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Total revenue from last 2 years
17/12/09
Total revenue from last 2 years
Introduction
Two years I have worked as an Indie. Two years fighting for good on behalf of developers, sharing about my earnings and achievements every month. So far I can say this for sure - going off from offices to become an indie was the best decision I've made. Another one - sharing my stats with you, my dear colleagues.
Some History
I have released 21 Flash games, 3 iPhone games, launched 1 portal, 1 blog, a forum and support group. Meanwhile, my personal life has also seen an increase in quality - no crunches, no 16-hour work days. I became a father for a second time. I was able to spend 31 days outside Russia, and two weeks inside Russia =).
Some Plans
On January 1st, 2010, I will be going with Memphys.SK to an open office in Kaliningrad - the most game developer centric city of Russia.
Stats and Pictures
In total I was able to earn - $68,797. First year was - $40,468, second - $28,329. In average per month - $2,866.
Follow up:
I`m sure you would like to know why the second year was $12k lighter than the first one, so here is some information:
- Bankruptcy of GJ, which subtracted out $1,500 from my account and an additional $2,500 more if there was still an account active. =)
- My personal creative crisis for the first half of 2009. Too many games to play, conferences, and the very important task - spending time with my wife. Thank god - GJ going down give me that magic nudge, and I started to work on my games more often, almost every day! =)
- Delay between selling another license and waiting for money - oh yes, someone can do that for 3 months. When I was calculating earnings I skipped money that had not delivered yet.
Most $ game - EF:Conquest which earned $11,500.
Most played game - EF:Jungle - 20 million gameplays.
Most easy game to make - EF:Clone Wars - 14 hours.
Most hard game to make - EF:Warfare 2 - more than 3 months.
Most advanced game - Red Storm - 6 missions, 60+ weapons, 3+ heroes, 30+ enemies, 14+ rewards, 3 game modes.
Where: Primary - money from selling exclusive/primary licenses, Ads - money from advertisements, Others - selling url-locks, non-exclusive, sources, Portal - money from ads on portal (there are other sources of income there, but they are all small, and all less than $100), Micro - money from micro-payments.
More stats:
79,606,827 - game-ads showed via Mochiads,
21,893,896 - game-ads showed via CPMstar,
14,000,000 - web-ads showed on my portal.
Total gameplays, based on mochibot: EF games was played 75,000,000 times, rest - 15,000,000 times, so in total - 90,000,000 gameplays.
You can check out myy Mochibot stats here.
Some Predictions
The best way to earn money is to use a combination of ads and micro-payments, but the most important thing is that the game should be addictive. I have a feeling that we (you and me) will eventually flood the appStore with more of our super-games. The portal, after a year of investing into it, became a good solution for distribution, support, and money income. I know there are ways to get the same or similar results without it, and for less expenses, but if I didn't started portal, then how would I be able to share stats, tips, hints about portals? =)
Bottom Line
I'm still a medium-sized indie-developer - no top-hits and my games are above average. Let's see how new year will affect me and this market, so stay tuned - Subscribe!
Edited by Alexander Chen.
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4 comments
When you write that you are going to open an office, you mean that you stop to work at home ? You are going to create a kind of developpement studio with someone else ?
i will show my self from time to time at office =) not often i think =)
just another person will guard and keep eye on office =)
Just interested, in which category does the money from selling iPhone games land?
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