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[tametick]

I'm very impressed with your revenue after just 6 months! Well done! How much of that 6 months was taken developing the game, and how long's it been out? How did you generate so much interest in such a short space of time? Or did the project or your games already have a following before you went full-time indie?

I've worked on it full time since March 1st & released 1.0 at August 11th, I'd say most of the time was spent developing.

The money came partially from a successful crowd funding campaign, some from desktop sales & a large chunk from some licensing deals I can't talk about yet.

WRT generating interest, I've already had a small but loyal fan base before I started (I've made several small free games along the years & am very active in the roguelike community) and they started the ball rolling.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

Thanks, tametik, for letting me know. I'm very impressed with what you've achieved!

[Arowx]

So does size matter, should I spend my 364 days making lots of small games or a few larger deeper ones?

Could anyone share stats or ratios between the development time / expense and revenue of larger and smaller projects they have done?

Is there a sweet spot between depth and features and revenue?

What types of games earn more, shooter, rpg, strategy, platform, puzzle ect?

[tametick]

It's not so straightforward - e.g. if you hit it big you can make millions on puzzle games since these have the widest appeal, but it's really hard to make an original puzzle these days (since so many people are trying to do the same) and as a lone indie making his first game you are unlikely to hit it big with yet another match 3 game.

Cardinal Quest will never bring in really big money because the market for commercial roguelikes is kinda small. Then again the niche status means I don't have as much competition (there are many roguelikes out there but very few with decent aesthetics and easy to learn/decent UI/UX - I can think of maybe 4 outside of my own game).

I would suggest that unless you have really uncommon taste try to make a game you would enjoy playing and hope there are enough other people like you out there that will buy it.

Also I would advise on smaller games, but not because they'd give you a better ROI than bigger games, but because you are more likely to actually finish something sellable at all.

[Paul Eres]

There is no guarantee that you'll earn anything, though, so prepare fallback plans.
You could work like a monk and create a great game and still get nothing. That happens a lot on FGL for example.

It's better if you have some cash to spend in advance so that you could hire artists or things like that.
And take a good time to decide what will be the best way to distribute your game.

i agree with moi

also: i tried to play one of your games on kongregate but it crashed by browser when loading (not a good first impression) -- probably not your fault as flash tends to crash my browser sometimes, but a lot of kongregate games i have no problems with

anyway in general it's not a good idea to set a "target goal" for money, because you'll just give up indie games as a business if you fail to meet it. you should be happy getting any money at all for doing what you love. you should be even happier if it's enough to barely scrape by on. there's no need to try to make much more than that

but as for general advice, i feel that flash games are a fad and not a stable way to make money. the only stable way to make money is releasing downloadable games that people can buy. that way you build up a player base of fans, and each game you make has an audience waiting for it of people who bought your previous games

with flash games -- let's say you make a game that has a million people playing it. great, good ad money, good reputation for future games, but...... all those million people will likely never hear of your next game, because you don't have any way to contact them, and they don't know who you are, they think some guy who bought your game for a few thousand dollars is the guy who made your game, not you. they also only know that your game was on "some flash games website", they never went to your website, and don't know what it is. so i see flash games as being further away from one's fans as downloadable games are, in terms of "psychological distance" and that's why i wouldn't want to focus on making them

[tametick]

but as for general advice, i feel that flash games are a fad and not a stable way to make money.

Hrm. If they are that it's a "fad" that has been there for a decade already.

I think the platform (flash) doesn't really matter and might be dethroned some day (by unity, html5/js, something else) but licensing free to play games to 3rd parties (portals are basically publishers for flash games, only they license complete works rather than finance development) is here to stay for at least a while longer IMO.

[Paul Eres]

fads can last way longer than a decade. for instance, i think 3d games are a fad too, and they've lasted longer than a decade as well

[tametick]

fads can last way longer than a decade. for instance, i think 3d games are a fad too, and they've lasted longer than a decade as well

I see you've edited your post and are actually talking about something a bit different. I agree with you that the model has some disadvantages, but I disagree that either flash (or unity, or html5, or whatever tech comes along to replace it) or 3d games are fads, unless you understand that word totally different than I (or google) do.

[Paul Eres]

i mean fad in the sense of something new which is popular and which people do because of peer pressure, but which one day will no longer be as popular, returning something old to the dominant position. i meant more that 'making flash games as a way to riches is a fad among game developers' than 'playing flash games is a fad among gamers', though. so i don't think flash games themselves are a fad, i just think the gold rush for indies to make flash games is a fad

currently the make flash games fad is dying down and being replaced by the make iphone games fad

[tametick]

I don't think many would argue that it's a way to riches, tho.

It's just one more option among many others, with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

[Paul Eres]

maybe many wouldn't argue against it, but i would -- i don't think it's a *long-term* way to make money, just a short-term one, for the reasons mentioned above (there's no gradual building up of a player base who know who you are or of traffic to one's site)

[tametick]

It's definitively sacrificing some of the long term for the short term, but it can still be used together with other methods to achieve success in both the long and short terms, e.g. Andy Moore (somehow I know his name even tho he doesn't sell downloadable games!) starting out with SteamBirds for flash and then releasing ios and android versions.

Another example of the same is solipskier.

[Paul Eres]

but aren't those both examples of "one hit game" rather than a long string of successful games spanning decades? by long-term i meant through a career, like 40-60 years

those are also exceptions (the 0.0001% of people who achieve super-success) -- i'm going more by averages and what happens typically, rather than the highest peaks or bolts of lightning (which often aren't repeated). e.g. the spiderweb softwares and cliffskis of the world, not the notches or terrarias

[tametick]

but aren't those both examples of "one hit game" rather than a long string of successful games spanning decades? by long-term i meant through a career, like 40-60 years

those are also exceptions (the 0.0001% of people who achieve super-success) -- i'm going more by averages and what happens typically, rather than the highest peaks or bolts of lightning (which often aren't repeated). e.g. the spiderweb softwares and cliffskis of the world, not the notches or terrarias

I have on idea, I guess we will need to wait and see.

BTW I will put both of my examples well within cliffski's and vogel's warm, moderately successful, indie bosom.

The average for all types of indie game devs is making little to no money what-so-ever, so those that are seeking a quick buck in making flash games, iphone games or the even newer social games will be better served looking somewhere else.

[Paul Eres]

i'm not that familiar with your examples, then -- i don't know which other games those people made, or how long they've been in business. it's hard to call something a long-term success if they've only gotten successful recently (except in the sense that they've made enough money to last them for a lifetime in a short-term period, which is fine but not really something to rely on)

in any case there's definitely many different ways to approach making money, it's just that i tend to favor ways that connect me with a community rather than ways that put something between me and the community -- such as third-party licenses, publishers, e.g. anything except direct sales or direct interaction of some other kind. i don't even really like portals (like steam) because they take away that direct connection; i think people should use them but not become reliant on them

another way to put this is: in 50 years there probably won't be people making money from selling games to flash game portal sites, but there will still be people making money directly from customers