Game Sales and Monetization
Monkey Forums/Monkey Programming/Game Sales and Monetization
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| Hi All - I've been programming with BRL products for the last 6 years though I've never published anything (yet) I wanted to know what experiences have been like in terms of game downloads and sales. What type/kind of games have you published? How much profit is generated from sales? How much in expenses(graphics, tools, etc) do you usually spend to develop your game? How much time is spent developing your game? What techniques do you employ to market your game? I guess what I'd like to know is if it's possible to make a living off of writing games? If it's highly unlikely how much is usually made, what's the hours of development to return ratio? I know this is all very subjective but I'd love to hear what experiences have been like so far. Thanks! |
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| Hey blabz. Here's my experience so far, for what it's worth. I've been working at making games for about 7 years, for myself and for clients. I've been programming with Monkey for about a year and a half, and was using Flash before that. I got started using Monkey when I started looking for an option to bring some of my flash games to ios and android. What type/kind of games have you published? So far only one with Monkey: http://www.rawkins.com/dolphin-up How much profit is generated from sales? It varies from month to month. It's not enough for me to develop games full time, but it helps a lot. I would say it currently generates about 1/3 of my income, with the rest coming from contract work. How much in expenses(graphics, tools, etc) do you usually spend to develop your game? I use adobe creative cloud, dropbox, Jungle IDE, texture packer, and of course Monkey. A windows laptop, and a mac mini for ios dev, ipad + ipod + htc android phone for testing. I would guess about $2000, roughly? I occasionally buy stock art, but try to do most of it myself. How much time is spent developing your game? I'm not really sure. I should probably be tracking this. I think it took me around 3 or 4 months to make Dolphin Up, and that was porting an already existing game to Monkey. I was learning Monkey at the same time (along with xcode/ios and Android), so I think I would be faster next time. I still support the game with updates as well, which eats up quite a bit of time, especially in the always-changing world of mobile development. What techniques do you employ to market your game? Twitter & facebook, contacting media outlets. Like a lot of developers I don't put enough effort into marketing. I know I should blog more and network more but it's so easy to ignore it and put it off. I guess what I'd like to know is if it's possible to make a living off of writing games? If it's highly unlikely how much is usually made, what's the hours of development to return ratio? It's not for me yet, but I want it to be. I think it's possible, but it's not easy. I also think that building the game is the easy part. The business/marketing side is the real challenge, especially in such a crowded marketplace. |
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| Thanks for you input arawkins! Extremely helpful! |
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| I've made enough this year to recoup the price of Monkey, plus a jar of coffee here and there and some Humble Bundles, so it's a win in my book. |
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| So here some stats from me, maybe interesting, don't know. What type/kind of games have you published? Mainly 4 so far: one chain reaction puzzle called Blotty Pots (very few downloads) one Tic Tac Toe thing (same) a battleship game which is my biggest success (see below), nearly 2 years in the markets a Mau Mau (crazy 8 like) card game How much profit is generated from sales? Well not to make a living but I had some nice returns. To my surprise Amazon works best, followed by Google then iOS. I don't know why, as everyone says that iOS has the highest numbers of downloads and sales. Not for me! Google Play:  Amazon (the two spikes were the sales numbers after the Free App of the Day campaign from Amazon!):  Apple:  How much in expenses(graphics, tools, etc) do you usually spend to develop your game? No expenses beside the Monkey license. All graphics are done by friends. I do 50/50 revenue split with all of them. How much time is spent developing your game? These types of games take usually 3-4 months. What techniques do you employ to market your game? I've tried all. From paid reviews to press releases and Facebook. To be honest, NOTHING did change anything. Especially paid reviews ARE NOT worth it! Some conclusions and hints which might be interesting: Regarding my game battleship it worked best in Germany to my surprise. Not because we have a wider market for this but because it was localized even with the name "Schiffe versenken". If you search for battleship you'll find dozends of games, but using the name "Schiffe versenken" there are only a few. So it might be indeed good to concentrate on localized markets! |
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| That a very nice return on the localised version of battleship Xaron. English is certainly saturated so targeting smaller markets is a damn good idea. Wondering if I should run a small experiment and localise my Perry the Penguin game into German? what German for Penguin? :p |
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| Pinguin ;) |
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| I'll call it "Xaron die Pinguin" Sounds like a whole other game. |
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| HA! LOL. It has to be "Xaron der Pinguin" ;) |
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| Thanks for the responses. I would love to hear some more. |
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