For all developers who are curious about the solo gamedev lifestyle business, I’m sure there are many, what are the basic economics that can make it work? (Other than money saved at MAANG.)
what are the basic economics that can make it work?
Ah i was coming here to warn you about that.
Ill brace for downvotes but if i can light a candle for just one person, that would be fantastic.
A big misconception about the economy of games is that they are content - economically-wise. An example of content is music or movies, think spotify or netflix.
This is absolutely not the case. Economically, games work like software: a handful of games are played for years and represents 98% of the playtime / money.
Treat games like a startup: what will make your game still be played 10 years from now?
Dont think "im gonna do one game and then another". Think "ill make one game". You wouldnt think "ill make a startup and then another and then another" even though you could its not really how youd think about this stuff right. Do the same with games.
One game. One startup. One product. Played for years on end. Diverge from that strategy and chances are you wont have a good life as a game developer like millions before you.
That being said, lets say you want to make a "content game", that is, a clone (your 2d platformer with a nice plot and rpg elements). Nothing wrong with that but just understand that on the long run it wont be sustainable economically, even if you take a lucky jump.
I handled taxes for a number of video game companies. The parent comment is wrong. If it were correct, the video game industry as we know it wouldn't exist.
Most games are played heavily within the first year, and thereafter not so much. Indeed, game revenues in general are even more front-loaded than movie revenues; for most games, 80% of the game's lifetime revenue is made in the first 6 months of release, which is why DRM is a thing on new games but usually gets removed in a patch a few months after release: to stop piracy during those crucial first few months. (With movies, excluding blockbusters which live or die by their box office, most of the revenue is made after the film leaves theaters from licensing deals and consumer media sales.)
Excluding subscription games like MMOs, only a tiny handful of games continue making substantial amounts of revenue after 6 months. Games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Stardew Valley are the exception, rather than the norm.
Don't let that dissuade you. As a solo developer, you only need a few thousand in sales to make a good living.
On the other hand, there's a lot of people wealthy enough to buy games on a whim, try them out for an hour or two, and then never launch them again (and don't refund). So, maybe that helps the situation somewhat? Otherwise, I agree - no one I know is a serial gamer. We all have our favourites which we've been playing for 10+ years. The best game studios can make in such situation is make a game with in-app purchases, or sell a newer, better version every so often.
I think the games people are buying on a whim, though, are the games with 10-year staying power that they haven't gotten to yet -- not throwaway projects that aren't good enough to care about.
I'd say >50% of the games in my library were cheap/on-sale and I've never opened. If I were wealthy I'd probably engage in buying even more games. I like the idea of supporting indie devs who do something as simple as make a small game in one of my key genres.
That is absolutely not how the market behaves. None of the big (or small) moneymakers in last few years came close to "10 years" of popularity and probably won't.
> None of the big (or small) moneymakers in last few years came close to "10 years" of popularity and probably won't.
I don't think much of the software out there behaves like this either. It might apply somewhat to game or software franchises, though.
For example, LibreOffice has had multiple major releases, but has been around for a bit over 12 years, a bit longer if you include the predecessors. Ubuntu LTS is usually supported for around 5 years, but Ubuntu as a whole has been around for almost 20 years.
Similarly, Counter-Strike was released over 20 years ago, even if there's been multiple separate games over the years. It's more or less the same story for Battlefield and Call of Duty.
That said, that's setting your own goals unrealistically high, since those are the exceptions when compared to any number of unsuccessful games. If you try to compete against games like that, you'll just burn yourself out. Most startups aren't necessarily built for the longevity either, but rather to have a product hit the market within a reasonable time frame and budget.
If you want, make games, fail, iterate, fail some more, iterate some more, maybe eventually succeed. Have a look at some grounded experiences from other folks, for example watch this video titled "How to Survive in Gamedev for Eleven Years Without a Hit": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmwbYl6f11c
No need to be so dismissive. I think you're misunderstanding what I mean. Big moneymakers like -- well, not the yearly sports games, but everything else -- are exactly what I'm talking about. Games like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, etc are big, well-made games that are going to still be played in ten years precisely because they're so big and well-made. Same for small indie hits: they make a bunch of money up front and then will continue to exist for a long time, being played, building communities, etc. I was agreeing with the GP which was saying, you don't plan to make multiple games, you make one good one that has quality/staying power/whatever you want to call it. When I'm on Steam buying games randomly because they're on sale, it's _good_ games, that I've heard of and will continue to hear about, not random cheaply-made garbage (usually).
You need money saved (for yourself and for contractors), and publishers wont be interested in you until you are well into development (unless you have previous experience releasing something). So you're on your own until you can catch the attention of a publisher, assuming you want to work with one.
I didnt start receiving publishing offers until 13 months after I started development (and notably, when I started adding serious art to the game).
Currently trying get a small project off the ground while working full time at a large company.
The goal is to get enough momentum on a project to find a good jumping off point.
The project is a multiplayer adaptation of frogger, where players are competing be the last man standing dashing across roads and rivers. The USP is allowing players to push each other around, this really adds to the competition (you can push people in front of cars, off of logs etc)
The target audience is "skibble.io users" so bored students / employees looking for something to do over zoom. So I'm building it out as a webpage with no login and as quick as possible time to game.
From what I've gathered from listening to and reading from a couple of very successful (at least originally) indie devs that worked alone or in small teams for quite a while:
They all had a day job.
Sometimes game dev related, sometimes not so much. But they all sacrificed a large portion of their free time at least until they started to generate enough money to survive on game dev alone.
You need a savings. Probably 3x what you think you’ll need. You’ll need a solid plan. Not just a “this would be a cool game”. You need to be open about the development (not open source, but posting blogs etc). You also need to work with marketing and publishers to get your game(s) out there. You need to think about support and community from day 1.
In the end, the game is its own thing. It better be fun. It better be enjoyable. Otherwise all the above doesn’t matter.
Another route is to work on a prototype and designs in your spare time and set up a Kickstarter to raise funds and gauge interest (and try out game development of course without quitting your day job), but as the others said, you'll probably need a lot more cash than you think you do.
