Technical expertise and making money are two different things.
No one here is stopping you from making games, just don't expect making profits from it.
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How hard it is to live from games as indie developer?
If you don't aim to be on the top of the pile you will certainly fail. Mobile games have to be world class just to get noticed these days.
All I am saying is if you aim to be the top of the pile on mobile you will most likely fail.
No you will not fail. If you are trying to aim for the top you will fail. If you are just trying to make a living then there is no need to be the next big hitter.
There are bunches of articles out there that claim you must be in the top 10 to make money blah blah blah but, this is only the case if you are operating as a games studio with overheads and several peoples wages to pay. If you are an individual you need less money.
I'm speaking from experience. I have apps in the app store that I spent a weekend to make and they are still making ad revenue 3 years later having had zero updates. That is certainly a return on investment.
I've also worked on apps for Ubisoft, Capcom, EA, Segam and Namco and some of these have made losses due to the time taken to create a quality title using a strong IP. These titles do need huge numbers of downloads even to break even.
You don't need to get massively noticed to get enough downloads to start generating decent ad revenue for a game that has had a very short development time.
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On the other hand I could have spent a year or so using Unreal and hired an artist and made a super polished 3d game. I may even get featured on the front page of the app store, however the money made will barely cover the cost of development.
If you want to found a new games studio and you have the time and can take the risk then absolutely try and make the next big hit. If like the OP you just want to eat out a living you need to be aiming to produce several quality titles quickly.
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If you want to found a new games studio and you have the time and can take the risk then absolutely try and make the next big hit. If like the OP you just want to eat out a living you need to be aiming to produce several quality titles quickly.
Fair enough, I think you make some good points....
But the sentence I left in the quote above should have been a "disclaimer" in your first post. As well as some of the other indepth explenations on what you did. Just so people don't think you want to spend a month or two creating a mediocre game (and lets be honest, the cut off point for a "non-mediocre" game has moved above that timeframe for a lone dev even on mobile), or "found a company" just to push out mediocre shovelware.
I am pretty sure you can still make a living pushing apps to the stores when going BELOW mediocre (well, not an attack targetted at you, but spending a weekend and not doing any updates will be less than the treatement the average app receives... maybe I am horribly wrong here), pushing out apps at an alarming rate, and keeping your costs to the minimum.
If that answers the OPs question IDK though... he complains about his job. Creating subpar or at least mediocre apps at a conveyer belt rate, while officially being one of the guys creating the app flood that is threatening to chocke the whole app development economy, and in the end hoping on a constant trickle of income from half forgotten apps is most probably not what most guys planning to flee jobs in other industries have in mind when they flirt with the idea to become a game dev.
I will now come down from my high horse, don't worry 
... still, I think you should have added the perspective given in your last post to your first in this thread.
in the end hoping on a constant trickle of income from half forgotten apps is most probably not what most guys planning to flee jobs in other industries have in mind when they flirt with the idea to become a game dev.
Which is why I don't really make games anymore. I've worked for the man doing AAA and it sucked. I've tried creating high quality Indie apps and lost money. I've made some fairly average apps that did and still do make money and felt completely unfulfilled. I now write financial apps for major multinational companies because if I'm going to feel unfulfilled I may as well earn a fuck-ton of money whilst I do it ;).
Which is why I don't really make games anymore.in the end hoping on a constant trickle of income from half forgotten apps is most probably not what most people have in mindI'm speaking from experience. I have apps in the app store that I spent a weekend to make and they are still making ad revenue 3 years later having had zero updates.
It's a return on investment, but is it enough to live off? You didn't disagree with it being called a trickle...
Let's make up some semi plausible numbers:
* I live in a nice, modern, western city, and here you'd need at to make at least $2500/month (before tax). If you were being paid your worth as a programmer you'd get 3x that (and with a team of two, you'd obviously need another 2x), but I'll stick with minimums. Per day, that's ~$82.
* You've got a F2P game "A", which makes 1c per daily active user.
* You've got a "premium" game "B", which makes 69c (99c minus retail cut) per download.
* 90% of F2P downloads result in no meaningful play time.
* 10% of F2P downloads results in an average of 7 days of activity.
To make a living off game "A", you need ~8200 DAU (to make your $82/day).
10 downloads results in 1 actual player, who gives you 1 DAU for a period of 7 days, or 1 DAU for 23% of your month.
356520 downloads gives you 35652 DAU for 7 days, which is equivalent to having ~8200 DAU over every day of the month, which equates to ~$2495 in income.
So to hit your income target, you need over a quarter of a million new downloads for F2P game "A" every month.
To make a living off premium game "B", you need ~3623 new downloads per month.
If you want to have a team of two who are making good incomes (enough to not be tempted to go join finance instead of making games), you'd need to sell 7246 copies of game "B" per month AND get three quarter of a million downloads of game "A" per month.
Those are pretty high targets to hit with shovelware games. Sure you can work on the retention stats, and monetization per user, etc... but that will require a lot of ongoing effort, not just a weekend one-off.
Regardless of whether you'll be making a living or not, these numbers also represent your "break even" targets. If you spend one month making a game, then the above number is also the break-even number. If you spend a year, then 12x the above is your break-even target. So obviously you'd want to get you games done as quickly as possibly, while still hitting a quality level that can get you these download figures.
No you will not fail. If you are trying to aim for the top you will fail. If you are just trying to make a living then there is no need to be the next big hitter.If you don't aim to be on the top of the pile you will certainly fail. Mobile games have to be world class just to get noticed these days.
I didn't say you have to put a lot of time and money in, just that you have to be world class.
I don't agree with all of this advice, but rule #5: be world class, is pretty important.
Developers have to at least give themselves a shot at success. That doesn’t mean having the greatest production values. That doesn’t mean spending more than you can afford. It simply means focusing your effort on making the best possible video game.
Mobile games are being sold in a market where there are literally millions of competing products taking up shelf space all around you. You need to present your game so it actually looks like it belongs sitting on the shelf next to the minority of games that actually are being sold.
I work in a gamedev precinct, with about 30 indie dev studios here. Some release multiple games per month, but they look world class. They push forward their genre and look like leading products. Some others spend 3 years making a game (big risks!), but they also look world class. Some will work on a game for a month, realize that it's going to take 6 more to get it into a world-class game, and then cut their losses, cancel the project, and move onto something new. Another will release a game in one small country only, gather analytics, research competitors, and then re-release worldwide with a vastly improved version that gets all the small details right.
I don't know of any companies here that just churn out fast work and throw as much muck at the wall to see what will stick. I know studios in other parts of the world that do that... and if the cost of living there is lower, maybe it's more viable.
The company in the link above, they've got an office downstairs from me, and they're the goddamn flappy bird style outliers. As a two-man team, they've made over $10 million from a few month's work on one game.
They're not just a viral luck kind of success like flappy bird though - almost every game they've released has made it into the top 10 charts. They keep repeating that same success. They're consistently releasing mobile games that actually do belong on that top shelf - not by imitating the AAA model, but by doing the indie model with a shitload of care and thought.
Which is why I don't really make games anymore. I've worked for the man doing AAA and it sucked. I've tried creating high quality Indie apps and lost money. I've made some fairly average apps that did and still do make money and felt completely unfulfilled. I now write financial apps for major multinational companies because if I'm going to feel unfulfilled I may as well earn a fuck-ton of money whilst I do it ;).
Well, the mobile app stores certainly have become a tough place to sell apps in.
Totally agree with your last statement... but you "kinda" contradict your earlier statement, as we were talking mobile games before... I guess some of the fairly average apps that still make money are games?
Anyway, as long as it works for you and you can pay the bills with it, I tip my hat to you, sir... IDK if I could or wanted to even try to survive in the current mobile ecosystem.
Let's make up some semi plausible numbers:
* I live in a nice, modern, western city, and here you'd need at to make at least $2500/month (before tax). If you were being paid your worth as a programmer you'd get 3x that (and with a team of two, you'd obviously need another 2x), but I'll stick with minimums. Per day, that's ~$82.
* You've got a F2P game "A", which makes 1c per daily active user.
* You've got a "premium" game "B", which makes 69c (99c minus retail cut) per download.
* 90% of F2P downloads result in no meaningful play time.
* 10% of F2P downloads results in an average of 7 days of activity.
To make a living off game "A", you need ~8200 DAU (to make your $82/day).
10 downloads results in 1 actual player, who gives you 1 DAU for a period of 7 days, or 1 DAU for 23% of your month.
356520 downloads gives you 35652 DAU for 7 days, which is equivalent to having ~8200 DAU over every day of the month, which equates to ~$2495 in income.
So to hit your income target, you need over a quarter of a million new downloads for F2P game "A" every month.
To make a living off premium game "B", you need ~3623 new downloads per month.
If you want to have a team of two who are making good incomes (enough to not be tempted to go join finance instead of making games), you'd need to sell 7246 copies of game "B" per month AND get three quarter of a million downloads of game "A" per month.
Which is completely irrelevant because the OP said he only needs to earn 500 euros per month which is 760 AUD. Plus you are still talking about a single game whereas I already mentioned that you would have to make a lot of games. I said 10 - 15 titles to be earning a living. I also said that that the real money would lie in using these games to get yourself freelance work. Plus the OP is a single person and NOT a team of two. All he needs to do is make McDonalds money (probably even less than McDonalds money because even making shovel ware beats asking people if they'd like fries with that).
I don't know of any companies here that just churn out fast work and throw as much muck at the wall to see what will stick. I know studios in other parts of the world that do that... and if the cost of living there is lower, maybe it's more viable.
And again I am talking about individuals making a living and NOT companies or studios that have overheads.
But, there is still some merit to going mobile over PC or Consoles. All stores are getting more and more crowded lately, Steam or the Console Digital download stores will be no exception.
It's actually still easier to steer attention to your website and get people to download your game through your own paypal powered storefront than to go mobile to be honest. And that, alone, should say a lot ;)
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I have decided to do PC games first, I might try to export my game for multiple platforms if it's possible as mobiles have a lot of limits and I have never tryed it and don't know how difficult it is.
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