How I Made $100k On My First Indie Game
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 เม.ย. 2022
- Checkout Roll on Steam here:
store.steampowered.com/app/15...
Checkout my Patreon page here:
/ xraidev
If I learned anything from watching other indie game devlogs, it's that talking about how much money you made is algorithm rocket fuel. In this video, I walk you through the process of How I Made $100k On My First Indie Game. This is the first game I've ever released, and I'll show you exactly how much money I made and hopefully you can learn something from my experience.
Roll is an ultra relaxing score attack deckbuilder with dice! Destress with the soothing sounds and minimalistic environment of Roll. The game is plain and simple on its face, but a countless number of upgrades and procedural generation add a sneaky depth of strategy that will have you coming back again and again.
Drink Juice. Roll Dice. Get Dopamine.
I'll see you losers on the leaderboards.
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#devlog #steamgame #gamedev - เกม
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people that play underrated games or people that dive deep are the most contributive people to the gaming community
Agreed!
I wonder why this isnt on any mobile device.
Agreed!
When I watched your second devlog about the game 1 year ago I didn't expect it to be such a success. I'm glad I was wrong, congrats on the big success!
I didn't expect it either! Its been such a crazy journey
Why some game devs like to discouraging others. Just asking
I didn't think it was a discouraging comment. He just admitted he didn't know the game would be popular and is happy for its success.@@Wannabe-channeL
As a marketer, influencers shouting out your game has become one of the primary objectives in our industry. Great job and congrats!!!
What are the other primary objectives?
I ended up on this channel from a Thomas brush video. As an indi dev myself who just purchased a steam page for my crappy basic game- you give me hope that people will enjoy my game and have fun playing it. Thanks for sharing your story with us!
Thanks for checking out my video! Remember that you are more critical of your own game than anyone else!
No matter how shit a game is, there will always be people who will enjoy it.
Congratulations on the marriage! And good on you for seeing your project through to a successful end. Making a game myself and people like you always cheer me up.
Enjoy the process! Making games can be dreadful or it can be a blast, its whatever you make of it!
I especially love how you responded to reviews on Steam, I want to be that kind of developer!
People take their time to write a review and give good feedback on the game, the least I can do is respond!
Congrats! That's a huge accomplishment for your first release and really inspirational. Really nice to see you kept improving and pushing updates even when the sales dropped. Looking forward to more content
Thank you! I wish you all the best in your own dev adventures!
This is a solid video. Inspirational but also promotes tempering your expectations
I tried not to play into survivorship bias, but still tell people about my experience
Congratulations! As a game developer, I can relate so much, this is such an inspiring video.
Happy to be an inspiration, just want to share my experience with all the game devs out there
Great video from a realistic point of view. Great work and you should be proud of yourself that you kept the project going and took the feed back you received.
A huge amount of developers take the big dip and run, you took the time to improve even when your analytics was at the lowest point and that's fantastic
Keep going and another spike will be on its way!!
working hard on the next update! Thanks for the support :)
Dude you’re like the best kind of dev. You aren’t using algorithms to milk dopamine, you just have a passion and a stubborn amount of endurance. That’s how the best things ever created were made.
Thanks for the kind words. Theres so many great solo devs out there, I'm honored to be one of them :)
Congratulations!
Goes to show how you should always take "advice" from other people in the "industry" with a huge grain of "Salty Salt" ;)
No one can predict how an idea might turn out, and them dismissing all new ideas because to their eyes "the game will definitely fail" just demotivates the developers and stagnates innovation.
Maybe sometimes it just shows you how insecure those people are when they construct all their "advice" torwards others based on their own negative past experiences with a hint of "Schadenfreude-nism".
Never quit on what you trully think has potential because of what someone else has said. Neither of you can know how it will turn out, so you might as well try it.
Great work
Thank you! You can’t always listen to others, sometimes you have to believe in yourself
Congrats! This is an awesome insight into what's going on behind the the scenes of a game I've played a lot over the last year. Looking forward to what might come next, whether that's Roll updates or a new project down the live
Thanks so much, you've been such an integral part of the whole process. I really appreciate all you've done for the game
game looks boring but ill give it a try, i can always refund it
@@iwatchcringe7094 lol
@@iwatchcringe7094did you ever try Roll? Did you keep it?
Hey man! Thanks for sharing. This kind of video is such a boost to my confidence to become a better game dev and live off it one day. Best of luck!
Keep at it, you will get there one day!
Thanks for making the video, it's always great to see some actual numbers and how TH-camrs influence these
Yeah, I hope you were able to learn something from my experience. Best of luck in all your dev endeavors!
@@xraidev definitely! Thanks! 🙏
Love the video quality! Hope you will gain more subs, you deserve them
Thank you, I probly need to upload a little more if I want to earn the subs
This is insane, this just makes me so happy because im making a game for steam right now and i know how hard it is to get traction on your game, so this just gives me some hope
I found it was helpful to temper my expectations. I went into this project with the goal of just getting my $100 steam deposit back. But i think with the right social media presence, almost anyone can gain traction on Steam. Best of luck to you!
@@xraidev thank you so much, i was actually planning the same thing, tho i probably wont even get enough for it back, but im okay with that, since it is my first release i dont really have high expectations.
came from Thomas's video. I'm pleasantly surprised by this. Really cool
I've had that phase where I've seen each one of these youtubers' videos in depth, moreso retromation wanderbots and especially aliensrock (I think snakebird and elechead was where I realized that puzzle games are more art than they're given credit for), I was pleasantly you were able to have your game played by each one
Yeah, I love all those guys. It is so cool to watch them play my game!
Congrats!! Roll is an amazing game. It’s so fun to be able to see the progress of how it was made and where it’s success started. I love your animations!
hmm.... biased.
I love you!
Saw your interview with Thomas, congrats on your success man!! Glad things worked out so well for you :D
Thanks for checking out my channel! I keep striving to be better!
Congratulations man, your effort payed off
Thank you so much! I appreciate your support from the beginning!
Thank you so much for reviving my hope to be an indie dev one day. I’ve lost hope recently but this has put wind in my sails.
It’s a long and hard road but if you stay consistent and move closer to your goal just a little bit every day, eventually you will make it!
dude thank you for making this video it answered a lot a questions I had about steam fees. Congrats on your financial success may u have more of it :)
Thank you!
That's really cool how your game had such a massive spike after you improved it so much, and it's great to hear since I'm in a similar situation right now. I had a decent start to my game, generally getting ok sales over time, but I've been improving it pretty massively. Now it's starting to hit a critical point where the game seems really good and I have to look toward ways of re-gaining interest
You can try to use steam visibility rounds to your advantage and look for content creators in your games genre to cover a new feature
@@xraidev I just improved the visuals so I'm getting my marketing materials updated too. I'll definitely have to try reaching out to some content creators now, I didn't have a ton of confidence when it was looking worse. Thanks!
Congrats on your game dev success! I just watched video with you and Thomas Brush as well. Awesome videos. I will be buying Roll on steam. :)
P.S. this video is inpirational for a solo game dev like me hoping to make games full-time.
I’m so glad to inspire others, that’s the main purpose of the video! Good luck on all of your endeavors I hope to play your game one day
Nice work my guy! Excited for your next game too!
:) thanks, love you
Congrats mate, your effort has been well rewarded 🎉
Thanks Tauheed, it has been a while since I checked in on you and your channel... hope all is going well!
@@xraidev I'm doing ok, I was taking a break from game Dev and TH-cam but your video has inspired me to come back
@@tauheedgamedev2388 Yeah, its been almost a year since i last uploaded... Its hard to keep up with everything, but as long as I'm making progress in one area, i'm still moving forward!
Thank you so much for putting this out. Just saw the video and it helps me understand the routes you've taken to reach out to more people and expose your game to the market. I've also got a game out for a year now and I'm looking at ways to help it grow. I've been putting most of my time into developping it further and adding more content, but it doesn't seem to draw the attention like what you've done with yours. I'll look for some indie game youtubers and see if they'll be interested with doing the same thing despite my game being in such a niche area.
Congrats with your games success!
Yeah I’m still working on polishing my game up even today. Try to find a TH-camr that plays games that might be similar to yours or in that same niche as yours, they will be much more likely to give your game a go!!
This is the best indie game developer video I ever seen...Very inspiring for indie game developers, since most other videos are very demotivating for other indie game devs..
aww thank you so much, i try to always be encouraging in my content
I fell in love with this game, the amount of constant theorizing for what I need to do to make my numbers go up is so fun, but also this game just satisfies your soul
Thank you!
Holy Cow! You replied to EVERYBODY in these comments.
Love this game so much. Over 100 hours in it. Grateful for the updates, which keep bringing me back.
Grateful for my loyal players!!
And viewers :)
Sick! Just watched Thomas' video and I loved this. I'm struggling to make my game but I'll be there in a few months. Keep it up!
Thanks for checking out my channel! So glad you enjoyed it! My thoughts are much clearer when i have time to script, edit, and write them. I definitely need more podcast practice!
Congratulations sir! Well done!
Thank you!
Congratulations and nicely done!
Thank you so much!
This is a really inspiring story. Congratulations on your success!
Thank you! 🥰
Happy Birthday man!
Thank you!!! Very cool that you noticed :)
This really is what it's about.
You just gotta get a popular streamer of some sort or reviewer try out your product.
Its all about getting eyes on your game!
Thanks for sharing your experience! This is really inspirational, you have no idea.
I’m so glad my experience is able to inspire others :)
I remember seeing this game on TH-cam! So cool that you're making devlogs too :D
Thank you!
Thank you so much for the honesty (and laughs). Now to go finish my damn game!
You got this!
Congrats! Interesting perspective, you can start with a lackluster game, but if you improve it every day, eventually it becomes really good
yeah, well said... I think I gained a lot of value by first gauging interest before committing such a large amount of time to a single project
I am so happy for you! I can totally relate i am out of work and live on benefits. In a bad town and i just started gamedev. You really inspired me, not to make big money but that hard work pays off. One day i will send YOU my game and hope you‘ll play it 🤪. But honestly i hope you can make good use of that money and find confidence in your success❤
Thank you! Best of luck with your game, i hope you find joy in the process!
I got this game a while ago and it's cool to hear about the development process. I'll have to check up on it and see how it feels to play after the various updates.
It’s changed a lot!
Great vid, just jumped on Steam to buy Roll. Not sure if I'll get deep into it but I'll support regardless.
Appreciate you, I hope you enjoy it :)
Congrats man. Good luck on your next one.
Thank you! :)
its a really fun game, im glad that you made it and i hope it grows bigger in future, i found it on aliensrock channel even tho i dont watch him regularly and i immidiatly went and bought the game
I'm expecting a lot of growth with the next big update to the game. thanks for watching!
Really inspiring! Thanks a ton for sharing this, and congratulations.
Thanks for watching!!
Fantastic to see how well this went!
Thanks Skeffles!
This is inspirational Xrai! Just bought the game, hope to one day be steam game neighbours whenever I muster enough courage to learn game development haha
You can do it! There is so much information online to help you through the journey
This video just the boost of confidence I need for my psychological betting game. It is similar in style to your game, and with hard work I believe it will make it on the Steam Store! :)
Good luck! I promise it’s possible if you stick with it
Realised something similiar with a unity asset I sell. The attention comes in waves, it's not steady and consistent. But your consistent attention to it gives it the best chance of being found.
Well said!
I NEEDED to see this. Thanks!!
Thanks for watching! :)
@@xraidev Hi would it be possible to chat? I would like to ask a few questions about the process and what you learned. I am looking to release my first indie title in the next 30 days and want to do my best attempt at this method you've done. Thank you!
Wow man that's awesome! The tale of your game is inspiring. You should be proud of your achievement and good luck!
Thank you for the kind words, the imposter syndrome hits hard sometimes, so comments like this really help :)
@@xraidev I haven't produced any music that has "gone viral" but I'm gonna keep at it and right no me and my brother are working on starting a podcast that we will be producing by ourselves including writing all the music, recording, speaking, doing all research and all the audio engineering down to mixing and mastering. It's chance for us to create a space where we can put all of our audio skills to work while also sharing our thoughts and ideas on subjects we are genuinely passionate about.
I actually followed a tutorial and made a space shooter game using unity on my laptop. I didn't finish it but I got to the point where you can fly up down and left right and you can shoot asteroids unless the hit you...then you explode! 😄
You got yourself a new subscriber now my man!
@@metacortexvortex2131 you sound quite creative! Thanks for the support :)
Bro I'm really happy to see a video like this one
Everytime i feel down I'll come and watch this video again ❤️
I put a ton of work into this video, comments like this make it all worth it
Fantastic video! I'm going to jump into the game world development and because of your video believe it or not I have got the basic felling of want to earn not only the money, but the passion that one day I had to develop or create a thing that will help me be proud of myself. Best lucky on your unfinished journey.
Good luck to you as well, its a long road!
I made a simple game for my first game jam and got second to last place.. It’s not a great game but I added a little more. I have no clue where to start for publishing or spreading the game. It’s only a ball that can jump. The map is all ice because I couldn’t fix a bug that made the player slide when landing on platforms. The biggest feature is the movement that makes the game “fun” to speedrun.
Just keep working at it, over time you will learn how all the game dev stuff works :)
Good job bro! Well done
Thanks bro
Great video, thanks for making it!
Thanks for watching!
@@xraidev You made a very solid product because you spent time understanding your market. That's how you attracted the youtubers and why people bought the game when they saw it.
Congrats man!🎉🎉🎉
Thank you :)
This did motivate me to continue my game. thank you very much.
Thanks for watching, i wish you the best! Just stick with it day after day and eventually you will get there!
congrats sir! I'm so proud and inspired by your work and story. when I finish my game, Shikari Rising, I hope I can also beg for clout on your growing page :'D
Keep it up!
congrats my favorite indie developer
I'm truly honored
Great video man. Very proud for you.
Thank you!
This gets me really motivated to keep trying to make games thank you
stick with it, its hard work but it can be truly rewarding!
thx for sharing and congrats
Thanks for watching!
thank you bro for sharing your experience .
Thanks for watching!
cool and honest feedback. Nothing to brag, just good knowledge sharing. I appreciate your video. Continue the great job Xrai
Thank you! :) I appreciate that
Thanks for this. I just made my first indie game after 2 years. It's quite basic . But I don't know how to get traction on it. Thanks for the ideas and inspiration.
Best of luck to you! Thanks for watching :)
@@xraidev thank you. And of course.
This is the coolest thing ever! How does one start making a project like this? What IDE to code in? So many questions ahhhh congrats on the success!
Thank you so much. This project started as a game jam game. You can see how I started it in one of my other videos called 'using science to make the worlds most satisfying game' it's all done in Unity!
Congratulations, man. You had a vision and made it happen!
I know the pain at 2:03. I recently launched my game and I don't even want to think about how much money is going to Steam. What I do is calculate my average net profit on each sale. Then I can watch the new sales come in and just think about how much I will gain, not how much is lost! Although it is very nice to see that big fat Gross sales number, isn't it?
Definitely! the big number is very cool, but sometimes leaves me wondering where all the money has gone!
What an amazing success story. Congratulations!
thank you!
Awesome I remember buying this game after seeing your video congrats.
Thanks for the support, I couldn’t have done it without you!
OH WOWWW! BIG CONGRATS XRAI! 🎉
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm actually scripting and making graphics for a video game i want to launch before the end of the year, this vid inspires me alot good job !
Good luck! Game dev can often take longer than you think, so stick with it!
@@xraidev i think the hardest part will be the pvp and server
What an awesome video :D Congratulations on your success and thanks for sharing all that info with us! Hope you can buy that Ferrari soon 🏎
Haha, at this point it would be nice just to have a car that i don't have to worry about it breaking down on me, but maybe one day! Thanks for the support!
As his “newly-wed wife,” I also hope he can buy a Ferrari or a at least a reliably functional car soon 😂
@@xraidev Keep up the good work, I'm sure you'll get there!
@@leighann83879 That's hilarious, but I believe in him, he'll make it happen :D
@@muddasheep you’re too kind! ☺️ thank you
Woah, congrats on the success! :)
The moral of the story is to make a game which is fun to watch and then send it to TH-camrs.
Even then most likely it won't be as big of a success as yours, but at least the chances are higher :D
Keep up the good work, cheers!
Yes, definitely focus on the fun! Thats what games are for!
Congrats dude! It's a fun game.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!
just came here from the podcast you did and saw I already watched this lol, don't forget that you should start working on your next game at some point!!
Trust me I'm extremely eager to get started on the next project but I need to see this one through to the end first!
even if you not have done your best, that's a very cool game idea. good job.
Thank you, its hard to say if everything i've done is my best or not. There's always certainly more time and effort I can give to the game, but am i really capable of that kind of dedication? Does that really lead to the 'best' version of the game or the best version of myself? impossible to say, but i'll continue onward
I don't know but your voice made me happy 🙃 and thank you for the insight it's really helpful
Glad I could help!
Super happy to see your game did so well! Out of curiosity, what do you think the odds were that the people you sent it off to actually played it? Do you think you just got lucky, did the game speak for itself, or do you think you sold them on it in your message?
Good question... For starters I watch WAY too much TH-cam lol. All the channels I sent keys to were channels that I regularly watch and know. They were also channels that play games in the same genre as Roll, so I kind of knew it was something they might like. I sent a personal email to each one of them rather than copy pasting a template email to every single one of them (which I'm sure they get 100's/1000's of) Other than that I would just say that I got lucky that they ended up picking up my game and trying it out
Working on something myself currently. Played Roll back when it came out, was excellent.
Thanks! Good luck to you!!
I'm happy that your game sold well congrats. I'm designing a game myself and plan on putting it on steam. Its a fighting game and manly a side project but would like to see how financially it will do.
Steam doesnt have to jsut be for big releases! You can use it to test the market on your ideas and see where you stand!
Yeah I'm testing it to see how well it will do. Im developing a Fighting game so hopefully some fighting players out there support it. I'll make a sequel if so.
@@xraidev yeah I'm going to test it to see how well it will do. So hopefully a lot of steam fighting players on there support it. I'll make a sequel if so.
Just bought the game, and loving it! It's a pretty fresh take in the clicker incremental genre. I like clickers and idle clickers, but there are just so many clones out there its hard finding quality games these days. Thank you for making an outlier.
Thanks for playing!
@@xraidev No, thank you! I'm a bit of a hobbyist when it comes to game dev, and I'm trying to put together some simple projects in Godot 4 as we speak. One of the games I wanna make is a simple clicker/idle incremental. Seeing your success in the genre is inspiring, although I don't think I would be able to put out such a polished game as this myself. All the success to you.
BTW. I found a bug that annoyed me in a recent run, and I didn't see a bug reporter inside the game so I'll mention it here:
If you have a die with one face having "Multi numeric multiplier (x10)" and a top right corner multiplier on that face of x10, buying a "Universal Attached Multipliers" will seriously downgrade that face. The way I understand the "Universal Attached Multipliers" it should actually improve that face. On a roll I rolled 25 dice with 99 on their up face. It gave me the sum of 99*10 + 25. I would think the calculation should be (10*10)(99*25), and not that other calculation. If I'm incorrect here it still seems weird this expensive modifier would downgrade a face it clearly looks like it should improve.
Sorry if you have a bug reporting thread, I couldn't find any.
@@akselst universal attached modifiers has proven to be confusing for many players, it doesn’t help you if you attach the multiplier to the multi-numeric multiplier, but attach multipliers to all the 99’s and the the multi-numeric multiplier will be bigger based on the numeric faces it targets which have attached mults
This is re-worded in the next update to be more clear
@@xraidev Okay. Cool stuff
I really enjoyed your story!
I'm so glad!
Congrats, love the kino of the clicking. And gambling is always a winner.
gambling is king!
Hey thanks for sharing and great to hear it was a success for you.
Thanks for watching! :)
Grats!
Saw your story on Thomas Brush's interview. Subbed :)
Thanks for joining the channel!
Love this vid. Ty 😄
Thank you! :)
Congrats on the success bro! its not easy to do, so you should definitely feel very proud of what you've done. Great video too, funny and entertaining. Great job all around :D
Thank you so much :D I appreciate the support!
Xrai, will you continue uploading? You make the best quality videos and games!
Yeah I will, it just takes a lot of time for me, thanks so much ❤️
@@xraidev well then, il be waiting right here!
I love this video great story and super inspiring
Thank you
Great story. I just started learning game development as a hobby. Its a lot of fun so far.
I'm having a blast! Making games is so rewarding
yoooooo so you're the dev ofroll! cool! i saw aliensrock play it
His videos were so entertaining! I'm hoping he'll revisit the game when the next big update releases
A $100k and less than 500 reviews may not be much for first worlders, but $100k is like a dream come true for third worlders. It's enough to buy a house and a motorbike here. I can only work on my game on the side and it will definitely take long, but for that sweet $100k I'll do anything tbh.
I wish you the best of luck! Game development is much more profitable when your cost of living is low so I hope it will work out for you
@@xraidev Thank you! Btw, may I ask, do you work on your games fulltime or it's a side project thing after your dayjob?
@@trevorfranks69 it’s a full time job for me
Congrats!!!
What did you offer these YT-ers to play your game?
Because I have tried countless people and it s like sending messages into the void() :)
I didn’t offer anything, I just sent a nice personal message and made sure to find TH-camrs that like this style of game
Hehehe, from the beggining I knew you would be a good gamedev...BUT HOLY COW 100K?
I can't believe it either!!!!
Congratulations :)
Thank you!
6:38 AND WAIFUWU, i love this game, dev is very nice and good at drawing frogs
You're the bomb!