Ten years of Indieexperience, revenue stats, business decisions, and tips+tricks

Business and Project Management Discussions
#1

For those still wondering if it’s possible to survive as indie developer, I typed up my 10 years of experience, revenue stats, yearly changes, tips, tricks, do’s and don’ts…

And I hope it’s informative for others, it’s not all pure Java in there, but 90% of it is, since I started with J2ME, moved to Android, and now also release on Steam using LibGDX.

read the article here:

http://techblog.orangepixel.net/2015/07/the-full-monty/

#2

That blog post was great, thanks for sharing your hard won wisdom!

#3

Very interesting, thanks a lot for sharing!

#4

This was a really interesting read, thanks for that. Posting about money can be difficult, but it’s something that a lot of people are curious about.

If you feel like it, can you talk a little more about what exactly you mean by “learning the business side of things”? I think most of us here know how to learn the technical side- you google “how to do XYZ”, you find a tutorial, etc. What, specifically, is the equivalent for the business side?

#5

Most of the business side is just something you have to learn as you go. Some tips would be:

  1. Be bold, if you want something, ask for it. So if you want to get featured somewhere, just try and contact someone. You can find a lot of contact information on internet, or finding a person on twitter with an email included in their profile. Just cold-mail people, be honest, straight to the point, and be bold. Just keep in mind: if you don’t ask, you won’t get anyway, so there’s very little to lose.

I also found many people at almost all companies very willing to help out a developer with a good game. The cool thing with huge companies like google, apple, facebook, valve, microsoft: they have a LOT of people working for them, so it’s possible to find a contact person there willing to help. And if you happen to find one who doesn’t help, you can just try and find another person at the company.

  1. Take calculated risks. Eventually everyone gets some e-mails from people who have “the best new service, gadget or device you never knew you needed” … most of those should just be ignored. But always check them out, see exactly what it is they have or are trying to do. A lot of interesting up-front money deals can be made with companies who approach you.

I had my games pre-installed on tablets used for airplanes! nobody might have played the games, but I made money on the deal. Same with restaurant-tablets, weird chinese android console type things, etc.

Sometimes this requires a few weeks of contract sorting, modifying your games (think adding their sdk’s), but can be very much worth your time.

  1. respect your games and fans. Don’t go for easy quick money if it can harm your game, brand or fan-base in the longer run.
#6

Awesome! Thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

Did you proactively contact the airlines?

#7

no, they contacted me, which is the result of having your games in lots of places, and having a sizable portfolio of quality games.