Hobbyists - How do you make it happen?

The Diaper Movie, Steam takes it's 30% of each sale.

So if $5 is your 100% revenue, then Steam will take $1.5 per pop.

And you get $3.5, I'm not mentioning taxes you have to pay, because they are different in different countries.

Also, Steam only sends out a minimum of $100 (because of payment processing fees). So if you game makes say $35 a month it will take 3 months to receive your money.

Like it or not - that's how it works. Other game distribution platforms operate in approximately the same way. That information from above is all over the internet and developers all over the world are "not so" happy about it for years.

Ughh how confusing and not nice that is to take a whole %30 of each copy sold!

I first took the idea, rushed with it for a long time, then I found friends who can help me, and then they just took it and did it (not simply, really, it's just awful). :D

Also, Steam only sends out a minimum of $100 (because of payment processing fees). So if you game makes say $35 a month it will take 3 months to receive your money.

What does payment processing fee mean?

> Also, Steam only sends out a minimum of $100 (because of payment processing fees). So if you game makes say $35 a month it will take 3 months to receive your money.

What does payment processing fee mean?

Banks take their cut from each transaction. It's not necessary to dive that deep.

Just keep in mind that Steam sends a minimum of $100.

Ughh how confusing and not nice that is to take a whole %30 of each copy sold!

30% is common for most digital retailers, but that covers hosting and distribution, as well as processing payments and handling refunds. You could do all that yourself with your own website, but it takes time and money upfront to get that sorted.

There are other things to consider as well that affect how much you'll get paid.

In some countries (Turkey, Russia, China, etc) the price is 50-70% less than the USD price, then there is sales tax/GST/VAT that might apply and could be up to 20%

So, worst case scenario all purchases of your game are in the cheapest country and sales tax applies, before Steam even takes their share

((($5 - 70%) - 20%) - 30%) = $0.84

That would be around ~120 copies to get paid $100

That's not even factoring discounts, and most of your sales will come when the game is discounted.

Then there might be intermediary bank fees, which could be something like $20

And if you're not from the US, then there could be fees for recieving foreign currency, e.g. $10

So now you want Steam to send at least $130 so you get the equivalent of $100 after bank fees, meaning you need to sell ~155 copies

Back in February 2018, the average sales per new indie game was ~50 and it's trending downwards

gdcvault.com/play/1024976/Let-s-Be-Realistic-A

Wow...

OddConfection Lol... kind of depressing when you think about it.

Back in February 2018, the average sales per new indie game was ~50 and it's trending downwards

Well, App stores and other online retailers are not really doing much to mitigate it. It has never been easier to create games than it is now, especially with tools like construct.

It doesn't help that marketplaces are crowded with poor quality stuff, clones, and general shovelware either.

Your best bet of earning money on game design is starting your own company, and offer small promotional games as part of campaigns to various companies in your area for the exposure.

If your local Car Dealer pays you (per hour) to make a small funny promotional game for their campaign to host on their site, you would make way more than doing the exact same game and uploading it to a market place.

Apart from making a good, nice looking game, that's fun to play... Unlelss you really know how to market your game and build a buzz, you've gotta be pretty lucky to earn money on your creations. First of all people need to find it, they need to like what they see, they need to try it, they need to buy it, and they need to actually enjoy your game, and recommend it to other people.

There's nothing wrong with building games as a hobby. There's lots of bands that play music together as a hobby, with an occasional gig at the local pub, for free beer.

I don't earn any money on my games, or have even released any, but I earn money using construct anyway, as it's part of my job to sometimes do so quick prototypes, or some cool interactive stuff for clients.

Games are my hobby and I love fiddling around in construct, but I could say that my daytime job sometimes ask me to use construct... which is pretty cool... so you could say I still get payed to use it.

An example: Of something I played around with lately for one client.

tunepunk.com/crm

These kind of simple things clients usually love.....interactive site elements. Construct can be used to make more than just games ya know ;)

tunepunk.com/cal2

A client wanted a funny app to promote a new feature, so I prototyped this for them, and their Devs created the app according to my design prototype.

-

Anyway what I wanna say that there's a lot more ways to earn money using construct than making games and uploading them to marketplaces. I get payed to do small little things like those...

For me I often have some technology I want to learn that's tangentially related to work (I'm a software developer), however I can't justify the time to learn whilst I'm at work, and don't want to work on something work related when I get home. Sorry for overuse of the word "work" there but, fundamentally, outside of my job I find fiddling with data a lot less compelling than making objects fly around the screen and blow up.

So generally it's as a way to motivate myself to learn something that otherwise I might not bother to do. Examples:

- JavaScript

- node.js

- MongoDB

- Azure

- three.js

- WebGL

And the list goes on.

I really like old arcade games so I tend to find it quite fun to build my own versions of them, which I usually add my own twist to. But still, I quite like the aesthetic of older games like Defender, Stargate, Space Invaders, Galaga, and of course the vector games like Star Castle, Asteroids, Battlezone (and Star Wars - who could forget that one?), so I tend to go in that direction with the games I create. Still, I do tend to modernise in the sense of wanting very fluid controls and a more forgiving difficulty curve.

Anyway, the point is that doing this has motivated me to learn some technologies where otherwise I might not have bothered, because I'm often happy to work on this stuff when I'm tired/fed up/am unmotivated to do any "real" work.

I'm about 1k in the red if I think critically about it. On the other hand, 1k is a low price for all the things I learned over the years. Ain't even mad :V

I'm about 1k in the red if I think critically about it. On the other hand, 1k is a low price for all the things I learned over the years. Ain't even mad :V

and this answers the question of this thread "Hobbists how you make it happen?" = short answer ... we don't... we doing it for a hobby not for a profit!