Hi. I'm working on a game for the past few months, and - as far as i can tell - don't encounter bigger problems on the technical side - it runs, compiles, - works on all the plattforms i want to adress, using cpp and sdl. I can surely finish it. I also got a good friend doing the gfx stuff. He's not a professional, but he is doing a good job, delivering graphics that are more detailed & better looking than some of the "professional" indie games i encounter on steam, gog, etc. (he's probably also going to write down the texts. excuse my english). We plan to sell it for arround 3-5€ per copy, and hope to finance a vaccation with it (no 3-stars hotels planned, simple a short trip to a warmer area for one or two weeks => we are happy if we make 3000€, resulting in arround 1000 sold copies i guess ) - Ofc it is fine if it turns out to bring in more, but it was primarily done as a hobbyiest project (for the fun) and to finance us a trip. Till now, i don't can't see any problems. It doesn't crash, it isn't exactly a performance-monster (i'm not a pro-programmer. i can't even do basic math, tbh.) but works on modern systems, and it works as expected (since i threw in a lot of time). However, i basically read at every corner that it is very hard to get into commercial game making. I don't do it as a buisness (e.g. if we don't get as much as if we worked in the time we spent making it, it isn't any problem), but does a project like this have any chances to get sold on a plattform, like - lets say - gog (now that desura is gone)? it's a zero budget project after all. Did anyone here do something like this?

Noob wants to sell a game...
...does a project like this have any chances to get sold on a plattform, like - lets say - gog (now that desura is gone)?

Moving this to Business.

Did anyone here do something like this?

I try something similiar. My goal is steam (it is already greenlit). There are some pitfalls in your calculation. First off, i you sell it for 3€, you will have eventually less than 1 € for your own pocket (ranging from publisher provision over VAT to personal and business taxes). Then the target publishing platform is the foundation for your number of sold copies. Steam, over everything else in digital publishing, dwarfs the rest. And even on steam, without some marketing (ie getting covered by some online portals), you will have a hard time to sell your game. To get covered you need some really cool idea or excellent execution, or both.

My rule of thumb:

If you want to make a game as hobby, then it will work as hobby, that is, you put a lot of money and work into it, you gain lot of fun, but you will not really generate money with it.

If you want to make money with a game, you need to handle it as business.

Thanks for your Answers. @Tom Sloper: Sorry, was drunken when i posted, and quite not sure if its not a beginner question. @Ashaman73: 3-4€, arround 33% are taken by the publisher, leaves me 2-3€ per sold game => arround 2000 sold copys needed to reach the goal (dunno how realistic this is). As long as we don't sell to much, we won't have to pay any taxes ;). We won't target steam for - mostly political - reasons.

Avoiding Steam is going to make your task 4 times as difficult - or more. Steam represents 70-80% of the market for PC games. Can it be done without them? Sure. Your remaining outlets are Humble Store and GOG as well as Bundles.

Bundles is actually where I would consider finding the bulk of your revenue. A few small bundle deals and you could find yourself with 1-2k pretty easy. Humble is pretty easy to get on but last I checked they had a massive backlog due to their ability to launch titles per day not meeting the number of titles they get every day. GOG is very picky with "new" games - so you'd better have some kind of method to convince them you belong.

After those two second tier outlets you have some smaller locations like Greenman Gaming... but at this point I feel like you should be focused on your own website and direct sales if you're going to get that low.

The PR side is where all your time needs to go. Expect to put 40 hours a week+ into PR work for AT MINIMUM the month before launch and the month after launch. That is 320 hours of PR work you should be setting aside for yourself, ideally somewhere around 1,000 hours.

As Ash said, if this is a hobby you don't need to make it a full time job- but that is what it will take to give yourself a real shot at success.