Discussion Do you make money off your games?

True Valhalla

Full-Time Developer
GMC Elder
Well what does that mean?
Nothing that applies to anyone here. Look at the PR disaster Activision is dealing with just for owning a patent; imagine the outrage if they tried to bully indie developers with obscure patent enforcement. Although, I have heard of patent trolls targeting upcoming game studios.
 
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Alex Lyons

Guest
Right now, the only game I'm working on that'll be up for sale is Senioritis. We're thinking the price will range from $3.99 to $9.99.
 

Tsa05

Member
I've made about 20 bucks.
Ofc, I work at a college, so most of the games/interactive sims and stuff that I make are in collaboration with faculty for our students to use so...in-house dev. In that sense, I make an above-nat'l avg salary? But not really as a game dev.

Outside of the college, I use GameMaker *mostly* (and some other ones that rhyme with spoonity and gnarlyTreeMaker) to make games targeted for small communities. I raise funds for artwork through donations (and I've had a few thousands in donations...maybe 6k in 2 years?), but that money comes in and goes out to others. My dev work for enjoyable experiments in playability don't set out to net me anything; only to cover the dev cost. But they do cover the cost, at least.
 

Chaser

Member
I think Namco held a patent for games being played on a loading screen(galaga). Think that run out last year, maybe wrong.:)
 
Nothing that applies to anyone here. Look at the PR disaster Activision is dealing with just for owning a patent; imagine the outrage if they tried to bully indie developers with obscure patent enforcement. Although, I have heard of patent trolls targeting upcoming game studios.
Someone hit a friend with a cease & desist over a similar named game. In one way its funny one tiny developer hitting an even smaller one man developer. Better a C&D than an actual lawsuit.

There are plenty of lawsuits with suppression orders that prevent people from even specifying they were even sued. Its to prevent backlash such as. "Giant company is suing a minor for his free game and they go after his parents for the money." Some companies hire a private investigator to find a person's full name so they can file a lawsuit appropriately. That fee just gets tacked on in the sum. Then sum is increased exponentially because lawyers and settlements.
 
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DyingSilence

Guest
Well, I've made many games, and the ugliest and most efortless of them all made me an equivalent of 220$.
The other ones of which I'm ashamed much less made me gain nothing. That's ridiculous! :duck:
 
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Falconsoft-Industries

Guest
No luck for me yet, but one day I will make some money with my games.
 
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grixm

Guest
I've made a few thousand dollars off one of my GameMaker programs.

But it's not a game, it's a tool for a niche in which pretty much no free alternatives exist.
This makes the target users more willing to pay because they have no choice, but it's also not a big enough market in total to support me enough to be my job.
 
I've made a few thousand dollars off one of my GameMaker programs.

But it's not a game, it's a tool for a niche in which pretty much no free alternatives exist.
This makes the target users more willing to pay because they have no choice, but it's also not a big enough market in total to support me enough to be my job.
What's the program, out of curiosity?
 
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mrjonwc

Guest
I released an app 2 weeks ago on the google play market with a paid and free lite/demo version. The paid app gets 1-2 buys a day while the free version gets 70-100 installs a day which gives me around a dollar of ad revenue. So in the two weeks it's been out I made approximately 40 dollars. It's not much right now but I'm trying hard to find ways to promote so hopefully in the future I can make some decent cash with this app.

UPDATE: I'm now getting nearly a thousand installs a day, 15 buys a day and around 7 dollars of ad revenue every day. It's starting to pick up I'm just hoping the installs don't start to decline.
 
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Noblezim711

Guest
Never have but it would be nice. I have spent a lot on licenses over the years.
 
There definitely seems to be a bit of luck combined with having the right 'idea' at the right time. Market seems flooded with indie games at the moment, so you really have to stand out and connect with a gaming desire.

Hope I can some day join the "made a profit" club here ;)
 

Gamebot

Member
I tried creating games for profit a few times. Never really got a chance to finish one. Instead I found myself helping others (face to face) coming up with ideas, programming small chunks for their games and overseeing the animations/graphics. Of course I haven't made tidily squat, usually just dinner or gas money. I do it because I enjoy doing it.

I can say I am currently working on a real game. It is a "Computer Science" game just to throw something different into the mix. Will it make money? I don't expect to. If it does that would be great. The biggest things I need to overcome is how to make it interesting enough others would want to play it. :p
 
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Misty

Guest
Clickteam fusion 2.5 has made games only game maker studio 1 and 2 users could dream of making, it has made chat boxes, docks, 3d games, games that use the Nuerosky mindwave headset all without code, even RPGs and platforming games and match 3 games and games like Tetris. Not to mention clickteam fusion 3.0 is on its way allowing export to all consoles including the switch and html5 and flash and Xbox and PlayStation and iOS and Mac and Linux and android.
What is a dock?

Also, the quality of a game depends mainly on the quality of it's atmosphere. Meaning, art assets are very important.

Game maker is not a bad option, because it allows you to tweak the feel of the game, using maths and code. Fixed Engines like "make a game with no code" are fixed engines, you cannot tweak the feel of the game. The other thing is lag. As long as Game Maker has no lag, you are fine. If you think it is hard to code in Game Maker, try C++ or C#, they are much harder to code, yet lots of money is being made by C++ C#. Coding is your friend not enemy. Customization is your friend not enemy.

You can patent them as patents are for inventions. You can't patent a concept as a concept doesn't exist. Copyrights are something different that dictionary defines: the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.

Here are some patents in gaming:
Sega had a lot of patents including an overhead arrow guiding you to your destination and the ability to transition a camera from trailing your car to being in your car rather than snapping from one to the other. Midway has a patent on ghost cars with time trials. I think the Dynasty Warriors game has some odd patent on fighting more than 5 enemies at once. There's a patent on having a game on a loading screen. EA has the patent on the dialog wheel. Tetris is protected.
I dont think any judge recognizes those patents because I see lots of Tetris clones and games with more than 5 enemies fighting you. I also see Mario Kart has ghost cars and time trials yet was never sued. The overhead arrow is not even an original invention, it is stolen from a compass. Those are ridiculous patents a bit like trying to patent the ingredients of a game. They are common components featured in common games. It would be a bit like someone trying to patent a lemon, instead of trying to patent their lemon cake recipe. Also, I don't think camera movement can be patented, or else photographers and movie directors would be suing other photographers and directors for filming movies at a certain angle. Wanting to make money isn't bad, but there comes a point to where greed consumes you and removes your humanity.
 
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Falconsoft-Industries

Guest
Ok here is a fine example of a dock
However let us not forget that there is a dock ( The Hawk’s Dock ) which is on a abandoned yoyogames sandbox site.
 
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jb skaggs

Guest
I make money with Gamemaker but not in the traditional sense. I have used game maker to help me in architectural and engineering projects. Last year I designed and built a virtual wood shop by creating a game in gamemaker that simulated the woodshop (including employees, equipment, material nesting, injuries, employee screws ups, material flow etc- I based it off of prison architect) I have also used GM to layout houses so customers can play in their house designs etc. And I have made custom games for my friend's and kid's. I would guess from the inestment of $125 I have made over $10,000 in direct sales resulting from gamemaker to sell a bid.

As I am becoming more and more physically disabled to a leg disease, I am looking more to usng gamemaker more and releasing small games.
 
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