I have been thinking about a lot of things lately and I have been very curious in knowing what were the possibilities in terms of profitability with independant game development. Obviously there are many factors that will influence this such as the targeted market, the game in itself if it it good or bad, original or not, the costs of development, the team's skills, profit sharing and many other variables that are to take into account before we can even talk about making a penny. I have no intentions on making a "become a millionaire" hit game on my first try because it's virtually impossible unless I'm pure genius. I want to get some guidelines that will allow me to make some further research on how to reach "profitability". My main goal is to be able to make games myself or with a small team so that I could get a monetary come back of something that ressembles a part-time job with an average payrate. This money would eventually be reinvested into the game development process to make better games and hopefully become more popular with the games I made, build a fan base and basically being able to make a true living out of it. For now, I am now not concerned about my skills or the money or technology required to start since I already have an idea about all of this from all the threads I have been reading, posting and replying during the course of my Gamedev.net membership. I just want to know what kind of information I would need so that I could make some more in-depth research in all the possible areas that are required. I don't need technical game creation advice since I will ask questions regarding this when it comes the time for me to design and making the game. I do need all the possible advice I could get however to be able to get a business plan going in order to get started. Before I start making the next pong clone and spend months into the development and end up with an unpopular game that has been done and redone thousands of time around with absolutely no sales potential, I'm willing to analyze everything and get a good conversation with everyone of you who will be interested in answering me on that subject. I don't know if I am clear or if many questions arise in your minds concerning my intentions but that's why I'm starting this thread. I want to get reactions and advice and get a good idea of where to go next. I'm hoping I interested some of you with this and I'll be happy to discuss it all, ask questions and answer yours to the best of my capacity. I have many things going on in my life right now making me think about going indie but I'll spare the details for now unless you guys want to know. I would post it along with the rest of what I just said but I don't want to scare anyone with a lengthy novel. Thanks a lot for your contribution everyone !

Making money through indie/shareware is possible but it takes time. Your first game will probably sell almost nothing simply because people won't know you exist. It can take several years (and three or four games) before you start to make enough money that you can give up your day job.

I suggest that you join the Association of Shareware Professionals http://www.asp-shareware.com/. They have a lot of members who make their living from shareware (some games and some non-games) and there are lots of members willing to share info and offer advice (they have a private newsgroup). It costs $100 but spending time talking to people who make their living from Shareware is probably the best research you can do.

As always Obscure, you are of good advice :) Thank you for the information. I have seen this association in the Indie Game development survival guide as well I was thinking of eventually joining them.

I know for sure that before I can even make a decent living out of it, I will probably make many games and even fail making something that is good enough to be sold but that's what I'm expecting.

Do you think it would be easier to make games as a team with people having different skills or is it feasible to do it as a "one man army"? I know this would mean lengthier development times, more studying and research for me and the necessity to master everything. But do you believe that with today's standards or simply indie standards that it is possible to do it alone ?

I believe Introversion Software (the creators of Uplink and Darwinia) started off as indie developers creating Uplink in their spare time. It's popularity led to a retail product and then led to their second release Darwinia. Both games and the formation of the company were detailed in an article in Edge a while back. You can read it on their website here.

It's a nice story of indie developer's (a programmer, an artist, and an entrepeneur) high's and low's.

Uplink is a great example of an indie game because it was designed to be made by a team with very limited resources. No all singing, all dancing 3D environment, very little in the way of assets and a fun game.

They said in an interview that they didn't make much money from it at all - however it was enough to fund Darwinia - More impressive graphics than Uplink but still very simple and stylised compared to current retail triple AAA games.

They seem to have got a lot more press coverage than most other indies (don't know if that has translated into sales) which is a great help when you have zero marketing budget. The reason for this is that their games aren't yet more Mario/Bejewelled/Breakout clones.

Have you heard of Rake In Grass ? I have bought one of their games a couple of months ago called Jet'N'Guns and for a bunch of 3 guys and metal band I loved the game so much I played it again and again and again and still play it... I even got the songs on my ipod.

I don't know how much time it took them and how they created the game but I'm very interested in creating something that ressembles this kind of quality eventually in my first few projects.

I've also checked out on Uplink and Darwinia and it looks very nice for indie developed games, especially Darwinia that was released this year O_O.

I was thinking about it lately since the last post from Obscure and I was wondering if there was any other useful resources I could use when it comes to looking for a team that won't necessarily be willing to work for a monetary incentive even though very hard to find. Personal succesful experience in making indie games and the kind of traits and skills needed for someone to lead a team to success provided that they are determined and won't quit after 3 months and any other kind of info that could make my research document a whole lot bigger and broader.

Any ideas or suggestions for that ?