Possible sales venues for small game
Author
Hey, i have just completed a top down shooter game as my first programming project, it has taken me quite a long time and is quite complete as far as top down shooters go. Before i commit this game to a freeware liscence i want to make sure that there are no possible ways that i can make money from this.
BAsically what im asking is how does a single person developer make money from smalltime games? Im not thinking big bucks but a little might be nice :D
Thanks
How about a "if you like this game send cash to the following address" message? Or would that be illegal?
As far as I know, which is not very far at all, you'll probably pull in the odd dollar that way, but nothing even mildly serious, unless your game is really good, and a number of good honest people try it out and like it [smile] You could also try the trial-ware route, where after some time you start giving out a message on your games' startup, about paying. Kind of like WinRAR or WinZIP.
Author
isnt it kinda risky to give out my adress to the masses in hopes that they will send me money?
You could get a P.O. Box and have them send the money there, or set up a PayPal account for people to pay you through.
A lot less risky than giving them your bank account number and hoping that they directly deposit money into your account [smile]
Also, consider looking at a shareware publisher. Or publish it as shareware yourself (get yourself a website and a PayPal account).
Maybe 1 person if you're lucky will post money on the mail. I did that experience with my first freeware game, a guy from england sent me 10 euros by mail, despite I didn't even ask for them. From that day I'm obsessed with selling my games as shareware.
The answer is no, you will never make any money that way, nor you will make money through online donations. You need to put up your website, set up an account with paypal or esellerate (which I recommend), and cope with all the guys that hate you because your game is not free.
I don't know figures on the PC market, it's harder, but on the mac for a good game you get 1% conversion rate, and about 3000 downloads per month if you are not famous, for a total of about 30 sales a month.
But it's hard to get 1% or more conversion rate, you need something very slick.
My first shareware had about 0.2%, my second one is getting 1.3% :)
Concluding I strongly recommend you trying the shareware adventure: as I say, programming games for fun is a cool challenge, programming games for money is an awesome challenge :)
The answer is no, you will never make any money that way, nor you will make money through online donations. You need to put up your website, set up an account with paypal or esellerate (which I recommend), and cope with all the guys that hate you because your game is not free.
I don't know figures on the PC market, it's harder, but on the mac for a good game you get 1% conversion rate, and about 3000 downloads per month if you are not famous, for a total of about 30 sales a month.
But it's hard to get 1% or more conversion rate, you need something very slick.
My first shareware had about 0.2%, my second one is getting 1.3% :)
Concluding I strongly recommend you trying the shareware adventure: as I say, programming games for fun is a cool challenge, programming games for money is an awesome challenge :)
Find 10 shareware games that look roughly like yours. Play, them, check their paying system, check their quality, google for them to see the sites they are promoted on, check their home web site, their in-game marketing. Do as they do.
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