Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially

Re:Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing... by strken on Monday June 19, 2023 @05:56PM (#36396982)

I think you're taking about two different things: a game rising from a small number of players to a massive phenomenon, and a game getting that small number of players to begin with.

The HN analogy is a SaaS company struggling to become profitable vs struggling to find the first ten or hundred users. Profitability is very hard, finding a big enough niche is very hard, but...ten users?

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Re:Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing... by johnnyanmac on Monday June 19, 2023 @08:30PM (#36398217)

Most indie devs would define "success" as "profitable". And those costs include personal labor. even if a single person made a fully open source video game, it's hard to ration that 10 people buying a $10 game made even over 6 months is "profitable". If only because Steam takes $100 to publish a game, and then 30% of revenue. You're down $30.

This is an overly literal exaggeration, but the example remains true even at a more realistic (and still pailtry) 100-200 sales. 1000 users is where it starts to maybe become a side hobby. Before then, You could be mowing lawns and make more revenue (without a 30% platform cut).

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Re:Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing... by somenameforme on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @02:06AM (#36400311)

SteamCharts shows average online users playing a game, not sales. The multiplier to convert that to sales is going to vary [dramatically] by game, but it's going to be a very big number.

At 1000 users on SteamCharts you are making some very serious revenue, especially if you happen to be a solo dev.

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