"In game development, half of the time is spent on making 90% of the game, and the other half on the other 90%" That would be out of 180% ...180% of what? Of 1000%. If game's completion is 100% then it can't be over it +80%
I agree with you. Many here would tell some kind of tales or others while this sir actually told his own experience from beginning to the end in quite a simple and understandable way, while promoting his own product. Definetily worth a like at least
Finally someone that just did his job the right way then checked in the money he earned and just shared it to keep other people motivated :) thank you my friend
@Shi Yu Meng It's calling starting a business, he develop a game library don't loose his rights with a publisher etc...he work for himself not for someone else. so it's harder at the start.
@Shi Yu Meng 90%...I'd say 80%....And I hope you realized that he said that he was doing the project as a hobby not an actual job. Which means he didn't work as hard on it. And since we both have a degree let's do some math: 2500$ of costs + 8 months of (hobby work )---so let's take a Year (you make money of the work you do--> your job + 600-700$ a month for a year , extra from your hobby project). Now if this doesn't prove to be actualy worth it (for a hobby) than you might as well be the lazyest or just a dumb person with a degree. THE DEGREE DOESN'T AUTOMATICLY MAKE YOU SMART ;)
@@gisketch Well, technically first you create 90% and then you create 90% from the leftovers, leaving you with 98% game done ;P Isn't the idea that a game can never be finished developing?
@@iskariotas But that's not what he meant.. You just made that up to save him. He did a mistake and im not shaming him for it because we all understand. lol.
@@ashleyanne2056 7:55 "First month was much better. It was around $1,400 .. uh ... $1,500. It's getting lower as I don't use any additional posts to promote it anymore."
@GAME CHANGER • yep. He earned $1400 the first month and was averaging about $700 a month after, every month the profit was getting lower. 700,650,600,550... eventual reaching 0 revenue. That's basically what he was saying. He assumes it will reach 0 based on the trend of the revenue stream.
yeah but thats what companies use to pay you next to nothing :'D So people who have studied game development please don't work for peas charge reasonably for your skillset don't ruin it for everybody
The problem is, most basic skill sets can be learn in 6 months, knowing enough to do 80% of the work. So its not hard to replace someone if they're asking for too much $$$. Generally speaking, the long it takes to train to do a particular job, the more you get paid.
@@TeddyboyRnR13 similar idea with fashion. rich kids will work for top designers for 0 pay cuz they want the title. leaves trained designers with little pay or completely out of the field.
@@averagegamerscollective define "basic skills" and define "6 months" please. Knowing just enough is one reason why people get paid pittance and a defining factor of this new AI era, we're coming into.
Wow, you've provided a great asset for all Indie developers like me who are still working on their first game. I also have a day job that has nothing to do with game development except that we use Unity for our App developments which are not games. Still, I spend the bulk of my time on my day job and family time. It's tough staying motivated to finish. Based on your experience it's still worth it for me. Thanks. Good luck in your next game.
It is interesting to know that a game engine is used for regular app development, I am curious to know how this has turned out for your company. Is it stable or a complete disaster?
you just inspired me to make my own game, I've always had this idea of making a 2D platform shooter and I'm currently a student in IT. Wish me luck, and may you become successful with your future games
As someone making the same steps into the solo-dev attempt, I really appreciate your video, it's actually helping spur me on in completing my first release project. I have a number part finished projects that I want to release, and that friends who have seen them want released, but I have been doubting their value. Cheers, and subbed.
Not knowing what I want to do with my life usually leads me to watch a bunch of random videos about coding, video editing, 3d modeling, game design, graphic design, etc. etc. and I find that a lot of the videos are bogged down drags, but yours was straight to the point and informative. Thank you for sharing your story, and your struggles, I just might have to try making my own game
TL;DW summary: $600-800 per month from advertisements and iAPs, but of course this will only last for so long. That return is coming from a $2500 investment, but I'm not sure if that counts the work done on making the game.
WOW thanks for sharing this!! OMG $1800 for advertising, total $2500 spend??? then around 600 emails???!! wooooow i too think that marketing is the next hardest part after we finish the game, and MANY developer failed on that. Wasted months of developing game because didnt try harder to spread the words and didnt want to PAY the advertising. my friend is also like that, he makes good quality game, BUT didnt want to spend ads and only spread the words to his friends.. it's sad that 3 month after release, the game still have bellow 10 review :( game development is scary... but i'm glad the result is so worth it for you! thank you for sharing this! i'll also watch your other video
our channel was one of the 600 u contacted, firstly we were not sure about the game, but when we checked it out we really saw the potential and featured it in several of our videos. good job
Your backstory is super lot like mine. The difference is I havent start working on my game, even though I know how to use 3 game engines already. This is very inspiring to me. Btw, you did the right thing to spend on advertising. Most devs (even companies) failed their first games because they dont reach enough people. edited: You asked your friends to do the localization for free. That's not good. always give them something in return. Even if it's only treating them a lunch or two as a thanks. Never ask for a free favor when you're earning something out of it.
Good for you man. I started working full-time not too long ago but started game dev on the side. Hearing this is a nice motivational boost. Also will be giving your game a download. Awesome and good luck with your future games!
@@miniyeti88 ivan bro how did managed to avoid copyright in sounds and stuff like that ¿any problem with that? or u also made all the sfx and background music. What an adventure dude!!!.
i like this video a ture game dev straight to the point and honest with us stuff like this will give u fans my friend and then later those fans will back u because ur honest and to the point with us
Damn I like the art style man ! Gives me "Enter the gungeon" and "Dungeon of the endless" vibes. Glad your game turned out to be a success. My little games I make never make it that far. Someday it will.
Congrats, dude. Really glad that it turned out good for you. Having almost a similar background and only starting my own solo dev path - your story motivates me a lot. Дякую :)
i've been playing your game for weeks, i've been using unity for years and i can't even fathom how you did it alone in such a short time, i swear you have a hit on your hands. i'm sure people would buy this on pc for 10-30$, great job man.
Thank you Ali, I guess I was just pushing my self a lot, and as it was new to me, I got super excited I released it for pc on Steam 23 of October for 5.99 but since then i got 18 sales... I dint do any advertising for PC version, that's the result. Also I think it's still too simple for PC. For mobile it's okeish
ok i just finished the vid and trust me you don't need a publisher, i heard so many stories of people having their ip stolen, money taken away even by multi million dollar companies self publishing is perfectly viable today and you'll need minimal polish for the pc version and marketing you can contract for that early bump so its not worth it, good luck with the game buddy
@@miniyeti88 Hi Ivan if u put it on Steam and only get a few sale at first, don't be discouraged. PC games can take a long time to get rolling bc there are so many games on Steam store. But it's fun & once a few ppl play it, then the game will have more sales. I'm same artist as u & sometimes worked on small project that start slow like this but eventually get over million downloads
I dont wanna pretend like im an expert but ive been marketing digital products for a couple months now and now im learning how to market games organically and trust me ill try to get you sales since I.need the practice and I really like the game, im not gonna ask for a cut or anything since it wont cost me but if it works that means im learning and my favourite mobilr game is getting known so win win, you're a cool dev Ivan, keep going
I have a similar background to you, and made a game in a very similar way. I published it for free, with ads on android and appstore. The first months it had a couple of thousand users, and now two years later it still has around 15-20 weekly users (even though I haven't updated it since 2018). However, the ads only made me money from US users. I had many users in Brazil and Europe, but they didnt earn me any money from ads. All in all I made about 200 dollars, which covered the cost of getting into appstore. I've kept working on little games because it's fun, but I wouldn't give up my day job anytime soon.
I feel that, man. I'm trying to solo develop 2 games for some time now. One of them I have no hurry, because it is a passion project and a lot of people are willing to help me on that, but on their own pace and free time, so I don't have to worry. But the second one has been where I spend MOST of my "free time". The funny part of this video is that I'm the total opposite. I'm a programmer, pretty familiar with C# (but using Unreal Engine), and now I'm venturing myself on the CGI universe. And boy, it is a universe.
Thank you for taking time to make this video. I am currently at about 80% of my game and I think I just got some inspiration to continue! I think that even if you are a code expert, or a graphics expert or whatever field expert, what matters most is that you have the general quality as a human, in order to complete the project! Few people do and they deserve congratulations!
this is super inspiring and great work on your production! I went to school for CG and mostly self taught. Currently teaching myself programming and seeing as I'm going through similar situation as you did with working a full time job (not in the CG industry sadly :( ) and managing life, seeing someone else achieve this goal and the rewards available is all i need to boost me into getting my idea going. Hopefully in the next year i can have something to share :D
Thanks for sharing this video! I'd like to chime in and say that JUST FINISHING something is a critical first step. Make your initial goal to simply finish.
Thank you so much guys for these amazing comments and your questions! Im gonna make another video soon, talking about some news and sharing some more info!
i wanna be a game developer myself, so i saw this vid as recommendation from YT and dayum that just boosted my motivation for beeing a part time game developer while im during an education as Programmer :D btw ur game is great and has so much fun it it! :D
All is possible with the right mindset! The road may be bumpy and you may stumble along the way, keep your goal in sight and you will make it. Good luck on your journey!
Cool!! This is an awesome story, extreme dedication and cool that you are realizing your dream, people can learn from that! Once tried to make an RPG in RPG maker, created the story, characters, boss battles and world building / settings, (lets say the game was on 10%) but needed to do all the coding of events / text mechanics and all the other details. Basically I did the easy part. So I thought ''what do I actually want to accomplish?'' Well... tell a story, then realized writing was my true passion so I wrote a book -> will upload it to amazon after 2 revisions. In the future I want to work with a talented programmer similar to you to make a game out of it as well :P!
@@sanicmovie4894 Origyn Dicing with Demons, its about two protagonist who - together with their teams - have to fight eachother in the middle of a big conflict. The reader will see both sides of the conflict and get the opportunity to decide which is righteous. (epic fantasy action genre). However there is still a lot off work to do as i think the story is fine, pacing is quite ok as of now. Grammar is bad (but working on it) and character development not fully fledged out yet.
You inspired me man, great story. I am a gamer myself, running my own business and under stress all day. My dream as a kid was to develop my own game, thanks to you I know that it might take me a year or two but it is possible.
If you integrate blockchain (Unity has an SDK from Enjin) then you can save money on advertising (by linking assets with other blockchain games), raise money for development (via pre sales of in game assets via the blockchain), and increase monetization streams (via trading fees on p2p asset sales). For indie developers the Enjin SDK (available for other game engines as well) is a really valuable way to promote and monetize.
Thanks for sharing your solo dev journey. Could you perhaps make a video about which articles/sites/youtubers were the most effective for your advertising? Keep it up!
Thanks for the report man. Really aprecciate that! All I saw until now are crappy games that end up earning $ 17 or less. Of course, they are crappy games... you put a lot of effort and it looks right having that much earning. Not enough to quit everything and focus on that, but something you enjoy and also making some money is awesome. Thanks for the inspiration!
Your graphics and animations look very cool. The game looks impressive to me. I'm not a game developer myself. I have do have plenty of experience with desktop software development. Looking at your code my initial reaction is that you could do with removing a lot of the nested conditions. Move the code into smaller well named methods that have a single responsibility. It will make your coding life so much easier. That massive method with all those if statements would hurt my brain. Fantastic achievement tho.
@@Katatonya look up object oriented programming. programming and thinking in OOP makes you write leaner methods/functions (having less nested statements), which is more efficient, less error prone and like @POW said easier on the brain :)
@@Katatonya There's definitely not one answer to that, but in the simplest case: if(ConditionA) { if(ConditionB) { doSomething(); } } could be translated to if(ConditionA && ConditionB) { doSomething(); } another simple situation where you have several conditions (let's say, all the letters in the alphabet): if(ConditionA) { if(ConditionB) { ... if(ConditionZ) { doSomething(); } } } In other words, there are A-Z conditions, just put all of those conditions in an array, and check them in a loop, if they are all true, then do something: bool[] ConditionArray = new bool[22]; ConditionArray[0] = ConditionA; ... ConditionArray[21] = ConditionZ; Then just create a simple function to help reduce how much you have to type this: public function checkToDoSomething() { bool ShouldDoIt = True; foreach(condition in ConditionArray) { if(condition == False) ShouldDoIt = False; } if(ShouldDoIt) doSomething(); } This is all C# since this video is talking about Unity, but the same principle applies in most languages. And as the others have said using OOP (Classes, Enum's, etc.) This could all be much more readable. Hope that helps.
@@knkp513 the first example is obvious, but in most cases, if it is nested like that, the first if contains other code too, but I guess it shouldn't, and be separated? second example is pretty interesting
@@miniyeti88 i downloaded your game and wow, its pretty awesome for an independent developer! So far so good. It is just the over head text that is sometimes makes me dizzy but I understand, it's an artistic choice☺️
Very sincere confession and inspiring other people to create games and other businesses. I wish you success in further games. I am on the same boat. :-)
Congrats! That's pretty good, if you have a few games bringing in a few hundred a month you're going to be able to make bigger games that have more active players
Great looking game. Now that you have that game made for mobile, I imagine if you do make a sequel and release it as a two pack(part1, part2) for the Switch/other consoles that you could probably make a decent profit. If you added bonus content to the this game as part of the part1 package and sold the package for say $1 profit you could make $20k if you only had 10% repeat customers.
thats a great business idea.. cashing on the existing customers, will be a little easier compared to the first paycheque since the customer acquisition costs are already paid for !!
now on android it has over 500k downloads. This is amazing. As a new developer my self I aspire to get traction like this one day. Congratulations and great work!
Amazing effort, very inspiring stuff! I'm in a similar position, I work as a web developer but have never really done game dev. I'd like to try it but seems like a huge undertaking, it's great to see where you started and where you finished. Thank you!
That game looks pretty awesome. I will say though, at US minimum wage of ~$9/hr, your labor cost along was over $11,520...at $800/month revenue, it'll take 16 months to break even. This is is why doing games professionally is stupid difficult. Glad you had a hobby project you really enjoyed and congrats on completing the game! It's always an accomplishment to ship something, and the fact that it's actually paid for the resources put in is a huge success. Great job!
I'am first year in computer network administration, found Alex Okita book in the library about game development, so maybe maybe
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Codecademy the website is amazing for learning. I already know C++, but it helped me refresh myself by relearning it. And now I’m learning Python. For games in Unity, you should learn JavaScript or C#.
*This guy:* "I spent 2500$ to make the game, then 80-100$ per localization. The rest I did it myself." *Every other channel:* "So, how much money do you need to develop a game? Well, in our case we decided to pay ourselves 10000$ a month, but... [spends 10 minutes speaking about money spent by triple A studios and massive ad campaigns]. So yeah, if you are thinking about developing your first amateur game, you will need at least a million dollars to get started." Am I the only one who have always thought that those types of videos are super annoying? I mean, if I'm watching a video on budgeting my first game, I'm probably doing it as a passion project, and I'm absolutely not expecting to pay myself an industry-standard salary, nor making a triple A game.
I mean this guy also didn't provide us with any of his actual living expenses... It's very incomplete data. Him saying that $700 a month is great is nonsense... He worked 8 months on this game. Assuming he put in at least 40 hours per week on it (which might be way more or way less) then he's making $175 per week, RETROACTIVELY. Meaning he worked for NO PAY for 8 months only to then be getting paid $175 per week. This is peanuts. Most games require minimum of 1 year to develop and that's going to need to cover the costs of at least one person's living expenses. So at minimum like $30,000 a year for the average adult or more depending on your location or your circumstances (if you are taking care of an entire family or have large medical bills or whatever) I'm not saying every game needs a million dollars but if this guy even worked a $15 an hour job for 8 months he'd have made $19,200 which is FAR more than a measly $700 a month (which is dropping every month)
@@k0nidiasWell he did say at least twice in the video that he was working full time on the side and doing the game on his free time. And if thats still the case, then considering it was basically a hobby project, an additional $700/month isn't too bad.
@@ArtisticScratch Free in what sense? That it costs nothing to make? That would be 100% wrong. You need a computer, the software, a place to work, you need to feed yourself and stay healthy, and it's costing you many hours of work. Time is money, after all.
@@k0nidias uh, those are things youd be doing even if you werent making the thing. Living costs should be accounted for if by chance if it is your only job and source of money but whether hes doing this or not a mans gotta eat. Now if you say needed consulting or medication or something for stress i can see what you mean. But time is money doesnt mean anything on the instance that him not doing this means hes objectively making less. Tldr; if hes not spending money on any resources he is making it for free because the costs needed to make the game are solely living costs, things that would be payed for with or without the project. Which would be far more a cost if he didnt have another full time job.
Im 23 and currently working as a maintenance technician in a hospital.. I started learning coding recently to pursue my dreams of creating my own game 😊 this gave me additional motivation to study hard
Congrats on your success story! It's not to be taken for granted. I was wondering how much adding localization and multiple languages actually yield a significant benefit from a revenue standpoint.
@@miniyeti88 do you think there may have been an invisible effect that less negative reviews, leading to better rating and therefore more exposure (or rather, less loss of exposure)
@@Zuriki09 difficult to say, but what I noticed that the game gets more downloads if Im active, making updates, replying reviews etc. Also it helped my game to become featured in the Indie Game Corner on Play Store.
Nice to see that some solo developer are having success even now that the market is bloated! I'm happy to ear your story, It would be cool if you could tell more about how you gathered interest to the game
Since I'm a full-time gameplay programmer at a larger studio, I thought I'd weigh in on what a bigger studio pays out. I get paid about £24,000 (~$33,000 USD) per year before tax, and then an annual bonus which can bring that up quite a bit. There's also a salary review each year to bring the salary up to market rates. Then when games are released we're paid a product performance bonus depending on how well received the game is. The salary bump is quite large once you go up to an experienced programmer level, and then even larger once you go to lead/senior programmer.
These are my worries with indie game dev. I've been learning and creating for the past year and a half using Unity, learning C#, and creating my own 2D assets for the most part. I knew in the back of my mind that in order to truly succeed in the indie game business, you need a lot of cash to start with. It's hard and yet very rare that anyone can just create a boombastic game themselves, put it out there, and get thousands of dollars, without having to dish out so much money, with very little return. My personal opinion on the matter is, if you want to make games etc. on the side, while still working a full-time job, work with others. The more you have on your team, the better chances of the game you all are creating together succeeding, and becoming a money making game. Is it a guarantee? No, but it beats having to go at it alone and spending so much time/money, for very little return, except experience. Thanks for the vid.
Thank you, Ivan, for sharing your dev story and supplying the figures for your costs as well as gains. I am considered by most of the people in my life to be overly optimistic, and sometimes that can be discouraging to know that the people around you are expecting so little to come of my efforts. Thanks to this video, my spirits are once more lifted to the skies and I feel that I can continue my efforts. This was a true blessing.
congratulations! after looking through various videos about indie game development i found your video that gets to the point straight up! you inspired me. awesome work
I saw a video recently that talked about how dlc can really spike and maintain revenue. Maybe if you add another level so old players can keep going with more and new players see more value. ;) Game looks cool!
"In game development, half of the time is spent on making 90% of the game, and the other half on the other 90%" Pure wisdom
Finally someone who knows this shit ;) Thanks!
@@miniyeti88 Stay out of the war.
Слава Україні!
@@Stopinvadingmyhardware and Слава Україні! to you too.
"In game development, half of the time is spent on making 90% of the game, and the other half on the other 90%"
That would be out of 180% ...180% of what? Of 1000%. If game's completion is 100% then it can't be over it +80%
Finally, somebody who goes straight to the point.
is this a joke
Am afraid the rwoosh
@@vegalight196 I'm undecided too. He did give all the facts I wanted in under 10 mins so I can't complain.
I agree with you. Many here would tell some kind of tales or others while this sir actually told his own experience from beginning to the end in quite a simple and understandable way, while promoting his own product. Definetily worth a like at least
That was the to the point? I've been looking for the 'tl;dw' comment before the 5th minute.
Finally someone that just did his job the right way then checked in the money he earned and just shared it to keep other people motivated :) thank you my friend
there was that scary mention of 90% and then the other 90% though :)
@Shi Yu Meng it's okay for a first try
@Shi Yu Meng It's calling starting a business, he develop a game library don't loose his rights with a publisher etc...he work for himself not for someone else. so it's harder at the start.
@Shi Yu Meng 90%...I'd say 80%....And I hope you realized that he said that he was doing the project as a hobby not an actual job. Which means he didn't work as hard on it. And since we both have a degree let's do some math: 2500$ of costs + 8 months of (hobby work )---so let's take a Year (you make money of the work you do--> your job + 600-700$ a month for a year , extra from your hobby project).
Now if this doesn't prove to be actualy worth it (for a hobby) than you might as well be the lazyest or just a dumb person with a degree.
THE DEGREE DOESN'T AUTOMATICLY MAKE YOU SMART ;)
@Shi Yu Meng this going in my way...you have zero logic....degree or not.
That moment when you finally created all 180% of the game.
Yeah😂best moment
@@miniyeti88 lol you said you made 90 percent and then another 90. I think you meant 10
@@gisketch Well, technically first you create 90% and then you create 90% from the leftovers, leaving you with 98% game done ;P Isn't the idea that a game can never be finished developing?
@@iskariotas But that's not what he meant.. You just made that up to save him. He did a mistake and im not shaming him for it because we all understand. lol.
@@gisketch aye, but my point was that technically even with this mistake it works out ;p
8:44 ---> 8 months of development ---> Budget Spent: $2500 ---> Monthly Revenue: $700
Thank you for this comment.
Side note: if the $700/Mo keeps, that's about 3.5 months to recoup invested budget.
@@ashleyanne2056 7:55 "First month was much better. It was around $1,400 .. uh ... $1,500. It's getting lower as I don't use any additional posts to promote it anymore."
@GAME CHANGER • yep. He earned $1400 the first month and was averaging about $700 a month after, every month the profit was getting lower. 700,650,600,550... eventual reaching 0 revenue. That's basically what he was saying. He assumes it will reach 0 based on the trend of the revenue stream.
@GAME CHANGER • he basically covered the cost in 3 months and got passive revenue each months around 400-700
The numbers aren’t bad. If you have a vision and a passion, it works out.
1:08 I really love the look of that game
hey you are here also?😂😂😂
@@apnadekhtu I'm everywhere bruh
@@codinginflow It's great to see you here 😁
THIS IS CRAZY.. YOU HERE TOO!!
@@codinginflow R U h🤡cker
so it doesn't worth to leave my current drugs business
nono of course not! :D :D LOL
lol
HAHAHAHAHA 10/10!!!
Stay out of my territory.
Everyone has it's own skills so, if you knew drug dealing was easier or best for you, but yeah, cleaner jobs are better most of the times.
"It's not my job, it's my hobby and my passion."
A lot of would-be aspiring game developer students should abide by this.
yeah but thats what companies use to pay you next to nothing :'D So people who have studied game development please don't work for peas charge reasonably for your skillset don't ruin it for everybody
The problem is, most basic skill sets can be learn in 6 months, knowing enough to do 80% of the work. So its not hard to replace someone if they're asking for too much $$$. Generally speaking, the long it takes to train to do a particular job, the more you get paid.
It's my dream and I want it to be my job.
@@TeddyboyRnR13 similar idea with fashion. rich kids will work for top designers for 0 pay cuz they want the title. leaves trained designers with little pay or completely out of the field.
@@averagegamerscollective define "basic skills" and define "6 months" please. Knowing just enough is one reason why people get paid pittance and a defining factor of this new AI era, we're coming into.
Wow, you've provided a great asset for all Indie developers like me who are still working on their first game. I also have a day job that has nothing to do with game development except that we use Unity for our App developments which are not games. Still, I spend the bulk of my time on my day job and family time. It's tough staying motivated to finish. Based on your experience it's still worth it for me. Thanks. Good luck in your next game.
It is interesting to know that a game engine is used for regular app development, I am curious to know how this has turned out for your company. Is it stable or a complete disaster?
That sounds like a weird idea given how many frameworks for native app development there are nowadays! Mind sharing what is it that you're working on?
same thing here
you just inspired me to make my own game, I've always had this idea of making a 2D platform shooter and I'm currently a student in IT. Wish me luck, and may you become successful with your future games
Thanks 😊 I’m super glad! Good luck!!
so did you do it?
I'm also curious if he did yet
Having the art skills is a huge bonus! Game looks great, I'll have to try it out.
Respect! No everybody are brave enough to show those numbers, and more people are not brave enough to start their own project 👍
Thanks 😊
As someone making the same steps into the solo-dev attempt, I really appreciate your video, it's actually helping spur me on in completing my first release project. I have a number part finished projects that I want to release, and that friends who have seen them want released, but I have been doubting their value.
Cheers, and subbed.
thank you for writing my exact story
How it went with your game? Did you manage to release it?
Always refreshing and encouraging to see a success story in Indie Game Dev!! Well done!!
Wow ive just installed your game, and this video showed up on my recommend section coincidence, na its google controlling the world
LOL :D
@Thunripper bru
You agreed to it own that
@Manannan anam I just use pale moon and ecosia :)
this actually generated even more attention for your game >< I'm gonna try it.
Thanks 😊
Not knowing what I want to do with my life usually leads me to watch a bunch of random videos about coding, video editing, 3d modeling, game design, graphic design, etc. etc. and I find that a lot of the videos are bogged down drags, but yours was straight to the point and informative. Thank you for sharing your story, and your struggles, I just might have to try making my own game
Thanks 😊😊😊
TL;DW summary:
$600-800 per month from advertisements and iAPs, but of course this will only last for so long.
That return is coming from a $2500 investment, but I'm not sure if that counts the work done on making the game.
You are the real hero here.
Wrong
So TL;DR to that is: game dev is poorly paid job xD
@@beatinggustawo007 yeah paid peanuts to do seriously difficult work.
Downloads and revenue drop drastically after first few months. Would say this was a total waste of time... It's crazy polished too.
WOW thanks for sharing this!! OMG $1800 for advertising, total $2500 spend??? then around 600 emails???!! wooooow i too think that marketing is the next hardest part after we finish the game, and MANY developer failed on that. Wasted months of developing game because didnt try harder to spread the words and didnt want to PAY the advertising.
my friend is also like that, he makes good quality game, BUT didnt want to spend ads and only spread the words to his friends.. it's sad that 3 month after release, the game still have bellow 10 review :( game development is scary...
but i'm glad the result is so worth it for you! thank you for sharing this! i'll also watch your other video
I do like how you strategically manage your way around barriers you have!
I love russians? (Am probably punching myself in the mouth here)
Congrats. I had to get the game after watching this. Really impressive work.
Ahahaha, thanks Ryan!
our channel was one of the 600 u contacted, firstly we were not sure about the game, but when we checked it out we really saw the potential and featured it in several of our videos. good job
Your backstory is super lot like mine. The difference is I havent start working on my game, even though I know how to use 3 game engines already. This is very inspiring to me.
Btw, you did the right thing to spend on advertising. Most devs (even companies) failed their first games because they dont reach enough people.
edited: You asked your friends to do the localization for free. That's not good. always give them something in return. Even if it's only treating them a lunch or two as a thanks. Never ask for a free favor when you're earning something out of it.
He gave them thanks in the description of the game on the appstore
@@mixer8774 that's basically nothing
If you don't have to give back, you don't.
Love it!! I really inspire to be a dev just like you! Thank you so much for sharing!!
Thanks for the Video, Going through a hard phase at the moment and this is really something to cheer me up and keep me going.
Good for you man. I started working full-time not too long ago but started game dev on the side. Hearing this is a nice motivational boost. Also will be giving your game a download. Awesome and good luck with your future games!
Thanks! Good luck to you as well !😊
5:45 Oh EMAILS! I thought I heard "lot's of females."
LOL
@@miniyeti88 ivan bro how did managed to avoid copyright in sounds and stuff like that ¿any problem with that? or u also made all the sfx and background music. What an adventure dude!!!.
@@Damian_DH I paid for music ;)
@@miniyeti88 noob
@@ۥۦۥOf course! That's what Im saying in the video. LOL
i like this video a ture game dev straight to the point and honest with us stuff like this will give u fans my friend and then later those fans will back u because ur honest and to the point with us
Damn I like the art style man ! Gives me "Enter the gungeon" and "Dungeon of the endless" vibes. Glad your game turned out to be a success. My little games I make never make it that far. Someday it will.
Thank you man! keep it up!
Congrats, dude. Really glad that it turned out good for you. Having almost a similar background and only starting my own solo dev path - your story motivates me a lot.
Дякую :)
Im Really glad man! Good luck!
I was also trying to starting game dev and that also solo. You gave me even more boost for my determination to continue
I’m very glad 😊
What engine are you planning to use?
You deserved it u worked really hard even if u enjoyed every moment and I for one will always look up to u when I'm doing any project
i've been playing your game for weeks, i've been using unity for years and i can't even fathom how you did it alone in such a short time, i swear you have a hit on your hands. i'm sure people would buy this on pc for 10-30$, great job man.
Thank you Ali, I guess I was just pushing my self a lot, and as it was new to me, I got super excited
I released it for pc on Steam 23 of October for 5.99 but since then i got 18 sales... I dint do any advertising for PC version, that's the result. Also I think it's still too simple for PC. For mobile it's okeish
ok i just finished the vid and trust me you don't need a publisher, i heard so many stories of people having their ip stolen, money taken away even by multi million dollar companies self publishing is perfectly viable today and you'll need minimal polish for the pc version and marketing you can contract for that early bump so its not worth it, good luck with the game buddy
@@aliatef7203 yeah, I don't really want to go with publishers, want to try on my own and see how it goes
@@miniyeti88 Hi Ivan if u put it on Steam and only get a few sale at first, don't be discouraged. PC games can take a long time to get rolling bc there are so many games on Steam store. But it's fun & once a few ppl play it, then the game will have more sales. I'm same artist as u & sometimes worked on small project that start slow like this but eventually get over million downloads
I dont wanna pretend like im an expert but ive been marketing digital products for a couple months now and now im learning how to market games organically and trust me ill try to get you sales since I.need the practice and I really like the game, im not gonna ask for a cut or anything since it wont cost me but if it works that means im learning and my favourite mobilr game is getting known so win win, you're a cool dev Ivan, keep going
I have a similar background to you, and made a game in a very similar way. I published it for free, with ads on android and appstore. The first months it had a couple of thousand users, and now two years later it still has around 15-20 weekly users (even though I haven't updated it since 2018). However, the ads only made me money from US users. I had many users in Brazil and Europe, but they didnt earn me any money from ads. All in all I made about 200 dollars, which covered the cost of getting into appstore. I've kept working on little games because it's fun, but I wouldn't give up my day job anytime soon.
What is your game name?
I decided to not stay an apple developer. It was costing to much. So my game is gone from the store now.
Thank you for being so transparent and sharing your story! Wish you luck in your future endeavours!
Congrats on your Game , And Inspiring me to not give up on my game.
thank you all, for the likes,don't forget to check my devlog videos in my channel.
Thank you! And good luck!
Good luck, buddy
How are those numbers inspiring? That's not a lot. Making me thinking of giving up on my game
@@Yoni123 thats a passive income dude that prolly last for 3-5years
Good job bro! especially the money risk You took in the beginning.
I feel that, man. I'm trying to solo develop 2 games for some time now. One of them I have no hurry, because it is a passion project and a lot of people are willing to help me on that, but on their own pace and free time, so I don't have to worry. But the second one has been where I spend MOST of my "free time".
The funny part of this video is that I'm the total opposite. I'm a programmer, pretty familiar with C# (but using Unreal Engine), and now I'm venturing myself on the CGI universe. And boy, it is a universe.
Congrats! Inspires me to continue working on my first game. Great job!
Thank you for taking time to make this video. I am currently at about 80% of my game and I think I just got some inspiration to continue! I think that even if you are a code expert, or a graphics expert or whatever field expert, what matters most is that you have the general quality as a human, in order to complete the project! Few people do and they deserve congratulations!
Thanks man! Totally agree!
Thank you this motivated me at least a little bit to don't quit the learning.
It's kinda hard when you are beginning.
Now SOUL KNIGHT have more than 10 MILLION DOWNLOADS!!!!!!!!!
You absolutely deserve more than this
this is super inspiring and great work on your production! I went to school for CG and mostly self taught. Currently teaching myself programming and seeing as I'm going through similar situation as you did with working a full time job (not in the CG industry sadly :( ) and managing life, seeing someone else achieve this goal and the rewards available is all i need to boost me into getting my idea going. Hopefully in the next year i can have something to share :D
I wish you patience and good luck! Thank man!
Thanks for being open about everything. Especially the emailing tip, since I too expect to release a game for android pretty soon.
No worries!
Thanks for this video. I really appreciate your transparency, Ivan :) Well done!
We finally found him, LEGEND
Thanks for sharing this video! I'd like to chime in and say that JUST FINISHING something is a critical first step. Make your initial goal to simply finish.
Exactly!
Thank you so much guys for these amazing comments and your questions! Im gonna make another video soon, talking about some news and sharing some more info!
i wanna be a game developer myself, so i saw this vid as recommendation from YT and dayum that just boosted my motivation for beeing a part time game developer while im during an education as Programmer :D btw ur game is great and has so much fun it it! :D
All is possible with the right mindset! The road may be bumpy and you may stumble along the way, keep your goal in sight and you will make it. Good luck on your journey!
@@GeorgeWulfers_88 thanks!
Thank you for the inspiration. Also a graphic artist, can't wait to make my own game, happy for your success!
Thanks!
Cool!! This is an awesome story, extreme dedication and cool that you are realizing your dream, people can learn from that! Once tried to make an RPG in RPG maker, created the story, characters, boss battles and world building / settings, (lets say the game was on 10%) but needed to do all the coding of events / text mechanics and all the other details. Basically I did the easy part. So I thought ''what do I actually want to accomplish?'' Well... tell a story, then realized writing was my true passion so I wrote a book -> will upload it to amazon after 2 revisions. In the future I want to work with a talented programmer similar to you to make a game out of it as well :P!
Ahaha thats amazing! Yeah I think its very important to do something not only for money but just because you have flame burning in your chest ;)
whats the name of the book
@@sanicmovie4894 Origyn Dicing with Demons, its about two protagonist who - together with their teams - have to fight eachother in the middle of a big conflict. The reader will see both sides of the conflict and get the opportunity to decide which is righteous. (epic fantasy action genre). However there is still a lot off work to do as i think the story is fine, pacing is quite ok as of now. Grammar is bad (but working on it) and character development not fully fledged out yet.
Visual Novel Arts thanks dude stay cool
Visual Novel Arts you just earned a sub
The most important part, 600+ emails and Mad marketing, thats the 3rd half at 90%
You inspired me man, great story.
I am a gamer myself, running my own business and under stress all day.
My dream as a kid was to develop my own game, thanks to you I know that it might take me a year or two but it is possible.
That’s great! I’m very glad man!
If you integrate blockchain (Unity has an SDK from Enjin) then you can save money on advertising (by linking assets with other blockchain games), raise money for development (via pre sales of in game assets via the blockchain), and increase monetization streams (via trading fees on p2p asset sales).
For indie developers the Enjin SDK (available for other game engines as well) is a really valuable way to promote and monetize.
Мужик, да ты просто космос, респект!!! P.S. было бы круто увидеть видос про вшивку покупок и рекламы в игру)))
Thanks for sharing your solo dev journey. Could you perhaps make a video about which articles/sites/youtubers were the most effective for your advertising? Keep it up!
Yeah sure!
th-cam.com/video/2a8PR1gGmqg/w-d-xo.html Here you go!
Wow, a lot of effort, more power to yah!
Thanks for the report man. Really aprecciate that! All I saw until now are crappy games that end up earning $ 17 or less. Of course, they are crappy games... you put a lot of effort and it looks right having that much earning. Not enough to quit everything and focus on that, but something you enjoy and also making some money is awesome. Thanks for the inspiration!
I'm looking to get into Game Development too. Thank you for this. Gonna give your game a try !
LOL . Finally someone on youtube who brought us real earnings about a game
Wth dude, dont you ever watch blackthornprod or literally any decent developer logs on youtube
@@mordakai6969 nope , I appreciate if you suggest another decents developers on youtube
@@matadordeleoes How about Jonas Tyroller
@@mordakai6969 thanks , I just watching blackthornprod , I'll take a look at Jonas.
@@matadordeleoes theres also ask gamedev, they made like big lists of AAA companies revenue and multiple indie games aswell, enjoy
this one video. thats all i need to be motivated. thanks man. :)
Your graphics and animations look very cool. The game looks impressive to me. I'm not a game developer myself. I have do have plenty of experience with desktop software development. Looking at your code my initial reaction is that you could do with removing a lot of the nested conditions. Move the code into smaller well named methods that have a single responsibility. It will make your coding life so much easier. That massive method with all those if statements would hurt my brain. Fantastic achievement tho.
Are nested conditions, if statements inside of if statements? If so, how would you remove them?
@@Katatonya look up object oriented programming. programming and thinking in OOP makes you write leaner methods/functions (having less nested statements), which is more efficient, less error prone and like @POW said easier on the brain :)
@@cooladi002 I know OOP and still can't answer this.
@@Katatonya There's definitely not one answer to that, but in the simplest case:
if(ConditionA)
{
if(ConditionB)
{
doSomething();
}
}
could be translated to
if(ConditionA && ConditionB)
{
doSomething();
}
another simple situation where you have several conditions (let's say, all the letters in the alphabet):
if(ConditionA)
{
if(ConditionB)
{
...
if(ConditionZ)
{
doSomething();
}
}
}
In other words, there are A-Z conditions, just put all of those conditions in an array, and check them in a loop, if they are all true, then do something:
bool[] ConditionArray = new bool[22];
ConditionArray[0] = ConditionA;
...
ConditionArray[21] = ConditionZ;
Then just create a simple function to help reduce how much you have to type this:
public function checkToDoSomething()
{
bool ShouldDoIt = True;
foreach(condition in ConditionArray)
{
if(condition == False) ShouldDoIt = False;
}
if(ShouldDoIt) doSomething();
}
This is all C# since this video is talking about Unity, but the same principle applies in most languages. And as the others have said using OOP (Classes, Enum's, etc.) This could all be much more readable.
Hope that helps.
@@knkp513 the first example is obvious, but in most cases, if it is nested like that, the first if contains other code too, but I guess it shouldn't, and be separated?
second example is pretty interesting
Man, respect to you. You are very hardworking. Subbed
Thanks man!
@@miniyeti88 i downloaded your game and wow, its pretty awesome for an independent developer! So far so good. It is just the over head text that is sometimes makes me dizzy but I understand, it's an artistic choice☺️
Just tap on it to hide it ☺️
Very sincere confession and inspiring other people to create games and other businesses. I wish you success in further games. I am on the same boat. :-)
Dude you literally gave me so much motivation to finish my first game i was almost about to quit
Congrats! That's pretty good, if you have a few games bringing in a few hundred a month you're going to be able to make bigger games that have more active players
Great looking game. Now that you have that game made for mobile, I imagine if you do make a sequel and release it as a two pack(part1, part2) for the Switch/other consoles that you could probably make a decent profit. If you added bonus content to the this game as part of the part1 package and sold the package for say $1 profit you could make $20k if you only had 10% repeat customers.
thats a great business idea.. cashing on the existing customers, will be a little easier compared to the first paycheque since the customer acquisition costs are already paid for !!
Thanks for this. I'm doing solo animation, but it all pretty much applies. It's nice to see others out there doing their thing and keeping it real.
now on android it has over 500k downloads. This is amazing. As a new developer my self I aspire to get traction like this one day. Congratulations and great work!
COngrats and I hope you keep moving forward. Goes for everyone looking to better themselves.
Congratulations, it's a great game! I see you posted it to Steam too a few days ago. I'd love to hear from you about the Steam experience as well.
I will do video about that very soon!
Thank you for sharing your story, and congratulations - it sounds like your game is doing great!
Thanks!
Amazing effort, very inspiring stuff! I'm in a similar position, I work as a web developer but have never really done game dev. I'd like to try it but seems like a huge undertaking, it's great to see where you started and where you finished. Thank you!
Thanks William! And good luck!
That game looks pretty awesome. I will say though, at US minimum wage of ~$9/hr, your labor cost along was over $11,520...at $800/month revenue, it'll take 16 months to break even. This is is why doing games professionally is stupid difficult. Glad you had a hobby project you really enjoyed and congrats on completing the game! It's always an accomplishment to ship something, and the fact that it's actually paid for the resources put in is a huge success. Great job!
It got me $17k since the release in last may, so not bad 😄
I'am first year in computer network administration, found Alex Okita book in the library about game development, so maybe maybe
Codecademy the website is amazing for learning. I already know C++, but it helped me refresh myself by relearning it. And now I’m learning Python. For games in Unity, you should learn JavaScript or C#.
Very Inspiring story, I'm looking for something to do on the side for fun and make a little money. You. gave me a lot to think about. - Thanks
*This guy:* "I spent 2500$ to make the game, then 80-100$ per localization. The rest I did it myself."
*Every other channel:* "So, how much money do you need to develop a game? Well, in our case we decided to pay ourselves 10000$ a month, but... [spends 10 minutes speaking about money spent by triple A studios and massive ad campaigns]. So yeah, if you are thinking about developing your first amateur game, you will need at least a million dollars to get started."
Am I the only one who have always thought that those types of videos are super annoying? I mean, if I'm watching a video on budgeting my first game, I'm probably doing it as a passion project, and I'm absolutely not expecting to pay myself an industry-standard salary, nor making a triple A game.
I mean this guy also didn't provide us with any of his actual living expenses... It's very incomplete data. Him saying that $700 a month is great is nonsense... He worked 8 months on this game. Assuming he put in at least 40 hours per week on it (which might be way more or way less) then he's making $175 per week, RETROACTIVELY. Meaning he worked for NO PAY for 8 months only to then be getting paid $175 per week. This is peanuts.
Most games require minimum of 1 year to develop and that's going to need to cover the costs of at least one person's living expenses. So at minimum like $30,000 a year for the average adult or more depending on your location or your circumstances (if you are taking care of an entire family or have large medical bills or whatever)
I'm not saying every game needs a million dollars but if this guy even worked a $15 an hour job for 8 months he'd have made $19,200 which is FAR more than a measly $700 a month (which is dropping every month)
@@k0nidiasWell he did say at least twice in the video that he was working full time on the side and doing the game on his free time. And if thats still the case, then considering it was basically a hobby project, an additional $700/month isn't too bad.
If I learn to do all of the game dev skills out there, I could make a game like that for free (not including advertisement costs)
@@ArtisticScratch Free in what sense? That it costs nothing to make? That would be 100% wrong. You need a computer, the software, a place to work, you need to feed yourself and stay healthy, and it's costing you many hours of work. Time is money, after all.
@@k0nidias uh, those are things youd be doing even if you werent making the thing. Living costs should be accounted for if by chance if it is your only job and source of money but whether hes doing this or not a mans gotta eat.
Now if you say needed consulting or medication or something for stress i can see what you mean. But time is money doesnt mean anything on the instance that him not doing this means hes objectively making less.
Tldr; if hes not spending money on any resources he is making it for free because the costs needed to make the game are solely living costs, things that would be payed for with or without the project. Which would be far more a cost if he didnt have another full time job.
Im 23 and currently working as a maintenance technician in a hospital.. I started learning coding recently to pursue my dreams of creating my own game 😊 this gave me additional motivation to study hard
I’m very glad it gives you motivation!
Cool. Do what u love, love what u do and do not make it for money. Money is just a side effect of ur activity. Keep it going mate!
Thanks! Will do!
Congrats on your success story! It's not to be taken for granted. I was wondering how much adding localization and multiple languages actually yield a significant benefit from a revenue standpoint.
It actually didnt change much, only people stopped complaining that much that the game didnt have their language :D
@@miniyeti88 do you think there may have been an invisible effect that less negative reviews, leading to better rating and therefore more exposure (or rather, less loss of exposure)
@@Zuriki09 difficult to say, but what I noticed that the game gets more downloads if Im active, making updates, replying reviews etc. Also it helped my game to become featured in the Indie Game Corner on Play Store.
Отличная история, успехов в дальнейшем.
Спасибо!
Nice to see that some solo developer are having success even now that the market is bloated! I'm happy to ear your story, It would be cool if you could tell more about how you gathered interest to the game
Awesome video! Thank you for sharing your game dev experience. This really motivated me!
Since I'm a full-time gameplay programmer at a larger studio, I thought I'd weigh in on what a bigger studio pays out.
I get paid about £24,000 (~$33,000 USD) per year before tax, and then an annual bonus which can bring that up quite a bit. There's also a salary review each year to bring the salary up to market rates. Then when games are released we're paid a product performance bonus depending on how well received the game is.
The salary bump is quite large once you go up to an experienced programmer level, and then even larger once you go to lead/senior programmer.
Thanks for sharing, I love hear other people's success stories - gives me hope.
It’s really cool that you have made it this far without the help of any other guy.
As hard as it may be to work alone sometimes it is best, you feel more excited when things start to work.
thanks for this video, it was exactly what i wanted to know to decide start my own game
I played your first game and i loved it! Keep up the good work!
Thanks alot for sharing! Some people are actually considering this career path!
Thanks!
Woah, I actually played Ailment before watching this. Pretty cool game. I enjoyed it.
These are my worries with indie game dev. I've been learning and creating for the past year and a half using Unity, learning C#, and creating my own 2D assets for the most part. I knew in the back of my mind that in order to truly succeed in the indie game business, you need a lot of cash to start with. It's hard and yet very rare that anyone can just create a boombastic game themselves, put it out there, and get thousands of dollars, without having to dish out so much money, with very little return. My personal opinion on the matter is, if you want to make games etc. on the side, while still working a full-time job, work with others. The more you have on your team, the better chances of the game you all are creating together succeeding, and becoming a money making game. Is it a guarantee? No, but it beats having to go at it alone and spending so much time/money, for very little return, except experience. Thanks for the vid.
it is because beside you there are another 100 dev working (plus 1m+ chinese dev) so yes, advertising is one of the most important parts...
Thank you, Ivan, for sharing your dev story and supplying the figures for your costs as well as gains. I am considered by most of the people in my life to be overly optimistic, and sometimes that can be discouraging to know that the people around you are expecting so little to come of my efforts. Thanks to this video, my spirits are once more lifted to the skies and I feel that I can continue my efforts. This was a true blessing.
Thank you James😊😊
congratulations! after looking through various videos about indie game development i found your video that gets to the point straight up! you inspired me. awesome work
Omg I downloaded your game it was great. I knew there was gonna be devlogs about it somewhere I could tell.
Thanks 😊
I saw a video recently that talked about how dlc can really spike and maintain revenue. Maybe if you add another level so old players can keep going with more and new players see more value. ;)
Game looks cool!
This madlad just straight up makes a game
pineapple
Sweet potato...
TLDR: Will it make you a fortune? No. But if you enjoyed the development process, that makes up for it.
Why I always feel 2D game is artist bound? And you are blessed with art skill. Keep it up!
Thanks 😊
Братишка, прошел твою игрушку на одном дыхании, конец прям неожиданным оказался) Удачи в дальнейших проектах)
Спасибо дружище!
Хорошее хобби у тебя, однако, а хорошее потому, что ты живешь тем, чем интересуешься. Поздравляю с успехом и желаю новых высот и популярных игр!