I just turned 19 years old, I'm still living at home, im paying for my schooling, and my current car (and all of the troubles that come with owning such an old vehicle) and I would like to sell it, and buy a new one with a loan, problem is - with school, working more then about 25 hours a week is hard. Now, here is where the business of game development comes in. At the moment im working on an OpenGL engine, its really basic at the moment, but I was thinking about pumping out a few little games - has anyone here done that and made any money on it? I want to put out like 5-10 dollar games, and when I finish the bigger projects maybe like 20 dollars. Has anyone else done this and been successful? Has anyone put out small games at all for money? How much did you make? How long did it take? (maybe like a $/hr rate) Thanks a bunch.

There are people that sell shareware for a living, and the 'average' price is about $20. So yes it is quite possible, however almost of all them spent years doing it before they got anywhere and some never made it that far. You may want to try http://forums.indiegamer.com/ since virtually everyone there is either trying to do what your talking about or ARE doing it.

[Edited by - KGodwin on December 6, 2005 9:14:36 PM]

Haven't sold anything but a little barny blaster game I made in 8th grade for 3 bucks (1 copy sold)... If it's worth anything I just turned 20 in June and started working as a Coop at EA on the Need for Speed series. I got my name in the credits for NFS:MW (Michael Hamilton) and I think that's selling a few copies... ;)

Yeah, school's a bitch to pay for. Two summers ago I was working 80 hour work-weeks to pay for my schoolyear. Some days I'd work 20 hours and sleep for 3 (1 hour transit between things) And then during the year I'd work about 20 hours a week.

As for how well you do, that all depends on what type of application you make. It's all about finding a niche and filling it and then marketing that product. There were a few guys who made some music/movie organizer for apple computers that scanned barcodes with a quickcam and the thing took off. They made millions in a few days. Tons of little examples like that, but of course, you have to have something innovative, attractive, and easy to use. There's more money in simple apps than in games for small developers from what I've seen. Now, that said, cellphone and handheld games are a great market to look into but that requires getting published... Even still, a one-man-year development cycle on that would turn out something that could sell for 30-40 bucks and if it's solid it will probably do well. It's probably the best market to hit right now because of the low expectations.

Good luck.

Thanks M2tM - Givin ya a rating boost - that was beautiful *wipes tear*.

If it were Slashdot - You'd get a 5. For being insightful.

Glad you liked my post, and it really means something to me that you would rate that a 5 on slashdot. Thanks.

News

It looks like the small-time cellphone game makers will have EA to compete with now. This is a signal that the big boys have picked up on the new market. I just post this because of how recently I posted about the cellphone/pda games.

well as long as they dont put madden out for the cellphone it is all good since all thier money is made off these sports games.

Hey AfroFire, I've been actually thinking about this for a long time too... but I was wondering if there were any legal issues in creating a PC game without getting copyrights,licenses,etc., and just selling copies of them (assuming that all images & music is original)?

The reason I ask this is because I've heard that if you plan on becoming a game developer for a specific console, you would need a license because you'd be making money off of that console.

Perhaps you may not know this since you are asking the question, but maybe someone else might be able to answer it?

Quote: Original post by 0siris
Hey AfroFire, I've been actually thinking about this for a long time too... but I was wondering if there were any legal issues in creating a PC game without getting copyrights,licenses,etc., and just selling copies of them (assuming that all images & music is original)?

The reason I ask this is because I've heard that if you plan on becoming a game developer for a specific console, you would need a license because you'd be making money off of that console.

Perhaps you may not know this since you are asking the question, but maybe someone else might be able to answer it?

PC games are not like consoles, there are no liscening issues beyond assets (Art, Music, Code, Writing).

Quote: Original post by KGodwin
PC games are not like consoles, there are no liscening issues beyond assets (Art, Music, Code, Writing).

Cool, thanks for the fast responce, I had a feeling but wasn't sure...

Osiris

Quote: Original post by 0siris

Quote: Original post by KGodwin
PC games are not like consoles, there are no liscening issues beyond assets (Art, Music, Code, Writing).

Cool, thanks for the fast responce, I had a feeling but wasn't sure...

Osiris

Its NP, I just happened to be wandering through all the forums out of boredom.