Because I don't really care about longterm revenue.. I just want to get "rich" within a few years.

keep in mind majority of sales tend to occur at launch/shortly after - value of game decreases the longer you hold onto it.

It is unlikely that a company will buy the game from you for more than the value of it's expected revenue over the next, say, year. Exceptions exist for smash-hits (i.e. Zynga buying Draw Something).

And what if it's just mediocre income? Is it hard to sell it? And if it's poor income?[/quote]
Nobody with money and sense buys a game that is selling badly, period.

TL;DR version: Yes. It's VERY hard to sell games to another studio.

Why not?

Because it's safer for them to just hold on to their money until a sufficiently successful game becomes available. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but publishers and investors typically try to minimise their risk, and that means buying the game that is already making sufficient income rather than one they may or may not be able to improve.

Sure, they could take the risk of buying a game that is only marginally successful with the hopes of improving it, but what if they invest further resources (money, developer time, additional marketing, etc.) and then find the game still isn't as successful as they hoped?

Remember also that there are a lot of games out there -- there are undoubtedly already other successful products out there that they can make an offer on, so they just need to find a developer who is willing to sell for an acceptable price.

Because I don't really care about longterm revenue.. I just want to get "rich" within a few years.

Consider that there are thousands upon thousands people and teams developing games, and that you can probably only name a handful or less who get rich with a super-smash hit each year -- I'd be willing to guess that these success cases account for well under 1% of the many indie and hobbyist developers working hard to produce great games. Many of these people are far more experienced than you are but simply haven't struck upon the right idea yet, or might even have great ideas but failed to market them properly, or don't have the funding to develop them, or any one of many other problems that can prevent a game from becoming successful.

It's extremely unlikely that any given individual will succeed at producing a smash-hit game and getting rich quickly, and you'll find that those developers who did so didn't set out with the goal of "getting rich quickly". If you're in this to get rich quick you will almost certainly be disappointed. Indie development is hard, and often unrewarding -- if you have a passion for trying to make great games, or an idea burning in your soul that you just have to bring to market then you should absolutely give it a go -- but if you're just doing this to get rich, then you're almost certainly in for disappointment and are probably just chasing a dream.


Sorry if that comes across as harsh or discouraging, but it is the reality of the market, and I don't think it's fair to hide that reality if your goal is the extremely unlikely task of getting rich quickly with a successful game. After all the time spent learning and then working towards a game, and then marketing the finished product (IF you're able to get to that point), it's the simple reality that the majority of developers will end up in a worse financial position than if they had simply spent all that time working for minimum wage in a local business. They take this risk because they have a passion for games, and because they would rather be less well off but work on something they love. Getting rich is a bonus -- one that I think almost every developer would have in the back of their mind -- but is a very poor motivation for getting into a business where probably well under half of those that attempt it succeed at all (it's an applaudable feat just to make a living purely as an indie developer) let alone manage to get rich.


Again, apologies if that isn't what you want to hear -- but if you do some research you will find it to be true -- I hope that's in some way helpful!

Why not?

Because the greatest idea is only worth as much as its implementation.

Making gold from lead is a great idea, but nobody will buy the idea, nobody will buy in unrealized(=unproved) recipe, nobody will buy a bad implementation (i.e. creating 1 onze of gold by consuming incredible amounts of energy).

"I just want to get 'rich' in a few years"...might I suggest trying another business? BTW - I am being serious.

Developers and publishers rarely buy just the IP, they buy the talent making the IP. OMGPOP was bought by Zynga for 180M. OMGPOP's founders are still working for Zynga because the value of the deal vests over time and Zynga wants to extract value from the talent as well as the IP.

Secondly, "garbage in, garbage out" still applies to game development. If you produce mediocre games, no amount of marketing will help increase revenue and no one will want to buy your company (its talent or IP) to "fix it" for you. Sorry but devs who make bad games generally go out of business. Same as any other business.

There are easier ways to make money than game development. Make games because you love making them, not because you love making money.

No one told you you should be in it to make money - you might have been told you need to treat it as a business though.

Please stop completely misrepresenting what you have been told, and perhaps try - as you have so rudely suggested to others a number of times - going back and actually reading (and really understanding) what you have been told.