks), only been a hobby that I sink money into every year. Success to me is finishing a project. Thankful for having a day job career to pay the bills. I enjoy experimenting and learning on each adventure, adding to my portfolio. All indie devs are inspiring to see what they are working on 8) Never give up! Fail fast, adapt, and try a different way!
I made a game from scratch for eight years, but ended up not having players to be exited about it.
One of my huge mistake that I didn't made audience right from starting.
Jonathan Blow is a huge motivation for me. He makes his games completely from scratch, and his next game is not just made from scratch, but also using his own programming language.
How do you make your own programming language?
@@TheHollowayPowerby designing a specification for it and then implementing a compiler
This is cool and all, but it's super inefficient. He started designing his language (Jai) in 2014 and we haven't seen him create any games with it yet. So almost 10 years with no release. He's probably only able to do this because his previous games were successful enough to sustain this.
@@Zodiacman16 duh
Do NOT follow in his footsteps, he is well known persona in game dev world. He is making a living out of ~talking about~ making a game, not from games he made. Go into his footsteps and its gonna take you 10 years to make a game
him talking about his apple partnership just made me realize that now would be the perfect time to release some stuff on iphone since the new one has hardware that could support some revolutionary (in the mobile space) indie stuff. seems like a great emerging market honestly.
Most new indiegames are just not good games, meaning they aren't all that engaging, aren't well thought out, have bad gameplay design, aren't polished or have a coherent design, and so on.
Games are like every other product, it takes good knowledge of design, your market audience and advertisement to make be successful.
So a lot of indie gamedevs fail because they lack this knowledge when they publish their first game. Hence why, if they persist, they will eventually get better at it and become successful at one of their later releases.
Or one can study all this knowledge before releasing their first game and thus increase their chance of success. But in either way, you spend a lot of time to "learn the craft".
In the end, the most important advise to indie gamedevs I would give is to make something you enjoy, so even if it's not financially successful, you can still feel proud of what you have created AND you don't run into the danger of burning out.
And even more importantly, your creativity won't be limited by the "need" to make money.
The title is the truth.
The experience and knowlege you gain from making and releasing a game start to finish is priceless.
I’ve made probably 10 games so far made around 400$ in total, currently working on something bigger. Honestly if I don’t sell 1000 copies I will be devastated.
Just stop, if you don't enjoy the process without making any money. It's not worth your sanity. Be happy NOW doing it, not beeing fixated on the copies sold.
I have such a big Game Idea that combines 2D Jump and Run with Story Telling. A story that makes you want to find out more with characters that have their own personalty and goals, areas that all feel different but are build almost similar. Enemies that change in every world. Bosses that may or may not return and become stronger. Big plot twists that people wouldnt think be real. Every time i tell people about my idea they are always suprised and sometimes even ask me how my project is doing.
My problem is that i have the story, the characters, the chapters in which the player goes through with all their side characters, bad guys, bosses and points of interest. But i dont have the knowledge to code anything at all. I went to a school that was focusing on 2D and mostly 3D games and i had to give up on it because for one, it was so expensive. I was doing a 500 Euro job and had to pay 390 Euro for the school +30 Euro for Adobe and stuff. It was just a big pain throwing so much money to that school. My biggest problem was that Blender ruined my whole fun when it came to 3D modeling because it wasnt fun at all and way too complicated for me. The 2nd problem that i encountered was the programming language and the lack of stuff i wanted to add. In the first half year our goal was to create a 2D Platformer. I wanted to do one that was a "What if you look from a different perspective" game that was about a robot that was going through the rooftops of a cybercity. He was a shy robot who had the task to get comfortable with the city and its surrounding because he will become the icon of it. While exploring the roof top you would find memory orbs that are explaining either a story of some random citizen from the city or a bit of the game lore where you hear the antagonist of the series talking to someone or something. Sadly that had to be all cut and it instead became a "Walk all the way to the right with nothing but roof tops and a few signs". I also wanted to add enemies that would bounce of the walls for example the Hotheads from Mario Maker when giving Wings. Ofc i had to scrap that too because my teacher told me that the physics are too complex and that it would either bounce endlessly in a corner and get stuck or just glitch out of the tilemap. Since scripting and 3D modeling was my biggest pain my 2D Platformer was terrible. I know that all games start out bad because we arent born as masterpieces. But i wanted to create something creative and something that would be different to what my classmates did. But at the end it was nothing what i wanted and i got a C for that as a grade.
I had to break up school after the 2nd grade because my biggest dark souls boss arrived. 3D games. Blender was already a pain for me, I even failed it so bad that I got the worst grade possible. I knew I had to give up on game dev because Blender and C# were my killers. It was painful for me because now i have to either give up on my whole game idea that i build up over the years from only dreaming about it or pay 3k Euro every half a year because i keep fail it. If i would fail it, i would have to restart 2nd grade again and pay 3k again for the half year. And yeah it drains too much money and tears of frustration. So i threw the towel.
So yeah the best thing i can do is to try to learn coding by myself which will not only drain my energy, but also make me cry of frustration again and make me wanna give up. That school made me cry enough and i just wish i had better options beside learning it by myself and wasting 10+ years or paying 10 people with my 1.1k i earn per month just for the code of a game. ;/
While I had my own indie studio, we released many games that never hit the mark in sales. There was this one game we released and it also didn't go well, but then in one marketing campaign that we did -- only organic, no paid ads -- we got more than 1 million downloads to our game. At the time the game was free and online, so we had a ton of players playing online like never before, and we had to rush and fix the multiplayer bugs in a week.
Releasing a game today is just the beginning, there's a lot more to do from there. And yeah, you can never be fully prepared, but do your best to stay on top of everything that surrounds the launch of your game. Your game might be a hit in one country you didn't even thought of.
Hi, that sounds really cool!
Do you Mond, If I ask you some questions?
What was the Name of your Studio, and how many people worked there?
How did you start your own Studio?
@@siac888 hey there o/ the name of the studio was Daisu Games, but it’s not in activity anymore. We had a core team of 6 people plus a couple of external collaborators (sound designer, video editing designer, etc). I started back in the day with +1 partner because here in my city in Brazil we didn’t have a lot of game companies to work at before.
It was an incredible experience. Now I work as a producer and just started my CZcams channel here to talk about game production. Cool stuff =)
His studio went bankrupt. He is unemployed now.@@siac888
I remember this from your live stream and I'm still watching it over and over. You are the best!
"So how is Neversong supporting my family? How did- how did we- how are- how are we paying our bills?"
*immediately shills scam course*
ah..
wouldn't go as far as to call it a scam, but yep
Man I found your channel recently and it reignited my hunger to create games.
During my college years I spent countless hours on Unity, I learned so much but never really got a full game out of the gate. Except for one mobile game that was a subway surfer clone and I never released it publically, just during an event at my local school. The sheer pride of seeing everyone play it was something that few people ever get to experience.
But now I'm 26 years old I live and work abroad and once again I have “some” free time.
And I want to make a new game following a scientific tried and tested approach, actually work on all the elements outside just the development of it. Thank you for materializing the journey it takes to make indie games in these CZcams videos
Oh Twisted tower is looking awesome!! Can't wait to play it! Love the aesthetics!
(If you need more 3d artists btw.. 👀)
damn just wanna say that 3d game youre working on looks amazing
I only need 1/5th of a failed launch to have a successful launch, sick
Great video, subscribed!
From my experience working on games and following the market very closely for many years.
- fun trumps all else.
If a game is fun, it gets incredible word of mouth.
In an age defined by multiplayer shooters, loot boxes and all that. Be the light in the darkess, make a game thats fun first.
The fact i played the second game you made with the bird
Great video Thomas, as usual :) I like the target talk the most.
One thing hobby developers don't understand is the indi game market is saturated. There are so many indi games out there that odd are your game will get burred. If you release at the right time, the game is really good, you have built up a fallowing with previous good games and you market the hell out of your game then maybe you could get to the top of the pile, maybe.
I work a full time job, have a significant other and always still find time to work on my first solo indie dev project
Been loving this channel for awhile and seriously considering the gamedev course! I know Marketing is my weak point, am curious what other tips you have~
fl/5 = SL bothsides *5 -> FL = 5 SL so it should be fl*5 = SL
I'm scrolling comments to see if I'm the only one who suffers pain from this math failure ;-). Thanks Krzysztof! I take comfort in knowing that I'm not alone (dzięki stary!) ;-)
You"re right but I think the logic behind this was more like:
If FL/5 = 1 you get SL
or even more like
If FL/5 < 1 you're likely not gonna get a SL
I’ve been subbed for a while but never watched many of your videos Just here and there. But this line “we have to see these as battle scars.” I’m not a game dev I’ve been through a few coding tutorials. But this line is very good for many things in life. God inspired line.
Love the double video drop today
Great vid. In the process of making a 2D MMORPG. The experience is invaluable.
Even if a few people enjoy the game and make some friends i will be happy.
I want to start develop games but my coding knowledge is very basic and my other abilities are currently lack simply because I have no that much time on my hands to improve and make something great. Slowly I would get to my objectives but need to sacrifice my actual job (need more safety money) to do that. Also the video is useful and have a lot of good insight. No need to be sad because something is not a huge success at first, need to do everything small and step towards once you mastered a part.
you're a huge inspiration. thanks for this!
You are welcome
Amazing video! Just gotta say, the algebra at 6:02 is wrong haha!
let failed launches = y
let successful launches = x
you put: y/5 = x. If we multiply both sides by 5 to get rid of the fraction, we get: y = 5x
Which means for every failed launch, y, you get 5 successful launches, x.
Just a simple mistake. I love your videos.
6:41 I heavy disagree... That is a good why to get known as the shovel wear dev.... And isn't true for most devs especly the ones who are massive today upwards of 300 years later... I believe the key is knowledge x expernice x connections x cost x time if you have it big in any area you auto win but most have a combo of them you just have to find the combo you can win with.
I don't know if you've realized, but your equation say 1 failed launch equals 5 successful launches
I won't be taking any mathematical advice from you, but your game dev advice is valuable!
Hey Thomas,
I don't think it'll matter, but I think there is a lot of us who are highly interested into your gamedev course, but we just need a little bit more motivation to buy the ticket and take the ride. If there is a way for you to dive a little bit more into those fantastic courses to grab a few more of us who are on the sidelines, I feel like we would all benefit so much more in the middle long term, my friend.
Again, thank you so much for all the content, and I look forward to the next awesome video! Stray true to your heart, my friend! 💕
Definitely interested in your game dev course after finishing college.
It costs $1k though. Can you afford it?
@@nursultannazarov8379 Hoping to save up and snatch it on a deal.
Just recently, I published a video about the creation of my game 'The Choice.' It was a small Game Jam project created using Flash technology more than 10 years ago. Now, I'm considering whether it would be worth it to port this game to PC using Unity. I'm wondering how much it could cost, and I think probably $5 or even less...
Nice video! I'm a GODOT dev working on a number of fan projects. (Phantasy Star II is my favorite game!)
I would be interested in Lucas Pope's story. I only know of his extremely successful games "papers, please" and "return of the obra dinn".
This year I'll be coming up on my fourth game launch. I hope I suck less this time but still retain the uniqueness. :)
I like how he never shows the reviewtof Never song while talking about because on steal they are way lower then Pinstripe. Because honestly it's a lesser game. But yeah just wanted to point it out. When making videos honesty is key. It's definite.
It's healthy to acknowledge failures for what they are. We will all fail a lot in life. You should come to terms with that fact.
I agree with the equation. Kan Gao made the success launch at his fifth game, To Tho Moon.
Excellent Presentation
everyone tells to make a lot of small crappy games but i'm always stubborn on one single game since why should i spend time and effort on games that i dont care about instead of working on the game that i actually love
Man same
I actually want to stop messing around with game dev when i realize how much hard work is involved. And also the aspect that you can't do it alone. That isn't possible for 99% of people. You gotta network and promote and many people can't do that. And that's on top of trying to be an artist, modeler, story writer and level designer. Like maybe 5k people in the world are capable of doing this, and only a fraction of those people are actually doing it
Where does the game/art from the thumbnail is from? (I know it's undertale, i'm talking about that FRISK fan art)
Regardless, Thanks for the pep talk and your right 1 way to make a wildly successful games is just do it.... make games... I wouldn't make bad games though just the best ones you can currently make.
I've been a follower of your channel for years, and I am a game developer and art director who has been involved in numerous projects for approximately 15 years, including several successful game projects. Your content, games, and story have always been a source of inspiration for me. I've been trying to reach out to you via email in recent days, but unfortunately, I haven't received a response. I would be very happy if you could check your emails!
I'm tryna work with you, whats good
Yeah still trying to hit the target for a web developer job. It's been 3 years
I haven’t looked into twisted towers the gameplay looks solid, does it have a story behind it?
im releasing my first game "Karina Katana" on Steam 01.01.24, but when i compare it with your first game, or the first games from other guys, mine looks pretty shit. I actually make it for free, because i hope many will play it then and give me feedback.
he isn't lying. Been doing this for 20+ years now. :P you have to fuck around alot before you even learn the skill, and you have to fail alot before you can learn to be successful. :x
Not having time is not always literal, when I say I don't have time, I mean I already have my hands full. Granted I have adhd and already have plenty of assignments and classes from my classes so I'm probably the outlier in your audience
To be honest, I've been releasing all my games for free, mostly because I don't buy sound effects. Been doing that for over 10 years now.
Well, that, and also licensing games for other platforms on Game Maker is another can of worms for me, a guy who's so focused on making the games, that I don't handle the business side of things very well.
I'd be lucky to break 1000 downloads, and that's only happened for me twice. I'd like to sell a game, but I'm not in a position to do so.
I bought the course last year and actually don't know where to ask for advice about my games...Sometihng funny happen to my games, after releasing them I have...nothing, not even bad feedback, good feedback, just nothing.
Of course I'm doing something really really wrong, so, would be helpful for me to have a place where to talk about this things :)
LMAO
Hey! Super Interesting video!
I have been doing game dev for around about 5 years now, never released a full game only very small jam projects, although I know not releasing my work is bad even if the game is bad, i just don't want to be one of them dev's that release a crappy bug filled mess, well behold im working on my own game which i plan to release so i hope the past 5 years pays of in terms of gameplay it's very early on and the concept is (coop top down pirate game meets dying light night)
This is helpful
but would I get a reputation for bad games if I launch a bunch of games that fail? or it doesn't work like that?
I'm making a game about a human escaping mutated monkeys who want revenge for expirementation in unity. I want to have it make at least 10,000 dollars for the 1st 6 months. Am I aiming to high?
in my opinion, if it's your first game there is small chance of making $10k, but hey, if your game is fun enough, people will find it eventually so don't give up!
Aiming is irrelevant without taking in consideration the qualities of the game, marketing and your popularity, which actually is a part of the marketing.
In my scenario i can't take one cent from games because my country which is iraq 🇮🇶 no steam or epic or google play or apple Store there is no one accept me as publisher because of my country i feel so bad seeing my dream will never be true
Full time game dev would make a lot more money at an affordable price like 99.99. 500 bucks for a sale is not going to happen when there are hours of courses on udemy teaching the same thing for 20 bucks-100 bucks
I have a good idea of an ps1 type horror game but the one problem that I have is that I’m not really experienced with making games
How do you teach Unreal Engine in your course if you yourself don't know how to use it? You only used Unity for your games. Answer me!
If we make 500k on our game, we'd call that a huge success.
5 am gaaanggg yeah actuallt its 6:50 n i gotta go but
Is this pulled out of the love stream the other day?
6:10
FL/5 = SL means FL = 5SL ... 😂
It should be 5FL = SL 👍
I miss the times where this channel was about giving real adivices rathers than Clickbaits
Good video
I’m a designer and always wanted to make a game but I can’t code
I’m a programmer and always wanted to make a game but I can’t draw or model a 3d object. 🤔
This is one of the best, solid advice I ever found on the internet. I would also like to learn how to plan better for the long run so I can make steady monthly income
"Your Indie Game Is Worth More Than You Think"
I'm not sure about that. I've been playing games for over 30 years and love indie games but personally find most aren't even worth their 50% off price.
Another huge problem is you have absolutely incredible indie games like Hollow Knight and Hades that you can usually snag for like $10 because of constant sales, then a person will sell something that looks like they drew it in MS Paint, using the most generic music and generally doesn't even play as well as SNES games and they'll charge $15 for them.
I think a lot of indie developers think because they spent thousands of hours making their games that they deserve a big payday, regardless of whether it's any good or not.
Constructive criticism: If you're telling me to look at your chart, don't be showing a screencap from a video game instead of your chart. That happens several times in this video.
You have good advice, but cutting away to Stardew Valley is distracting when you're talking about the point illustrated by your graphic.
HELLO from the other siiide
Mr thomas i haven't money to buy your course im 16 years
I have his course. I'm so lucky
my dude, + rep
Cool man cool man cool man
thanks
Just released my first game on ios, Mine Crossing! Please try it out! 🤩
hey)
True first
True first
$500k 🤯 I got $0
It's probably easier to get famous and then sell whatever!
Nah, my Indie Game is worth what I sell it for: Free. It's just a themed novelty game I made for fun.
FL*5=SL
because it doesn't suit all players doesn't mean a lot of certain amount of people will like it
How to I make my videos gat more views so people actually know about my new game
sorry but with 50% of and the price is 623$ This is why new games never comes out, ppl with cant afford to pay theese prices its insane. you need to be rich to get into courses about game dev which is so sad.
on udemy there are really good courses for 9 dollars
So you sold your game to publisher good for you. I am making a game too and it is my 10 year old dream I started learning every thing I needed to know so I could do it on my own and I am doing everything on my own background elements, characters, animations and sound. So will not be selling my dream.
😪
There's so LITTLE information in these videos, it's amazing. I feel like I'm wasting time even watching at higher speed. No actual helpful tips. This is not even the first time I'm feeling like this. And this time I've been postponing watching this for a couple of months having the tab open on my browser waiting for a "good" moment to watch it. Sorry but I value my time more than this.
bro you pause for like a second between every phrase. You could've easily wrapped the video within 8mins with a tighter edit by removing all the pauses
ur a dev u still didnt have a hit and yet u tell ppl to spam relase shit
Well i don't think going through trial and error is bad either