Releasing on Steam for a (very) indie developer

General Discussions
#1

I like writing games (mostly arcade style shoot them ups) and I write them mostly for myself but I’d love to make a bit of money from doing so.

  • Is that a bad thing?
  • Am I being a bit unrealistic expecting money for this stuff?
  • Does anyone have any experience of putting Java games onto steam?
  • Do PC arcade games actually sell well (or at all)?
  • Is it easy to integrate a Java game into steam?
  • Is it straightforward to use their achievements, leader boards and cloud facilities?
  • If you have experience of releasing on steam - can I ask how you did? (a PM is fine and I promise not to repeat any info)
  • Is it mostly luck or is there a good formula to follow?

These are some of the games I have so far (Alien Swarm, Martian Assemblers and Seas of Neptune).

#2

Is that a bad thing?
No
Am I being a bit unrealistic expecting money for this stuff?
Yes
Does anyone have any experience of putting Java games onto steam?
Yes
Do PC arcade games actually sell well (or at all)?
Not usually
Is it easy to integrate a Java game into steam?
Yes
Is it straightforward to use their achievements, leader boards and cloud facilities?
Yes
If you have experience of releasing on steam - can I ask how you did? (a PM is fine and I promise not to repeat any info)
By making a game fit for the Steam audience
Is it mostly luck or is there a good formula to follow?
This is the (literally) $1m question.
The formula is something like: find ripe unexploited niche that’s not too far removed from expectations; make a game that’s as unique and different as possible but not so different that no-one can figure out how to play it; repeat 5-10x until you get it right and achieve a level of quality that Steam customers will tolerate; … (cloud picture) … ; $$$!

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

what he said

#4

Oh well, thanks for being honest.

I do see plenty of small arcade style games in steam but I can’t see any details on how well they actually sell. I might just bight the bullet and go for it anyway - it might be an interesting learning experience if nothing else. When it fails the green light then I guess you can tell me “I told you so” :slight_smile:

Mike

#5

There is money to be made on PC and Steam tho… let’s not get too negative about it :slight_smile: I’m pretty pleased with my venture onto Steam so far.

but you really have to create a game for the audience, add a lot of stuff, add features, settings, different controls (keyboard,gamepad,mouse)

and don’t even try to sell an “endless runner” or another “candy crush”…

An arcade game can be sold on PC, but it either has to be unique, extremely well done, full of features, or heavily promoted by a big publisher or just extremely lucky.

#6

Well I’ve signed up to steam and got their SDK. It’s all in C++ which is interesting to look at but … are there any interfaces for Java?

I’m thinking of going freemium and just allowing people to buy upgrades. I guess if people don’t like the game then they won’t of lost anything and the upgrades are just the upgrades you can earn by playing the game normally but it allows you to skip the easier stuff and fast forward into the more challenging stuff. I think that sounds fair. I’ll try to use their leader boards (assuming I can get others to play it), the cloud save sounds straightforward and I already have some ideas for the achievements.

Regards the audience - are there demographics available?

#7

I use the excellent Steamworks4j : https://github.com/code-disaster/steamworks4j

#8

I’m guessing my following question is in line with the OP, even if not Steam specific:

As someone interested in eventually moving from hobbyist to hobbyist who also sells stuff… Any word from experienced people on what the economic expectations (rough time/effort - income relationship) for people starting would be?

I’ve read plenty of articles out there that just focus on selling what the article author did (almost sounding like propaganda), and none address my main concern, namely:

I have a day job that demands too much of my time (so I can barely dedicate time to game dev), in order to transition to game development, even if low key, I’d have to work towards obtaining an income to supplement my loss of income if I switch to a lower demand (say, part time) job.

So having an idea of what the prospects are, even if they are daunting, would be great.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

#9

This is going to bite a bit, but the prospects are extraordinarily poor. Even for us, and we’ve been about for years and have a presence on Steam already.

Even now, I do contract work elsewhere to actually earn a living (and it earns me a far greater living than games). I do my game coding agonisingly slowly when I’m not too knackered at night for maybe an hour a day. Obviously I’d rather be working full-time on games again but I’ve realised that this will be much easier when I’m completely out of debt, so to that end I intend to be debt-free in 3 years - including mortgage - which will give me a vast amount more license to do what the hell I want with my time.

As the first step towards starting any kind of business you must do some market research. This used to be extremely difficult but rejoice! It is now very easy. Take a look at SteamSpy. Don’t fool yourself into just looking at the top 10 lists and boggling at the incredible amounts of money. Instead look at the bottom 10. That’s where you’re likely to be. Indeed, look at the bottom 50% of revenues. And to be extra realistic, just focus on games released in, say, the last 3 months. Scrape all the data you can and draw conclusions as to your potential for success and the actual amount of money involved.

Regarding earnings-per-hour, game dev is generally extremely poor and tends to make below minimum wage (take a look here for some thoughts on that). Just my literal 2p on the subject.

Cas :slight_smile:

#10

Thanks princec, that’s exactly what I needed to read. :slight_smile:

#11

Also see this blog post from Arcen Games who have been around for ages too. This industry is way too volatile.

Cas :slight_smile:

#12

Yeah I know, I stopped trying to get a job in the industry ages ago, mainly because the prospects regarding stability were daunting :clue:

It really helps to know that my time management woes are common even for people like you. It’s encouraging to know its not just me :slight_smile:

#13

It’s good to know some facts about this, thanks for that. The article by arcengames is especially enlightening: the whole company basically floated on a single month of income. There’s no stable sales, nor can you expect to have that.

Anyways, for me it’s a hobby with a job brining in the money, which is much less stressful.

#14

Is that a bad thing?

  • No! Write more games. :stuck_out_tongue:

Am I being a bit unrealistic expecting money for this stuff?

  • Yes and no. To make money, you need a ton of polish. Even a high quality game (mechanics wise) will be almost unsellable without decentish graphics. There are some out liners on Steam (Not-GTAV, or that retarded “Shower With Your Dad Simulator” for example) but generally speaking if you don’t have graphics/polish, you won’t make money.

Does anyone have any experience of putting Java games onto steam?

  • My games Java, on Steam, and it’s no problem what so ever.

Do PC arcade games actually sell well (or at all)?

  • “yes” (see my second bullet point way down in the next section). My game is my day job now, but it isn’t an arcade game.

Is it easy to integrate a Java game into steam?

  • Cakewalk!

Is it straightforward to use their achievements, leader boards and cloud facilities?

  • Also a cakewalk. :slight_smile:

If you have experience of releasing on steam - can I ask how you did? (a PM is fine and I promise not to repeat any info)

  • I can’t speak exact numbers because of Valve’s NDA, but I make enough to pay all my bills/living expenses and still put money in savings. My wife works, but only because she wants to. We don’t use her income.

Is it mostly luck or is there a good formula to follow?

  • There is of course some luck with everything in life. But generally no, making a successful game is not about luck. If you make a good, interesting game that grabs people’s attention and is unique to the genre you picked, they will come. You just have to do a LOT of legwork marketing the game. You can’t expect them to show up out of no where.

My 2 cents of what I think makes or breaks an indiedev:

  1. Keep in touch with everyone all the time constantly. Social media is half the battle.

  2. Don’t just clone a game then add your special twist to it, reinvent the idea the game sets forward. For example, don’t make “Pacman with a random level generator”. Figure out why pacman is fun, and reinvent pacman itself entirely.
    (Example: Shatter, a re-imagining of breakout.)
    (Example: Pacman Championship Edition)
    (Example: Kingdom Rush (Now a lot of TDs clone their mechanic though, but they were the first to do what they did to the genre))

What sets these games apart is they don’t feel like clones anymore. They feel like something totally new.

  1. Polish the ever bloody hell out of it. If you’re not a good artist, become one. You will most likely fail if you can’t polish your product.

  2. Be unforgiving to yourself. Nothing you do is ever perfect. Never be satisfied. Obviously you need to release that game sometime, but don’t just accept your limitations. Don’t know how to do something, and you think the game will benefit from it? Learn!

  3. Always act professionally in the public eye. Even if you have something hard to say, say it like a well spoken professional. Don’t let the trolls get to you (they’ll try) and don’t let angry customers piss you off (because they’ll try too!). If you get a fanbase, your fans will take care of the insulting idiots for you, and you won’t have to look like the bad guy (Read comments starting from page 8, if you’re crazy enough).

  4. Remember that everything wrong is your fault. Figure out why it’s your fault, and fix it. :slight_smile:

  5. Market, market, market, market, market, market, market, market, market, market, market.

  6. Repeat 1 through 7 50 million times, and cry yourself to sleep once you realize your 6 month project is actually a 2 year project. But keep trucking forward anyway and someday release that game.

#15

There’s an NDA on the money you make selling your own games on their platform? :expressionless:

#16

Sorta. No, not really. The information is almost public anyway and Valve couldn’t care less one way or the other. Besides, your own revenues and sales units are indeed your own data. What might technically not be your data is the cut that Valve takes but that’s one of the worst kept industry secrets ever.

Cas :slight_smile:

#17

Honestly wonder why we have an NDA sometimes. Almost everything can be googled, including those “super secret” sales dates. There’s just too many devs on Steam, and it only takes one to leak basically-everything.