How I Actually Make Money from Indie Games

[00:00] this video is brought to you by squarespace us actually want to make money from the indie games we're working on right now started making money isn't a huge priority and you know what that's

[00:15] a healthy mindset to have but i also find that spending hundreds of hours being interested in or buys is questions of what we did wrong and how we could do it better next time and

[00:29] believe me i've experienced that a lot and it's not a great game so instead of trying to figure out how to sell your game i figured i would just compile a list of things that i've learned over the past 10 years of doing it now let me

[00:41] clarify i'm no full-time game designer i'm no toby fox and as always this is my experiences so if you had something different or disagree that's perfectly fine just take everything with a grain of salt

[00:53] now obviously the first thing you need to sell your game is a good game and i'm because i think there's a lot of videos that already do a great job explaining applies to other things in life as well is to find a niche genre or topic for

[01:07] example one of the first projects that my studio feareth worked on was a sidescroller mmorpg called fantasy world i actually did a whole video on it and interested and the thing about side-scrolling mmorpgs is that there

[01:20] aren't that many especially as indie titles and after releasing one video we started to get a bunch of new users to the game and four years later some of rybrad is one of our top patreon supporters love you dude and the

[01:33] fantasy world was an extremely buggy game basically what i'm saying is if you there's a chance that people will be able to find your game more easily but i know you're still wondering good how and where do we sell our games and that's a

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[02:39] domain so you finally finished your game you've months and you're really excited for people to see it and to buy it but where do they go to buy it now in my opinion i think there's three main options the

[02:53] the most effective ways to sell your game and what's great about it is steam find that you'll actually get a decent amount of wish list per week if you have a decently designed page it is a little bit of work especially because you have

[03:05] of requirements but i think that's what makes it more curated and better to sell are actually making money from their games are selling on steam but say don't want to get too caught up in the fussiness of trying to market your game

[03:19] you're worried that your game won't even make a hundred dollars then definitely the number one place i recommend is itchio it's free and it's extremely easy decide how much of a cut that they take from your profit whereas steam has that

[03:33] 30 percent cut that can be steep for some people but one thing i'll say about itch is because it's free so many people have their games on there and it's very rare for people to actually pick up and buy your game organically i'd recommend

[03:45] too worried about how much money you're making or if you have an audience that whiz bird's got a couple donations while we're developing it but most of the money that we've made on itch has been directed straight from this channel

[03:58] the third place to sell your game is on a console what's great about a console is there's less competition there's less games on the system for you to compete with it's basically like steam but normally with a much steeper cost as if

[04:10] thousands of dollars so i only really recommend this method if you have a extremely well on steam you can also sell games in the mobile market but it's enough experience for me to actually speak on that personally but everything

[04:25] i mentioned so far really doesn't matter as much as this final point and that's you have to think about that the internet is like a bunch of people yelling in a room and whoever's loudest gets to sell their product after a while

[04:37] even louder so they buy megaphones and some people invest a lot of money in buying huge amps so they can blast their toys and that's social media in a following and to sell their product but

[04:50] the problem is you're competing with big companies that have lots of money and i internet is pretty organic and you can just stumble upon things and that maybe used to be the case but it certainly isn't the case anymore fear not there

[05:03] this and make your voice heard the first is kind of a double whammy and that's kickstarter and what's great about it is people go to kickstarter looking for new support and be a part of the community

[05:16] can actually build a community through it whether it's a discord or a channel start of your brand to help you sell your games in the future now another game is to go to conventions or do

[05:30] online networking i'm just saying it's a lot easier to sell your game or talk and they get to know you an important part of selling your product is about ultimately here you're not trying to just get numbers you're trying to get

[05:43] people that are passionate and that love your game ultimately relationships are get in this life and finally in one of the most explosive ways that you can sell your game is by telling your story on social media if

[05:56] i've sold have been because of youtube and the amazing people like you guys know that this can kind of seem like a frustrating point for people because not incredibly lucky to grow my channel especially as fast as i have but the

[06:11] guys are much more talented than i am when it comes to making games and making one of you can have some sort of successful way to market your game and just post your photos on the game you're working on on twitter and you'll find

[06:26] that people will start to get excited about your game but regardless of what keep this in mind make sure to show off work that you're proud of teach a skill that you've learned make a joke that would make someone's day but most

[06:39] importantly just be kind i can't tell you how many nasty comments i've received over the past year so far and i'm sure there will be many more down the road and it's always important that you respond with maturity because you

[06:51] through and when you do find that success you'll know that you got the honest and true way and not by bullying or just teasing and mocking other people so that's it those are my tips on how to actually sell your game and this is what

[07:03] extremely hard marketing your game but that's just because it takes time it successful channel on youtube to even talk about this stuff and most of the overnight successes we like to talk about actually took years to make and if

[07:17] are you even doing it in the first place let me know your thoughts about these tips or if you've had any others that have really benefited you and before we go a huge shout out to skies heath sargent and rye bread and the rest of

[07:29] the fantastic patreon supporters who continue to make these videos possible anyway thanks so much for watching and i'll see you next time for another game i'll see you next time for another game dev adventure