Home Gaming How much indies make and a gorgeous new trailer

How much indies make and a gorgeous new trailer

2 min read
61

Mug serve delicious

I have to laugh at people who are convinced that indies will be their saviours. While indie development is changing the landscape of gaming and is filled with cool ideas, the indie side of things just doesn’t have the cash to overthrow AAA gaming for good. Still, they make a decent amount for themselves, and I love how they’re changing our expectations for games.

Over on Gamasutra, David Galindo wrote an extremely open and transparent post about how much money Cook, Serve, Delicious! earned him. It’s a fascinating read and sheds a lot of light on the power of the Steam Sales; we must never feel bad about snapping up cheap games – that’s how indies make a nice lump sum profit.

The November Steam Sale and the Winter sale didn’t feature CSD in any promotional deals, perhaps due to the close proximity of the Daily Deal, or perhaps because they felt there were other titles more suited for those spots. In any event, combined revenue of both sales ended up with over 10,000 copies sold and nearly $50,000 in gross revenue.

It reminded me of some recent statement from Mike Bithell about Thomas Was Alone’s continuing revenue on Steam. He explains that TWA sells as many copies every day in January 2015 as it did in 2014, an aspect of “evergreen” in digital distribution.

Of course it’s not just indies who continue to make money every day on Steam (or PSN or Xbox Live) – games have a much longer sale life thanks to digital distribution, getting money for games when they would have long since been emptied out of bargain bins at retail.

Red Goddess is an upcoming nonlinear side-scroller platformer about exploring the inner-mind of a young goddess who is remembering and recovering her powers. I have no idea what that even means, but the trailer is certainly pretty.

If you’re looking to pick up some cheap indies, there’s a rad Apocalypse Bundle over on Bundle Stars. Also, if you haven’t picked up the Star Wars Humble Bundle, you official have more willpower than I do.

Last Updated: February 5, 2015

61 Comments

  1. Matewis Jubilai

    February 5, 2015 at 12:41

    That SW bundle is positively mind-numbingly insane 😛 I’ve always wanted to give Republic Commando a go, and wouldn’t mind to give Empire at War another playthrough. Anyone got a watch that freezes time?

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      February 5, 2015 at 12:42

      LOL, dude, you HAVE to play RepCommando!

      Reply

      • Matewis Jubilai

        February 5, 2015 at 12:46

        XD and you HAVE to play Fallout1,2 and Homeworld!

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief

          February 5, 2015 at 12:47

          I first have to finish Bastion and Reaper and Max Payne 3 and about 50 others

          Reply

        • Tosh MA

          February 5, 2015 at 12:47

          XD

          Reply

        • Admiral Chief

          February 5, 2015 at 12:47

          Star Wars >>> Fallout

          Reply

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 12:47

            I can see some serious fallout from this comment…

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 12:49

            Don’t get me wrong, I think the Fallout universe is epic, BUT, my first love will ALWAYS be SW

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 12:50

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            February 5, 2015 at 12:52

            lol!

          • Hammersteyn

            February 5, 2015 at 12:52

            Is the blue one the Jedi?

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 12:53

            My question is why aren’t the shooting at each other? Are they using the force to bend laser bullets akin to Wanted? It’s odd. I don’t get Star Wars.

          • Hammersteyn

            February 5, 2015 at 12:54

            Maybe they’re storm troopers. Renowned for their horrible aiming

          • Matewis Jubilai

            February 5, 2015 at 12:54

            and walking into doors

          • Hammersteyn

            February 5, 2015 at 12:59

            hahahaha dat blooper

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 12:55

            *Clones best bounty hunter in galaxy*
            *Clones inherit none of his skill*

            Again, Star Wars makes no sense.

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 12:56

            Not all of the clones received the same training

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 12:57

            I read that as “None of the clones received training.”

            Makes more sense imho.

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 13:00

            The normal grunts received flash training, the badass clones (clone commanders, arc troopers, republic commando) received training from the man himself as well as directly from Mandalorians. But I can see this love is wasted on you

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            February 5, 2015 at 12:58

            It never did.

            “Hey George… how did you put such a deep, philosophical message into Star Wars?”
            “… I did? I like potatoes.”
            “So deep!”

          • Matewis Jubilai

            February 5, 2015 at 12:59

            I blame the guy that designed those helmets. I’ve always wondered whether storm troopers actually looked intimidating the first time people saw them onscreen. To me they only look comical. At least that was fixed in the prequel trilogy. The only intimating troopers from the original trilogy were those red ones

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 12:59

            Because blood splatters freak you out?

          • Matewis Jubilai

            February 5, 2015 at 13:03

            Lol no 😛 I mean, just look at them. They look like they can seriously f%$# you up:

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 13:04

            Well if you knew what kinda badasses they were, then yes, you are correct

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 13:01

            The royal guards were quite INTIMIDATING (wtf is intimating???)

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 13:01

            intimate
            ??nt?me?t/
            verb
            gerund or present participle: intimating
            state or make known.
            “Mr Hutchison has intimated his decision to retire”
            synonyms:announce, state, proclaim, set forth, make known, make public, make plain, impart, disclose, reveal, divulge; More

            imply or hint.
            “he had already intimated that he might not be able to continue”

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 13:03

            Right, so just wtf has that to do with a scary trooper?

          • Tosh MA

            February 5, 2015 at 13:03

            Maybe they have scary voices?

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            February 5, 2015 at 13:04

            It’s a Freudian slip? O_o

          • Matewis Jubilai

            February 5, 2015 at 13:05

            intimating? did I write tha? o goddammit not again – at least I got it write in the 2nd sentence 😛

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 13:17

            *right

          • Matewis Jubilai

            February 5, 2015 at 14:08

            o.o
            Oh boy, it seems like that is enough procrastination for me for today 😛
            proof read once : (check)
            proof read twice : (check)
            …aaaand post

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 13:17

            *that

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            February 5, 2015 at 13:07

            With those cheeks he looks like some kind of elf/hamster hybrid.

          • Hammersteyn

            February 5, 2015 at 13:20

            So this could be like a future LOTR movie?

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            February 5, 2015 at 13:26

            Yes, because at the end of LOTR the elves all leave, so where did they go? Where no MAN has boldly gone before. The racists.

          • Hammersteyn

            February 5, 2015 at 13:33

            XD

          • Matewis Jubilai

            February 5, 2015 at 12:51

            Actually, I would agree with that but then again Fallout (>)^100 Bastion and Fallout >> Max Payne 😛
            Bastion’s very weird though, but hey, the music’s awesome

          • Admiral Chief

            February 5, 2015 at 12:56

            Agreed, good music, and the narration is quite interesting, but I will finish it

    • Blood Emperor Trevor

      February 5, 2015 at 12:43

      I do. The battery died YEARS ago.

      Reply

      • Tosh MA

        February 5, 2015 at 12:43

        oh you

        Reply

        • Blood Emperor Trevor

          February 5, 2015 at 12:44

          COMEDY GOLD!

          Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        February 5, 2015 at 12:45

        *slow clap*

        Reply

  2. Tosh MA

    February 5, 2015 at 12:41

    Sadly this is the one article where I have to say the title is misleading :/

    I was expecting a bit more info than “10000 copies = $50000 revenue”. Yeah, that’s easy enough to determine, but how much do they actually get of that, and how much profit do they make vs cost of production etc. :/

    Reply

  3. Hammersteyn

    February 5, 2015 at 12:42

    What’s that one developers name in the header? Land Grab?

    Reply

    • Tosh MA

      February 5, 2015 at 12:42

      Yep, it is indeed. Sounds like a fun game, I want to play it. 😀

      Reply

  4. Blood Emperor Trevor

    February 5, 2015 at 12:42

    When I see devs, especially indie devs, whine about how they don’t like sales my gut feel is it’s because they see their $10 game suddenly sell 1,000 copies @ $5 and immediately think they’re lost $5k by not selling those 1,000 copies at full price. Completely ignoring the fact that if it wasn’t $5, they probably would’ve sold a crap load less.

    Reply

    • Tosh MA

      February 5, 2015 at 12:43

      Yeah I agree. Sales are a boon to indies, selling copies they’d never have sold otherwise.

      Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      February 5, 2015 at 12:44

      I sometimes get the feeling that no one buys day one anymore. 90% of the time people sit and wait for sales.

      Reply

      • Tosh MA

        February 5, 2015 at 12:46

        To me that entirely depends on how much I want it. If I think it’ll be cool to play, but not like “I want that.” then I’ll wait for a sale. But if I want it, I’ll buy it then and there.

        Reply

      • loftie

        February 5, 2015 at 12:47

        Haha that is what I do, I leave a game in my wishlist and wait for a sale.

        Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        February 5, 2015 at 12:50

        Ignoring that day one is a suckers bet, more games = more competition = lower prices, because people only have so much money to spend on entertainment & price is one of the easiest ways to stand out from your competition.

        I’ve also bought a lot of games simply because they were cheap impulse buys during sales that I otherwise would never have bothered with.

        Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          February 5, 2015 at 12:51

          The last part makes a lot of sense. If only the devs realized this.

          Reply

      • Matewis Jubilai

        February 5, 2015 at 12:52

        I sit and wait for patches 😛

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief

          February 5, 2015 at 13:03

          Bwahahaha

          Reply

    • loftie

      February 5, 2015 at 12:47

      Yes agreed, alien blood emperor kings logic is sound. If only every retail store realised this, lower price = make more profit!

      Reply

  5. Admiral Chief

    February 5, 2015 at 12:42

    Hehehe, dat Bob

    Reply

  6. Blood Emperor Trevor

    February 5, 2015 at 13:25

    Red Goddess looks pretty cool. I like side scrollers, and especially not pixel-art ones.

    Reply

    • CAE9872

      February 5, 2015 at 14:40

      Wait! When did Warframe become a side scroller? Man I have been away too long.

      Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        February 5, 2015 at 14:53

        Actually, it does have a side-scrolling mini-game called Wyrmius 😀

        THOUGHT YOU WERE BEING CLEVER, DIDN’T YOU!

        Reply

        • CAE9872

          February 5, 2015 at 15:01

          Damn!

          Reply

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