/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

Just like you OP, I was on my quest to make something "epic" meaning that it's something that wasn't intended to be a generic flash/mobile game, and thought it will surely make money so I can exist and make a sequel to it. But it's not even gonna make money for a first game in the first place, obviously it's a long way till it's finished but I think interesting games get attention early on even if they are not finished.

So I decided to kinda say fuck it for the moment and just accept that the game that I want is not going to be popular, so I am developing it with no money in mind, and the fact that I'll gain some experience from it and that I am making something I love.

I don't want to tell you how sad I am that I see other very bad games getting support to get finished while mine will have to wait half a decade because I don't have much time, it just hurts you. But I that's the way it is, life isn't fair, and we have to keep trying.

Just remember... game deving is basically competing with every single game developer in the world right now, and everyone has access to the most basic engines meaning that to stand out you have to produce something amazing. It's not easy at all, especially if you are alone.

I suggest just working some random job and keep developing your game as a hobby, if you love games and deving. Or become a programmer and make lots of corporate dosh, and make your game.

Your project will most likely fail, and so will mine, and I am putting a lot of hard work into it, we just need to remind ourselves that we are not going to be popular, rich, or that anyone will care about it. And then it will be easier.

But to answer your question... risk of rain, that copy of risk of rain, even catmouth island, also yandere simulator is making mad dosh, and I'm sure there are some others that I forgot

Also apparently Uncanny Valley which is kinda weird to me, I remember gifs being posted here and that the game got finished pretty fast. I shrugged it off and thought that's a nice looking game but no one is going to bother. I have no idea how it got this popular but well... it's really popular now.

Greenlight takes next to no votes to get a game accepted, but that doesn't count for sales.

Make the game you want to make, not what's currently popular. Provided you know what makes a game good (I hope so since you're a dev) then it will sell. If you chase trends then your game has no chance of sticking out from the rest.

>>25277

Catmouth Island was a horrible failure from what the dev said.

>>25280

It made $2500 on indiegogo and some moe money on steam (60 sales?), which is really not much I know, but it's at least 'something' for the effort invested in it. I wouldn't call it a complete and utter failure, unless he invested money in it and made absolutely nothing in return.

>>25300

His words, not mine. I recall a post he made years ago when he said he's cancelling it. He did work on it for quite a while, so if he was depending on it to turn a profit it was a pretty big loss.

I'm glad to see Vagante is doing well, though. The game is very polished and seems to have sold an ok number so far.

On a sidenote, it's both kinda funny and sad a lot of the devs don't post around AGDG anymore, most were scared off when the halfchan threads turned shitty. You guys don't post enough progress but at least you try.

>>25301

It's probably just that 4chan is still way more popular so this is why we don't see many posts here, but don't quote me on that, haven't visited that in more than a year.

>>25302

I went there a few times to see what they're up to, it's 90% shitposting about tfw nodev and tfw nogf.

Not me, just working towards it, but I know people who have made money.

$3000 is about what I expect for one of my regular efforts. A few years ago a publisher took a look at one of my freewares and quoted me something to that amount in terms of wanting to license it to publish on someplace like the App store.

I know people who came out charging the full $20 for their game but they're in the Otome crowd so they tend to throw money on anything catering to girls and not made by the Patriarchy.

Then again, the days of $20 casual RPG maker games are over, thanks to Apple totally destroying the PC casual market.

It's really interesting to note that the people who find success on Kickstarter raising $20-50K are already supposed to be the cream of the crop of /agdg/ types. Larger campaign amounts are usually by full-time indie devs or small LLCs.

I know where I fit in the food chain that's why my first release is 99 cents (actually, I'll try being a bit greedy and gunning for 1.99 instead).

I have some long-term RPG projects (not RPG maker, they're either 2D or cheap 3D and designed to last 10 hours) which I estimate would be a ballpark $7,000 effort and which I plan to sell for $5.99 - $7.99. If I manage to finish those, then that's when I consider myself a success. Obviously I still have my day job.

gamemaking is a hobby, and a hobby is something you invest time and money into for personal pleasure or whatever.

gamedev ties in a lot of my other hobbies, like painting, modelling and making music, so i use it as a motivation to get better in all these aspects.

if you do it purely for profits, you're not really any better than bobby kotick.

>>25275

Digital homicides games have a fan base

just remember that and you'll be ok

>>25315

>I know people who came out charging the full $20 for their game but they're in the Otome crowd so they tend to throw money on anything catering to girls and not made by the Patriarchy.

>the Patriarchy

It's not about muh fehmeneesm. It's that otomes outside of Japan are rare as fuck. As in, so rare they are extremely hard to pirate.

Otome fans are out of luck in the west. You can count quality otomes published in English with your fingers, and there aren't enough fans to get a cracking team interested in making free torrents for them. However, those fans will pay generous quantities for any new otome because they are starving.

It's what happens when you target a niche (in this case, a niche of a niche) market: you will have very few customers, but they will be very loyal. You won't get as much net money as mass marketed games like Cawodoody, but you can still make some money if you adjust your production budget.

bump for interest

I've made money from developing code for games with other people, that's about it.

The elusive killer hit has yet to be realized, though thankfully I still make money.