I'm wanting to develop, and have already started, a game. My girlfriend is drawing the tiles and she, along with my best friend, are writing the story based off of my vague vision. After I get the game to a high standard for release, I want to host it on a website and advertise it. I'm wanting to ask for donations and maybe have a few ads on the site. My questions are:
Do any users here host games on their sites and hope for donations?
-If so, roughly how much do you make a month on your game/games?
Do you believe I should be confident in my final creation and try to sell it instead of hoping for donations?
-Does this put people off and ultimately hinder your income?
I want to make some money any way I can; my job is pretty slow right now and while I look for another job to tack on, I was hoping to make a little extra income. Even $30 a month could help on food costs.
I know there are a lot of "ifs" to think about, such as the quality of the game I release, the effectiveness of my advertisement, etc etc. But my main question is how other users' experiences have went in this situation.
Donations as a Source of Income
I'm not the creator of this, but I noticed stats for this game are posted, including how many have bought the game. It's not quite a donation system though:
http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp
http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp
Author
Wow I really like that system. Discount the software while it's in pre-release. I won't be able to do that with what I'm making now since it's very story driven, thus it needs to be at release level before sending it out but it definitely makes me think about some options. Also, wow 3,700 people bought it in the last 24 hours. I guess I'll need to think of a way to give people something worth purchasing/donating to. Thank you for the link. ^^
Minecraft is making hundreds of thousands of dollars right now based on the discounted approach (~$10K a day), but that's extremely rare. They got the right exposure at the right points and make a killing.
For an example of a pure donation-based income model, take a look at Bay 12 Games (Link). Somewhere on the forums he posts the numbers, in the announcements I think. I'd link directly to it but it's blocked by my work proxy. The developer makes between $40K-$70K a year.
For an example of a pure donation-based income model, take a look at Bay 12 Games (Link). Somewhere on the forums he posts the numbers, in the announcements I think. I'd link directly to it but it's blocked by my work proxy. The developer makes between $40K-$70K a year.
After watching the video of Minecraft I still have no clue what the game is about. A rollercoaster in Legoland?
Quote:Original post by granat
After watching the video of Minecraft I still have no clue what the game is about. A rollercoaster in Legoland?
No, it's a randomly generated world were you can carve mines, and build buildings, crafting items to help you, while at night monstors attack your buildings (currently, only a few monster types exist).
The real pleasure comes from the creative oppurtunities (it's a sandbox basically), especially when playing multiplayer. Unfortunately, multiplayer doesn't yet have day/night cycles, and thus, no monsters, but that's slated to be added in the next month - it's almost implemented already, just needs polishing of some bugs before release to the community.
The roller coaster was just an example of a newer feature added (they are actual minecarts, but, ofcourse, rollercoasters are a secondary use [smile]).
Quote:Original post by slynk
I'm wanting to develop, and have already started, a game. My girlfriend is drawing the tiles and she, along with my best friend, are writing the story based off of my vague vision. After I get the game to a high standard for release, I want to host it on a website and advertise it. I'm wanting to ask for donations and maybe have a few ads on the site. My questions are:
Do any users here host games on their sites and hope for donations?
-If so, roughly how much do you make a month on your game/games?
Do you believe I should be confident in my final creation and try to sell it instead of hoping for donations?
-Does this put people off and ultimately hinder your income?
I want to make some money any way I can; my job is pretty slow right now and while I look for another job to tack on, I was hoping to make a little extra income. Even $30 a month could help on food costs.
I know there are a lot of "ifs" to think about, such as the quality of the game I release, the effectiveness of my advertisement, etc etc. But my main question is how other users' experiences have went in this situation.
as others have said you can make quite alot from donations, the only thing that really matters is the quality of your product and your involvement with the community around it. (and exposure ofcourse, you won't make anything if noone knows your game exists)
Being involved with the community will make a huge difference both when it comes to piracy and when it comes to donations so i strongly suggest you put some effort into it, getting a prototype out early lets you involve the community in the development process aswell which can help alot in building a community around the game.
Author
Thank you all for your posts. My internet has been down for the past 3 days so I apologize for my lack of involvement in my thread. I'm working hard at making some quality tools (so far it's just a level/world creator) along with my game so that I can use the system I make in further endeavors.
I was thinking about eventually releasing the source for free. I figure it would be a good opportunity for people to see how I made certain systems as well as receive a "code audit" per say from anyone willing to look at it. Do you think this would hinder my donations? Do you think if I go this route that I should just make it open source? I'm really wanting this to be my own project, that is to say, I'm fine with people telling me I need to fix things and how to do it but I don't want them to do it for me. Any thoughts?
I was thinking about eventually releasing the source for free. I figure it would be a good opportunity for people to see how I made certain systems as well as receive a "code audit" per say from anyone willing to look at it. Do you think this would hinder my donations? Do you think if I go this route that I should just make it open source? I'm really wanting this to be my own project, that is to say, I'm fine with people telling me I need to fix things and how to do it but I don't want them to do it for me. Any thoughts?
This topic is closed to new replies.
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