Small game developement making money?

The most successful teams I've seen around lately have been 2-4 people teams. They might not be rolling in money, but they have delivered or are in the process of delivering good quality content.

There are a few single individuals out there not doing so bad either.

Perhaps PKeod and Netninja can chime in with a rough idea of how they are doing? Thats the most recent one I've heard of marking with some good successes.

How about you, Chaos? I mean, have you gotten many donations on your site?

No, but I haven't finished my big project yet that might drive those donations All I have up are my tutorials for now, but game is coming along great!

When I finish my game, it will be the full version and free, but donators will get access to extra equipment, spells and a new dungeon to explore, as incentive. I don't plan on making a ton of money, if anything just enough to cover some of the webhosting costs, and money I've spent on making the game itself and perhaps to fund another project or two. With any luck I'll be finished with Core of Innocence within the remainder of the year...

...I hope.

Yes, I would like to know more about this subject. If anyone can help me, or tell me where I can find out for myself.

I know that Matteo of Please login to see this link. is a single developer making a living off of his games, but he doesn't use any of the clickteam products, if that's what you are looking for.

well, Please login to see this link. is probably a good place to start researching as it seems a good handful of people have had luck with them it seems. But, there are many different places and sites that market indie games.

There are quite some number of people living off their own games. They're generally called Indie (independent) developers. Famous examples would be Cliffski of Positech games, and 2D Boy who made the excellent World Of Goo.

I've been developing games on my own for a number of years now. I'm by no way making a living off it, but it makes a nice extra, a very nice extra I may add.

But.... it's though, not everything I've done has been succesful, but some has. I don't sell through BigFishgames, I don't like their policy, they do kill creativity and want games that all look alike. But if you can live with that, then by all means give it a try. But be prepared to be turned down. Try some smaller publishers instead or try some self publishing. I've done that in the past also and you can make some nice money of it.

benjamin: I sooo agree with you on the Big Fish Games. Their favourite genre is "hidden object", they wanted my classic adventure game based on story and dialogs turn to finding hidden objects..lol.
Do you know other causal games publisher except BFG?

benjamin: Can you recommend any publishers for my new game? Please login to see this link.

Thanks,

Steve

The people at Please login to see this link. feature more niche genres than BFG. If you have developed a not-so-casual game, you should submit it to Reflexive.

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Popcap no longer accepts third party submissions

Kisguri is right. PopCap isn't going to want to distribute your game unless they own th IP (unless it was reallllly good and new, but if that's the case you're better of being your own publisher and distributing it on all of the portals on your own), and don't ever go near their joke of aportal SpinTop!

It's not really worth getting a publisher either. They will take a big cut, and do things that you are only ignorant of knowing you can easily do yourself, such as submitting to portals. We had a lot of people contact us about publishing FS, but it was really obvious that they were gold digger sorts who prey on developers that don't know better.

Steven, I think you honestly made the mistake of ignoring the market with that game... if you want to make money you have to make games that are easy to sell on the top portals. Otherwise it will be much more difficult to make money. Money isn't everything, but I'm just saying other types of games are harder to sell without doing a lot of extra work!

benjamin Sometimes you have to compromise... thats the nature of games/software development. If you have the skills and think you can make money out of it, then why not make a hidden object game.

The way i look at it is that you (Im talking generally not specifically you)..its a means to an end. You make some games to generate enough money to create something else that you might have more creative control/investment in.

I really dont have an issue with that way of thinking personally. I know indies like to be independant, but still

Quote from Pkeod

Steven, I think you honestly made the mistake of ignoring the market with that game... if you want to make money you have to make games that are easy to sell on the top portals. Otherwise it will be much more difficult to make money. Money isn't everything, but I'm just saying other types of games are harder to sell without doing a lot of extra work!

To be fair to me I did start on this 5 years ago with no clear goal in mind. On the other hand (and i'm not criticising Faerie Solitaire here as whilst it's not my preference of genre, my wife loves it) not everyone wants to make games just for the big portals.

On a more positive note i'm delighted to see the amount of quality that's being pumped out by our community lately. Noitu Love 2, Faerie Solitaire, Death From Above etc etc... exciting times!

Steve

Well right now Bigfish and Reflexive are the number one portals. they release a game almost every day. Reflexive is more "open minded", so you can publish Action, RPG and other games that are not Match Three and Hidden Objects.

If you really want to make Money you will most likely not enjoy the games you make. Look up top 10 on those Sites, pick something that you like and can finish with your knowledge and give it a go.

If you release a couple of those games and they sell well you might be able to put away some money to start developing an a game you like, but remember it might not sell well.

If you have no intention on making casual games and just want to make your own games you could make a paypal account and make some decent freeware games. Get a website and put your games on. Talk to some of the Indie-Portals and get people on your site to test and try out your games. If they are good you will get good revies and feedback and maybe a couple of Donations too! You could sell Box Editions or Enhanced Versions via Paypal Transaction or you could sell them on sites like eBay.

scurvy:

Just want to clarify what you mean by retro with new graphics and sounds? If you're making your own original games that play like retro games that is fine, but if you're going to try and sell something like Asteroids or Pac Man with new graphics, the powers that be will smite you lol.