Game Developer Reveals How Much A Popular Steam Game Makes

[@YourBlackLocal]

This game has never broken 73 concurrent players. Almost all those downloads are just people adding it to their library, and never touching it.

[@RobotronSage]

Yeah cause it's on the ''free to play'' tab and it looked interesting enough to want to check out Which is a good thing for the dev

[@evilcow2114]

@@RobotronSage Yeah, it says the average play time is 13 minutes.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no..

[@YourBlackLocal]

@@RobotronSageIn what way is it a good thing for the dev? He’s literally showing how it has barely made money. Freebie hoarders and paying customers are completely seperate audiences.

[@AbsamStudios]

Couple game devs here, we recommend not making your game F2P if you're an indie studio. It is not worth it, and it will turn you money hungry, looking to monetize any feature you add in the game. The best way is to make a paid game, and shamelessly beg Charlie to play it for that overnight success.😅 Pls play it already Charlie, we sent you keys!

[@Aquazyt]

Fr if he would’ve sold the game for only 5 bucks and only 50k people bought it he would’ve made 250k

[@biggreen1456]

I respect the honesty lmao, currently building a game right now because of how much distain I have towards the modern game market and how greedy it has gotten

[@lulumoon-gg1bl]

Wanted to get into game dev but never got around to it, seems too time consuming for me. Game looks nice btw, will wishlist it. Good luck

[@JaronPalone]

@@AquazytI don’t think 50,000 people would have downloaded it. For every 100 people maybe only 1 would have purchased it. So about 7500 still a lot better though

[@Vaedrath]

@@JaronPalone at least that would be closer to min wage than 1200 bucks

[@kevenweaver9266]

Charlie will make more from this video than that entire game will.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . .. ...

[@plznerf6025]

Bots wtf

[@homeycdawg]

TBF, releasing a one man developed f2p game with microtransactions is going to have very different results compared to a one man developed single player game sold for 10 or 20 bucks. F2P games are very dependent on whales to be profitable, and whales gravitate towards bigger games.

[@pairot01]

Not to mention the unethical behaviour you need to engage in to pray on the whale's FOMO. Even if you are successful, you are tarnishing your reputation doing so.

[@Alexdbre]

let it be 5$, don't make it expensive, make it "huh 5$, you can't do nothing wrong here", now imagine 30% of that max download count bought it, already 700.000$ (after SteamTakings). Get it on a Steamsale for 1.79$ after a year and you probably make another 200.000$. There you go, your 5k Hour Game almost made a million.

[@jordanrkxp4619]

@@pairot01 adding transactions and dlc thats completely optional and not forced is unethical in a f2p game? how? you obviously have no idea what you're talking about and should probably stop commenting random d0gsh1t

[@kevinq3186]

It feels like its hard to measure success on downloads alone when your game is free to play and paid cosmetics are 100% optional. Game dev is still very difficult and very risky but equating success on download numbers alone doesn't seem like an accurate way to measure success to me. Maybe I'm wrong?

[@CptShibe]

my exact thoughts upon watching this lol

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . ..... .

[@k3stea451]

i agree with you and i think you're right. i'm just looking at steamstats right now and all time peak was 75 players for the game, i don't know about you but i wouldn't call that popular. no wonder it made only about 4k gross over 4 years.

[@Mr.KittensAndGibberish]

Only if the game is free to play and multiplayer. Single player games that don't require servers are probably much more profitable using the downloads metric.

[@ironmanlxix]

Defeat Project 2025, vote blue this November!

[@nicohunterz5279]

A game that costs less: makes more money, a game that costs more = less money that seems about right

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁠‭⁠⁠⁠‮‭‮‮ REGGINԙ. GNINRAW TSRIF ‏‮⁠‮‭‮ YAW SI TNETNOC YM . ...... .BETTER!😂😂

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁠‏‭‮ tnetnoc ym esuaceb regginԙ... a uoy era is better🤣 .. .

[@catfacecat.]

bots on their way to repeat n word with a mr breast pfp in every reply section: aw cmon, nobody noticed mr breast?

[@curtis1397]

I learned a while ago that indies should not try to mimic big studios. No free to play, no microtransactions, avoid long-term costs like servers. Successful indies just make a good old school game that people can enjoy.

[@Whatismusic123]

Yeah why did he even consider making that game.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no.... . ..

[@DaLawnMower]

Kids will literally do whatever to get attention.. But it's hilarious how mf piss poor their Grammar, and English is. The accounts they make, and the shit they spam is so mf pathetic.. At least we all can collectively agree, that they'll never amount to anything in their sad pathetic lives.

[@K3rhos]

As an indie myself, I made a lot of projects (for learning purpose only, never released one for now) over the years, I'm currently making one and I'm planning to release it at a relatively low price (max 5$), no microtransactions, focused on gameplay and physics, it's 100% multiplayer but no dedicated servers required since it's a Host Clients networking. (The guy hosting the game is the server and the client at the same time, and others clients can connect to him) So yeah, tbh his project was doomed from the start, not only bcs of microtransactions & free to play, but bcs FPS/TPS scene is already flooded ! You can't just make a generic low poly shooter and expect to be popular with that.

[@azohinuchiha2786]

Everyone has different dreams and goals, dont expect everyone to create side scroller story game. Being an indie doesn't mean you can't make online games with microtransaction. Yes the guy was unlucky but his monetization plan was poor and he probably sucked at marketing.

[@AbingCarrrian]

Having both a free version of my game on mobile and paid version on Steam I can confirm that the paid version on Steam made significantly more in two weeks than the free mobile version did in the past two years. Even though mobile games make up +/- 60% of the global gaming market revenue, it's really the top 1% doing all the heavy lifting there, with extremely large playerbases being required to come remotely close to being profitable (to the point where scummy monetization tactics don't seem that scummy anymore (in few cases))

[@anniedong8751]

Which game is it

[@DaMilkManMan]

@@anniedong8751RAID SHADOW LEGENDS! DOWNLOAD NOW

[@JimboHiggin]

Game name?

[@Ali-cya]

When a game is free on Steam, many people add it to the library, but don't actually touch it. It's just for collection purposes. In truth the game itself only had a few hundred players at most on a free game and the ones who paid anything are also only a few hundred. You can see it better at 1:01. So the 750 thousand downloads are a deceiving number a more accurate number would be a few hundred downloads if we count downloads as potential revenue and true downloads with actual players.

[@zacziggarot]

This is exactly it. I knew that it wouldn't be an actually decent representation as soon as he said it's a free-to-play game 😂 he'd have almost a million dollars if he charged like 99 cents, but then his download rate would plummet cuz he's actually charging

[@DragoNate]

adding to library and downloading are not the same thing.

[@MyNamesHunter75]

@@DragoNate Most people will add to library and download a small F2P game. added to library just reflects as ownership on steam. But downloads also don't reflect how many people have it downloaded now just how many have and may have reinstalled or deleted it shortly after. It's still a bad metric to judge the game by when the concurrent players are low it's a bad reflection and F2P in general is a bad way to put out a game if you are small or solo dev and want to turn a profit. If it's a practice game then it's what it is and helps get some pocket money in the mean time but still is not a real reflection of a popular game as the game isn't popular and never was

[@DragoNate]

@@MyNamesHunter75 yes, that's my point. OP basically equated the 750K "downloads" to just being added to library. it's not the same. if this were a paid game, even $1, then 750K downloads would be great as that means $1 per download. unless it also accounts for uninstalls/refunds/etc, then yes, it's definitely a terrible metric to judge a game by for anything besides the potential "reach" it got.

[@SplarcieRS]

at 1:01 you can see lifetime unique players is ~560k people..... his oldest month with 0 players is like july of 2021 brother. If the game is so not worth it that they don't touch it, I wonder where these "player counts" are coming from, let alone the "lifetime unique players". It's more likely a bunch of people who are looking for a quick game with a friend. They find this in the store, download for free -> PLAY it for an hour, then uninstall without removing from library (because its free). If they enjoy they buy DLC, 1800 DLC units sold. If the game was legit 1$ or 0.90$ he could have made a fortune of money. Push harder for the game to be seen by real active players (like the ones that had bought the dlc) and the game would do better. he could've gotten ~300k people to play for 75 cents and could've made a ton of money. I stand by it too since bro has 500k unique players and 750k people adding to library lol. remember just because we have brains doesn't mean timmy with moms credit card has one too. and even then, sometimes we want to shut our brains off and play a game like this for idk, some fun? lol.

[@sp4823]

Gamedev here (not for that game). Gamedev is for sure a risky business, and you rarely earn more than minimum wage, considering the time investment. But, this game isn't a good example. This game is free to play, has a median playtime of 13 minutes, only 6,916 wishlists, and only ~1,400 reviews. The large number of downloads are mostly bots, and/or people just downloading it because it is free. I don't think this game failed because gamedev is a tough industry, it also failed because it just wasn't that appealing to a lot of people. The average consumer doesn't care about how much time you invested into something, they only care about the final product. Hard work doesn't always pay off it the results aren't very good. He made a game that the market simply didn't want or need, that's why it failed.

[@DeputyFish]

its not downloads. its added to account. aka they used steamDB free packages. i have like 3000 games on my account i have never downloaded only added them to the account. through steamDB.

[@research417]

He's also made a large multiplayer arena game, which isn't exactly the smartest to do without an existing audience. Building up a player base is very difficult, and it's probably full of empty lobbies.

[@damonmlinaric9254]

I'm trying to get some skills so I can do my own projects eventually.Did you focus a lot on one particular thing like learning how to program or did you learn a engine or do a bit of everything?I had no delusions this wouldn't be really hard to get into but I feel like there's probably a better way to learn than I am doing

[@research417]

@@damonmlinaric9254 You should learn how to program first, or use an engine that allows you to write most of the code for the game yourself. You'll learn much more. Start off by trying to recreate simple games like Tic Tac Toe, Chess, Tetris. Add your own creative twists, and go from there.

[@Azaqa]

100% true. The microtransaction formula also doesn't work for a game like this. He probably would've made a lot more if it was a $1.99 game or something like that. At the end of the day microtransactions are only successful in games with replayability and a multiplayer system with some level of longevity (clash of clans, csgo, cod, sport games etc). This game simply doesnt have any replayability and also very low interest in general aswell.

[@Cappuccinoitself]

The all time peak for this game is 75 players. On average there are about 10-20 players playing it at the same time. It's also free to play. So yeah these numbers aren't as surprising as charlie is making it sound. The original video is more likely a publicity move for the game.

[@Cappuccinoitself]

The key here is that game devs should make a game that can stand out. If you're a solo developer making a multiplayer fps is probably not the best option. There are tons of games out there that are free and have bilion dollar corporations behind them and you cannot compete with that.

[@dovydasgylys709]

Make a game

[@sawsee-u3q]

Make a game.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

Yeah, that kind of eats away that dev's entire point.

[@AmongSussy1]

Braindead take

[@AIAdev]

At 7:57 Charlie asks if it would have been better to keep the game "pay to play" and take fewer sales The issue is that a multiplayer game like this can't support a small player base... Even if you have 100 people online, you can't just match someone in Australia against someone in North America. It needed to be free to make it playable.

[@Jan66600]

Hey AIA

[@DlDDLER]

Judging off other comments it only peaked at 75 players anyways

[@AIAdev]

@@Jan66600 heya Jan :D

[@ahmede92]

Bro got his bro's back

[@Deadsphere]

Reminder that Stardew Valley's dev didn't even have a proper desk until like a few years ago.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@babycarrotz32]

As someone with an unhealthy amount of hours in the game, I did not know this.

[@ferretyluv]

But he did LITERALLY EVERYTHING so he doesn’t have to pay anyone.

[@joaopacheco2240]

yeah, but thats kinda of his personality, concerned ape (stardew vallew dev) is literally a multi millionaire.

[@TopHATTwaffle]

I have a free game on Steam. "Lifetime total units" is not download count. It's just how many have added the game to their library. For free games a more meaningful stat is "Lifetime users measured" which is how many people have loaded the game. For comparison sake, at the time of writing, my free game's total license count is 28,850 where the measured players is 1,750.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no...

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no.. .

[@DaLawnMower]

Kids will literally do whatever to get attention.. But it's hilarious how mf piss poor their Grammar, and English is. The accounts they make, and the shit they spam is so mf pathetic.. At least we all can collectively agree, that they'll never amount to anything in their sad pathetic lives.

[@anon2234]

what game? my pc is dead but ill play it once it's fixed.

[@TopHATTwaffle]

@@anon2234 it's called "Playback Loop". A little puzzle game inspired by portal.

[@LunTheOptimist]

Making a free indie game is only slightly less lucrative than selling pocket lint on the street.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@natothecringyfurrfox6380]

What the actual fuck are these bot replies

[@EthelJung-j5w]

I completely forgot about paying for your own servers. Being multiplayer is a massive disadvantage I'd think financially.

[@buster5661]

It's a hundred dollars a year

[@shinisaber]

@@buster5661 no it isn't never made a game but have paid to host servers was paying £45 for a 12 person server with 16gb of ram most indie studios lack the technical knowledge and recourses to build their own

[@buster5661]

@@shinisaber he literally said it's $99 a year in his video. Bro is talking out his butt

[@redmafiapanda]

@@buster5661 not every host is $99 it depends on player size and gb and bit rate etc if your like COD its probably more expensive meanwhile a 4 player game might cost less

[@ceshmate1953]

All time player peak is 75 people. That dev is just crying a river.

[@junechevalier]

If you’re an indie dev, make single player games. Finish one and move on and make another, better game. No F2P, no server

[@soyunbonus]

This is the way

[@kyrinkompi4955]

I agree. Making online games is too much

[@anon_125]

Definitely. You should only make F2P / Multiplayer games once you're financially stable and can afford to pay for servers, anti-cheat, live service, etc... Otherwise, you'll most likely fail

[@lordfrz9339]

100%, charging $5 for that game with no micros and just let people earn cosmetics and it would make way more profit.

[@Peekobo0_]

If you're an indie dev do whatever the fuck you want

[@Swiftest202]

Seven cents 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🎷🦤

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ...

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ...

[@OliverSMIC]

My favorite rapper

[@BrianMartinez0401]

@@Ksksissh-n8k tf is wrong with you.

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti 😢😢

[@Kpazz]

2:16 you know what else is shockingly low Charlie? an all-time peak of 73 players, 6 reviews for the game... in 4 years. Making a little over 500 bucks a year for an absolute FLOP of a game that almost no one has played ? doesn't seem that bad when you actually look at the stats.

[@zachattack245]

Honestly this feels like a really bad example of how much a "popular" steam game makes, since I would hardly call this game popular. It has never broken 100 concurrent players despite the 700k downloads. And it's a FTP game, which makes the 700k downloads moot. The only thing that matters is, is it a game people want to play? And this is definitely not that.

[@DonPachi]

As a game developer I can expand this a little more. I have made 2 commercial games on steam. The 1st was a 3D roguelike that took me 1 year and the 1st month I got 2000 dollars. My 2nd game was basically a puzzle game focusing on putting together 2D models (gunplas) that took me only 4 months and gave me 82,000 dollars in the 1st month alone. I come from a Latin American country where the minimum wage is only approximately 400 dollars. Also I made all 100% alone. What I want to say is that there is no correlation between the complexity of the game with the money it can make, its just offer and demand.

[@realKarlFranz]

what are the names of the games you made?

[@ironmanlxix]

Defeat Project 2025, vote blue this November!

[@SlimeDoesArt]

ARE YOU THE DEV FOR MECH BUILDER??? VERY COOL GAME!

[@erc3338]

Wait, you made a plamo puzzle game???

[@itizwhatitiz9560]

This seems like it. Online FPS games are one of the harder genres. Tackling the casual audience seems like a much better idea to 'make money'. Simulator games, cosmetic collector games, card games, puzzle games, idle games

[@angrypotato2526]

Paid games make a whole lot more money, even if they are $5

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . .. ...

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . .. ....

[@Laiminoi]

Game was paid to play for 5$ for first year and he only made 600$ from that year

[@TheCoolDude4]

Age are just numbers!

[@Vody_Sly5]

yeah, im not familiar with the free to play model but for regular games you can make a lot of money if done correct. the choo choo charles dev made the game in 4 months and priced it at $20 and it sold really really well. indie is hard but indie free to play while also making money is brutal. if he priced the game like among us, just really cheap, he wouldve made way way more. if he had priced his game at $1.50 his gross revenue would've been above 1 mill, which obviously isnt totally accurate, cause refunds and people who only downloaded cause it was free but again, still significantly better if he just got a fraction of the downloads

[@colinchichester1809]

3:08 not a mental image I want

[@bobguy6542]

8:49 I think if he had made the game $0.99, at least 5,000 people would've bought it. And at that price point, leaving in the microtransactions still seems ethical.

[@noahhkun5097]

750k (ignoring the steam bloat) for a free indie arcade game is MUCH different from 750k on a 5$ indie story game or something. i personally didnt expect this thing to have made even as much as it had. Also if he was an experienced dev at the time of starting, this wouldve gone down from 3000 hours to maybe 200 hours. He was new but he got the skillset from it to get a better job or do this again

[@BlazeMaestro]

Yeah. People also don't realize that downloads doesn't mean that much (for money) if not a lot of people are playing it. Someone said that this game hadn't even broken 73 concurrent players, and that was at its peak. And that's for a game that's free too. 750K downloads is very impressive, and the dev should be proud. But it's not weird that he didn't earn a lot from it. PS. Big companies are still scummy for using so many micro transactions since they earn a ton from those games anyway since the playerbase for those games are huge. Indie games can use micro transactions though.

[@mcmadness110]

@@BlazeMaestroit’s not even that many downloads, only added to library. There is a different metric for how many have even opened the game.

[@DeputyFish]

@@BlazeMaestro yep its just steamDB auto adding stuff to your account its not downloads game dev and charlie either dont know how to read stats. or its a publicity move

[@SplarcieRS]

@@BlazeMaestro game has been on steam for like 4 years brother. We'll say consistent players for 3 years and an avg of 8 (counting for days with 2 and days of peak) 8k players.... so where is the 750k added to library? what about the 560k unique players? concurrent players is a bad way to judge because its only counting whats always happening at the current moment. Its not sharing player analytics or anything, its simply counting the amount of players at one time. You could have 50 people play in 2 hours and a concurrent view for every hour could show 25 on each hour if the players in the first hour got off and the players in the second hour got on, if that makes sense. bro had 39 players at 1 pm yesterday, do you really think those are the same people playing at 1 am yesterday? LOL do you think these people are continually playing for almost every hour of the day??? bro hasnt had a consistent low month since 2021 (meaning avg 0 player a month)......

[@TurboLight]

To be fair, this it's why when you start to develop indie games on your own, it's recommended to make smaller games and learn from them rather than directly making a bigger game and then learning from the mistakes.

[@Spekter1]

he could have sold the whole game for 1dollar to a 10th of the audience and made 70k more than he did.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . ..... .

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . ..... .

[@TheCoolDude4]

Age are just numbers!

[@RobotronSage]

Right? Something went really really wrong here?

[@ironmanlxix]

Defeat Project 2025, vote blue this November!

[@NaudVanDalen]

3:03 42 cents per hour is less than Chinese sweatshop workers earn.

[@Rsslone]

This is more about how a free game with micro transactions doesn't always make bank, but you can run the math on something like a 5 dollar game, if its a fun popular game, it will make bank. Simple.

[@rallvegd]

Yeah but the problem is that if it was pay to play almost nobody would buy it and then it would immediately die since it's a multiplayer pvp game without a playerbase. Making the game free to play is the easiest way of getting people to play the game.

[@lennysmileyface]

@@rallvegd Yeah multiplayer is a bad idea but for a singleplayer game you should release a polished demo.

[@Rsslone]

@@rallvegd Yes, and no. Yes to the extent its a competitive space so you need to be really good to break out. No, to the extent games such as HLL, R6, Squad, PS, or Battle Bit all are paid shooters that made bank. Issue is its harder to go super indie and break out it seems, but then you have to have foresight to just pick a different genre.

[@lordfrz9339]

@@rallvegd Thats where you go with a limited free play model. Or have free play weekends.

[@fondbeebboop9705]

@@rallvegd if you dont know this on pc paying for indie games is very very common to the point where it is the norm 2-5 for a indie game is something i would rather pay for a good game over some ad infested hell

[@sparkdreamers5055]

Only a few minutes in and this is what I think of it so far. • Passion project • free to play • (maybe inexpensive) micro transactions. • didn't intend game to become a steady source of income for himself. The fact that one guy created a game by himself, spending thousands of hours, developing it, testing it, and eventually releasing it and made over 2,000 dollars from it is really cool. It sounds like he has the skill sets and knowledge to make a bigger project. Hopefully with more people and maybe make a little more money. Just as long as it's not a cash grab or his last straw to make ends meet.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . ..... .

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . ..... .

[@ironmanlxix]

Defeat Project 2025, vote blue this November!

[@jaymerka5875]

I immediately searched it up, this game apparently on steam has a height of 75 players max. No one in their right mind would've assumed this game would've made bank just by the downloads alone. I don't even think people look at downloads, they look at concurrent players

[@TheEternalSweetooth]

@@jaymerka5875 Also who tf is buying microtransactions on a paintball shooter

[@InfamousTub]

I'm confused. What's the problem here? Just because someone spends a lot of time on something doesn't necessitate compensation for it. How is this Steams problem? The guy spent his time developing a game no one cares about. That's just a bad business decision.

[@100StepProgram]

Yea lol, it’s basically just concord in that no one plays it. But in this case it’s somehow sad because it’s one person who failed as opposed to a whole team of devs?

[@argo8028]

@@100StepProgramwell the concord devs don’t need the game to perform well to feed their families. They’re taking home the same amount of money either way. Indie devs don’t have that guarantee. I think that makes indie failures sadder.

[@Densiozo]

Yep and he made it free to play

[@Modschala]

Yeah I don't get it either. The game doesn't seem to attract players, so of course there's no money to be made. And I'm not trying to be mean, but 3000 hours is a lot of time for something that looks like an engine demo from 2010.

[@lolmanyeah1]

​@@argo8028they could always get a real job

[@adakrin]

As a game developer myself his results are not an issue with the industry but rather his game. His game lacks any uniqueness and it is quite low quality.

[@Manan_K]

Yeah, I watched this video a few days ago, this video is trending among new game developers like me. The key takeaway is don't make an F2P game if you're an Indie dev. He definitely would've made a lot of money if his game wasn't F2P. While Steam takes 30%, Steam makes your game discoverable to more people than any other platform atm.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . .. ...

[@sc0pe103]

discoverability on Steam is funny

[@figgyfox8465]

The key takeaway should be don't make micro transaction filled free to play 💩 at all.. it's killing the gaming industry

[@sc0pe103]

@@figgyfox8465 you are the type of gamer we need

[@WarctaftWork]

Maybe the only reason that people bothered with it in the first place was being F2P?

[@nilaier1430]

Bro spent 4 years on this game and still had 75 players peak. Where's all the 700k downloads?!

[@TermoPlays]

It's probably just the same people redownloading the game after their friends had nothing to do

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no..

[@tango_cathal2029]

by the looks of it its the kinda game people downloaded, played for an hour and never touched again

[@nilaier1430]

@@tango_cathal2029 True, but even the slop like Dustborn had 83 players peak. Mostly due to the Twitch streamers, but this game has like 5k - 10k downloads or something, so this can't possibly be that the free to play title with 70 times more downloads has slightly less peak players than a sloppy $30 title

[@Uhoriah]

that quote about the bible is amazing

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁠‏‭‮ tnetnoc ym esuaceb regginԙ... a uoy era is better🤣 .. .

[@doctorstrange7768]

Freemium games are bad mkay I rather just pay for the game

[@Exvinity402]

@@DONTREADMYBIO1901🤖🤖🤖🤖

[@Antagonist115]

@@doctorstrange7768except this one isn’t a freemium game, the pay is purely cosmetic…. So it’s just a free game, as long as you aren’t a 8 year old with no self control and a parents credit card, it’s just a free game

[@AlisonCRosario]

you know what else is shockingly low Charlie? an all-time peak of 73 players, 6 reviews for the game... in 4 years. Making a little over 500 bucks a year for an absolute FLOP of a game that almost no one has played ? doesn't seem that bad when you actually look at the stats

[@youtube-kit9450]

Yeah, I read in other comments that the average playtime is 13 minutes. Which is absolutely abysmal if true for a multiplayer game. Honestly, I don't even know why you'd make a multiplayer game as an indie dev considering how oversaturated with the titans that space is (even F2P with Mtx) vs. how there's an absolutely bustling indie scene for singleplayer games.

[@andy2641]

It has 1500 reviews and having around 50 people always on your multiplayer servers is good for an indie dev

[@messerschmittreaver100]

Bot stealing comments?? Reported

[@lurtzy_]

i dont see how any of this is shocking. the game has never had more than 73 players playing at one time. and its free, and it doesnt force you to buy anything.

[@HawkTeevs]

Solo indie dev here. When it comes to online free to play games like this, you always have to take concurrent players into account. It is VERY HARD as a solo developer to make a game that is engaging enough to keep people coming back in the thousands. So many games just get added to people’s Steam library and they never end up touching it. Because of this, a solo developer can make a passion project like this, but still end up making actual pennies a *month* because they don’t end up keeping players engaged long enough to play it for longer than a day or two. This is why developers often look for publishers and backers for their projects.

[@raynegro666]

How is this surprising? It's a small one-person project with 0 marketing

[@furniturechair2658]

I learnt game development in college, i saw how bad it is, especially the amount of people have mental break downs in the field, i chose to walk away and go on a different road

[@memedealermikey]

definitely better to get a degree in something that can translate to game dev but not necessarily focused on game dev. Just so you have that flexibility!

[@_moofield_569]

8:24 it’s so true. Big companies like Roblox or Fortnite have really made a fortune off of dlc or cosmetics. Just because their player count is higher, smaller free to play games don’t really make a whole lot off of cosmetics unless it’s tied to a brand

[@NameUnknownz]

isn't roblox burning money rn though

[@nullx2368]

I'm a game developer for 9 years, I still haven't commited to my OWN game.. instead i work for others. The financial risk for every project is harsh.... most games do between 0$-15k lifetime... Games i worked on average around 200k but these games still don't break even (paying all the devs/artists etc). Only top games survive and even those have a hard time scaling.

[@mrECisME]

Most games never make £2000 I doubt most have ever made £1000

[@DeputyFish]

@@mrECisME thats factually incorrect. making unpopular games doesnt make money. the guy in the video didnt have 700k downloads. he had 700k added to accounts. these are very very different. one can be automated by things like steamDB free packages

[@nullx2368]

@@DeputyFish eh guy didn't make money cuz his monetization sucks... There are definitely lot of games that make just 2k. But most games are closer to that 15k. More advanced teams can typically secure at least 200k but still pretty hard

[@hedition9346]

One thing about game design and dev: Everyone thinks they have a great idea for a great game. Then they tried to make it, and slowly strip down their ideas to the barebones due to time, money, technical and skill limitations.

[@johnm6495]

The game's free to play, but if he made the buy price 1 measly $, and only got 1/10th the downloads - buddy, that's still $75k (before taxes and Steam taking a their BS 30%). This isn't a failure in game development. It just fails as a consumer product. You're making the indie industry sound like a bleak nightmare, man.

[@Vaddy]

The fact people are shocked that a free game didn’t make enough money is shocking to me. I had a game priced at 5 dollars that made me 1000 dollars in a week. What is even the point of this video

[@bread_0113]

Whats it called?

[@nicolasmiranda1598]

Name?

[@VAC_BAN-w4d]

What game you made?

[@Gerz970]

Consider yourself successful as an indie dev then. 1000 in a week probably puts you in the 95th percentile of indie devs.

[@realKarlFranz]

Yeah. "So, you are telling me that your niche free to play indie game that relies almost entirely on microtransactions that barely anyone is motivated to buy, makes only a handful of dollars? No way!!!"

[@vibecheck265]

To be fair, when making a free to play game with micro-transactions, downloads don't equate to people spending money. Especially now that the market is pretty oversaturated with the same model, people are becoming less willing to pay for in-game cosmetics.

[@MLchewie]

People commenting without watching 10 seconds is crazy

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... ..

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁠‏‭‮ tnetnoc ym esuaceb regginԙ... a uoy era is better🤣 .. .

[@sorceryvr-un6ns]

@@Ksksissh-n8kthat’s not okay that’s not funny she just lost her dog you have to be as mentally insane as the joker to laugh at that

[@Imonlyhumanafterall1]

tf are these bots

[@kevinarzola4781]

It’s a free to play game. 750k downloads in 4 years isn’t that great. How much active players does he have? I doubt the game is as successful as it’s being described here.

[@James26285]

The crazy thing is if it was 1$ and he sold 10% it would have been 7500$. He's gone the worst way he could have

[@K3rhos]

3 things: - Free to play is a no go if you're indie and unpopular. Simply bcs ppls will never really spend money on microtransaction for a f2p indie game, unless it become really popular, but if it's not, ppls don't care about having a skin in a game with a player base of 75 ppls average ! - Tbh his game is very generic, there is already tons of low poly shooter around on Steam, so it's clearly not helping his case. You're better go with a niche community, like parkour game or something like that (this is just an example), the type of game you see less often (FPS/TPS scene is flooded) - It was probably a project made for fun or learning game dev.

[@Perifyz]

Man just develop Roblox tower defense games, they make hella bank for no reason 😂😂

[@私のファンは]

Fr😂

[@BobbyZamora69]

Roblox is the way

[@165Atlas]

I was sorta shocked to hear that often developers will overprice their game by 20% and then have it at a 20% discount so that Steam sends emails out to those who have wishlisted it

[@HH-le1vi]

That's a common tactic outside of steam or gameS

[@mrECisME]

The price is the price.

[@floorpizza8074]

Imagine your shock when you learn that that's how it is with every single retail item you ever buy, from underwear to appliances.

[@DeputyFish]

thats illegal to do. no joke look it up. you cant have something on permanent clearance like that

[@Chaosweaver667]

You also described Amazon's business model.

[@danielmarquez4935]

If he had stood outside a McDonald’s restaurant not even working there he would have made more money than that in 1 week than he did making this game

[@Zeno617]

am I missing something here? its a free to play game regardless of downloads, it isn't steams fault that people aren't buying microtransactions

[@TermoPlays]

It's worse because it wasn't even a good game. It flopped with a peak player count of 73.

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no.... . ..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no.. .

[@DaLawnMower]

Kids will literally do whatever to get attention.. But it's hilarious how mf piss poor their Grammar, and English is. The accounts they make, and the shit they spam is so mf pathetic.. At least we all can collectively agree, that they'll never amount to anything in their sad pathetic lives.

[@rallvegd]

The point is that making a profitable game as an indie developer is really really difficult.

[@timothychinye6008]

As a developer, this is reasonable. Programming takes a fuck ton of time, too much time even. However, the amount of time his players actually spent playing the game is low af. Firstly, it'd a free to play game, most of the downloads are just that... downloads. He probably has a fraction of them actually playing the game. And finally, if his game is super generic, I'm not surprised that they will only play once, twice, or a few times. And they certainly won't feel like it'd be worth their money to make an IAP. Programming websites and games, is just like KZbin. The process to create the content takes a fuck ton of time, but what matters financially isn't the time you put into that product, but the time that the users of that product will use it... And if they actually like using it. Comparing game development to a chef or sandwich artist, is stupid as they're two completely different types of jobs in terms of payouts. If anyone thinks Steam should give them more money or something is just straight up wrong.

[@xtra_1807]

You explained it perfectly

[@Kevbotomy]

Honestly I wouldn't be mad if we slowed down on the f2p/microtransaction/dlc model. These AAA devs seem to think they're entitled to whales and design their games around sucking as much money as possible out of well-off parents with obsessive/hyperfixated/autistic children.

[@DawnOfTheOzz]

I don't envy anyone who's into game development, especially if you're a solo dev. Sometimes the fruits of your labour are met with applause, other times it's a thankless job.

[@PoppaPickett]

So he made a cookie cutter FTP shooter with microtransactions in an overflooded genre... ... not sure what he expected

[@kristoferbjella9299]

That Bible reference of nobody reading it but pretending to be experts on it was spot on lol

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip ‬‭‮ namow a fo crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no. . ..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip ‬‭‮ namow a fo crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no. . ..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no...

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of a woman ‬‭‮nwod tup gnieb god reh tuoba gniyrc ‬‭‮!emoh ym no...

[@DaLawnMower]

Kids will literally do whatever to get attention.. But it's hilarious how mf piss poor their Grammar, and English is. The accounts they make, and the shit they spam is so mf pathetic.. At least we all can collectively agree, that they'll never amount to anything in their sad pathetic lives.

[@NunYurbis]

The earnings for that game actually makes perfect sense when you consider all the variables. 1. It's a free to play game, MANY people will add it to their account with no intention of ever playing it, just because it's free. Hence the high "download" numbers. 2. It has an average playtime of just over 10 minutes, so the few people that actually play it are done with it VERY quickly, so the game has awful player retention. 3. The percentage of players that spend money in free to play titles are actually quite small, and microtransactions are most of the time made up of a very small amount of whales. Honestly, he'd probably have made a bit more money if he has sold the game for even a dollar with no microtransactions. But the truth of the matter is that the game was honestly a flop by all available metrics. The only claim it had for popularity was the high amount of downloads, but when you take highest concurrent number of players into account, no more than a few handsfulls of players ever played this at the same time. The low earnings make perfect sense.

[@IdkBrock]

That minimum wage I wish as Canadian 3:42

[@JohnSmith-bq6nf]

Doesn’t everything cost more in Australia?

[@iluvMCRsupercool]

damn i wonder if even charging just .50 would’ve made a big difference in his life

[@jessemach5817]

Budget is pretty tough for game developers

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ...

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ...

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁦⁠‮‮⁠a tsuj si ega ,ailihpodeP҇!.. esilamroN ‮rebmun ‮esuaceb tsuJ⁦⁠⁠‭!! ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁠‏‭‮ tnetnoc ym esuaceb regginԙ... a uoy era is better🤣 .. .

[@TheDarkchum1]

Bro should have just charged $1 for his game… At least now he still gets all of the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE he gained from making that game. That stuff is invaluable.

[@zeroanims4113]

@@JeffThatITGuy-oe3cq lol what

[@Misterjuzz]

@@JeffThatITGuy-oe3cq I'm not into game dev, but committing to such a project for 4 years and having some success is already enough leverage when interviewing for a job. The fact he did everything (every process), he has at the very least a baseline level of experience to start and complete each process - every iteration he'll only get better and learn more. He doesn't need to leverage what's new to make games. Some devs still use deprecated software to make games (e.g. Godot 3.5 instead of moving on to 4.3)

[@Misterjuzz]

@@JeffThatITGuy-oe3cq Why would they download your game? I wouldn't expect them to as a recruiter (high chance they aren't a gamer anyway). They're after those who understand the business, and those who have experience in all areas of the business (this dev), is already a step ahead of fresh graduates and thus marketable. Passion projects are an opportunity to explain you are not just interested in 1 thing and are inquisitive, creative and if done properly, an excellent problem solver (which is gold in tech since employers tend to prefer maintaining legacy systems). What you learn at university is not enough to find work.

[@ghoulbuster1]

@@JeffThatITGuy-oe3cq Yes go ahead and waste money on a title to be a wage slave at ubinsoft LOL

[@andy2641]

When he charged for the game (it was really cheap below 5$), he didn't have enough players to make multiplayer fun. To make a multiplayer focused game you need it to be free to play or to have a LOT of hype

[@GEK0dev]

I mean, It’s because he made a F2P game as a indie, As a game dev, I will tell you, This was a bad idea, You as an indie dev usually want to sell your game for around $5-$20 Not free it won’t work as well as you think. If your game has $750,000 sales and your charging $15 You’re making bank that way.

[@DRJuicyBear]

I want to challenge that opinion of yours, if it's your first game you should be building your audience, you should be trying to get loads of people playing it, if people weren't really buying it before, then he needed to reevaluate, and if making it F2P so he gets a bigger audience then yeah that's quite fine to do, going off install metrics is what's bad, what he needs to do is go by metrics of played time, then see if people put in a few hours. Flat out saying F2P is a bad idea is very ignorant, you should be selling cheap and building an audience, then, that audience is there for the next game to make sales, or, monetize the game a little better. I would've made the game 0.99c, and done free in game items rather than DLC, but none of us know what the reasoning of things were, all of this is assumptions.

[@GEK0dev]

@@DRJuicyBear I mean yes, But no, If your making a free game you need to assure your making money somehow unless your not taking it seriously. If you are, Make a paid game and advertise, F2P is very unreliable when you don’t have an audience to begin with. I can see where your coming with but it’s not very feasible if you want to make money, Great to start build a small following or get some quick cash but you really need something big to truly get started for free. Hense why most developers that make really good indies usually charge that $5-$20 range, It’s quality and enough effort you want money in return

[@donvito159]

I wouldn't consider this game "popular" is the conventional sense. As someone else pointed out the game never broke 73 concurrent players. It was out 4 years as a free 2 play and made barely $4,000. A very small percentage of people bought the in-game microtransactions. This is a bad example to use for discussing how much money a steam game makes, even for an Indie Dev.

[@gottcha0330]

Well it’s not like everyone has made a perfekt game, I think this example is good for a lot og diff developers

[@gottcha0330]

+ 750k downloads isnt really bad

[@glovishly]

@@gottcha0330 That's the amount of times it was added to libraries, not downloads.

[@andy2641]

45-50 average players is good tho

[@gottcha0330]

@@glovishly still 750k is pretty good

[@risty8037]

It’s free to play idk what the dev expected. The shop doesn’t look like anything I’de want to buy even if the game looks fun.

[@kaykmartins7335]

If you have an attention span bigger than a goldfish and you can use your tiny ADHD brain, you'll see that the game was NOT free for the first year and he made no money either

[@Amaltator489]

@@kaykmartins7335dude thought he ate with that 😂 ur a loser lol

[@niox1920]

@@kaykmartins7335 because the game sucks. it's player count is less than 100, he was never gonna make money

[@risty8037]

@@kaykmartins7335 game looks boring, and honestly looks kinda like shovelware. Sometimes those pop off, but that’s rare. still don’t know what he expected.

[@JammerXtreme]

This doesn't seem like a good enough representation for how much a game dev makes on steam. This game doesn't seem like it did well.

[@bcbarber6776]

Game developer here. This is a very bad example. If you have a good concept and you find a good publisher to do the dirty business/advertising + you don’t launch f2p (massive mistake). You will make some crazy good cash. Obviously it’s goes way deeper than that but you get the picture.

[@presitatorproductions1134]

THE FUCKING MINIMUM WAGE IN AUSTRALIA IS $16 WTF IS AMERICA DOING RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD CANT GIVE US EVEN $8

[@callumthorpe3734]

You Get 30AUD/HR+ here for being on nights at macdonalds

[@independencegames]

When I first published to steam I thought if I made a half decent game with good gameplay I would make decent amount of money, I was dead wrong. Your game needs to not just be good but look good and be advertised well, I’m still trying to get there. Anyone wanting to get into games needs to do their research and know the realities of the industry, there’s a lot of competition out there.

[@erc3338]

Why not say what your game is?

[@independencegames]

@@erc3338They are “The Silicon Shadow” and “Lazer Rush Reloaded” with a third on the way “What Happens After Midnight”. As I stated with the initial comment they don’t look very good aesthetically but they play well, I think my new one looks decent and I have more hope for it.

[@independencegames]

@@erc3338The games are “The Silicon Shadow” and “Lazer Rush Reloaded” their flawed especially aesthetically but I’m getting better and am hopeful for my next game “What Happens After Midnight”.

[@Ashton_Cats]

The most important thing is to be unique. This guy made a free to play shooter, he's competing with valorant, csgo 2 etc. You're not gonna win that battle. Make your own space, set your own genre or revive a dormant one, that's the path to success

[@MyNamesHunter75]

@@Ashton_Cats You don't really gotta be super unique just different enough and play into a niche and harbour a community around it along with advertising which you can do for free on sites like reddit, discords, youtube which a lot of devs are doing now and is a growing community sending cold emails and keys to youtubers asking them to try out the game which can work as well once it's in pre release you also need to price your game right not too cheap but not too expensive

[@Antagonist115]

It’s important to differentiate when you’re speaking about a free game or paid game, I thought this was a paid game and couldn’t believe my ass, till I realized it was a free game A paid game seeking at the hundred K’s would make the dev a ton of money

[@ZeoWorks]

I'm a game developer that makes exclusively only free to play games, as a child I lived in poverty and could never afford to buy games. So I hope to make content for those who are in a similar situation. I also try to focus on low-end machine compatibility since the majority of players in the world play on APUs. Passion projects are a joy to work on, and the reward of seeing others play it is incredible. But it's stressful to develop games with no financial reward for sure. I feel for this developer. Slendytubbies got millions of downloads over the years, but with no financial benefit.

[@landonjwic1070]

0:35 cosplaying as an accountant 😂

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... .

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

hello

[@TheStickCollector]

Read it as he said it. Even less if taxes are not included, yet would any know about that?

[@DaLawnMower]

Kids will literally do whatever to get attention.. But it's hilarious how mf piss poor their Grammar, and English is. The accounts they make, and the shit they spam is so mf pathetic.. At least we all can collectively agree, that they'll never amount to anything in their sad pathetic lives.

[@shawnpitman876]

popular? calling this popular is like calling hemorrhoids popular.

[@andy2641]

Hemorrhoids is popular...

[@Local_Nerd_]

I met you when you came to my University to film something, so, it's refreshing to see a Gamer KZbinr address and learn this kind of thing. I was studying Game Dev at the time, so, feels good to hear stuff is finally getting to some people in the KZbinr community.

[@TheFrostedfirefly]

Charlie mentions that this is a rare peak behind the curtains, and I'm sure it's not on everyone's algorithms, but just for the unaware: There is a PLETHORA of game devlogs out there for new and interesting games in development that really show an interesting side to game development. The only bad thing about some of these devlogs is that opening it up to a public audience sometimes makes that audience feel entitles to telling those devs what type of game they should make, instead of only being constructive on the type of game the DEV wants to make. Be respectful of your indies and up and coming newbies to the industry, please.

[@StunningModelMargaretHill-p7x]

Just released my first game on steam. Around 20 people have downloaded it 150 wishlisted it and as an indie developer that is good enough for me and I am so happy people are playing it and having fun.

[@playerroku4412]

Literally a bot account

[@borath1992]

how can it have 700k downloads and a peak player over 4 years of 79 people? there is something really strange here.

[@jayhayhay5124]

It's a free game with cosmetic microtransactions. And Charles apparently has a very weird idea of successful.

[@Vody_Sly5]

@@jayhayhay5124 working on a game for multiple years is an automatic red flag for me, not to even mention it being free to play. you're putting all your eggs in one basket and praying basically. i know he gained skills but what if he had made a bunch of smaller games in that time instead of gathering an audience that plays free to play games and doesnt really like to spend money.

[@TopHATTwaffle]

Because it doesn't. 750,000 people added it to their library. But only a fraction of people actually play it. For comparison sake, at the time of writing, my free game's total license count is 28,850 where the measured players (people who loaded it) is 1,750.

[@alexbrinzan9061]

​@@Vody_Sly5 it was more of a passion Project than a Carrier.

[@DeltaEntropy]

@@Vody_Sly5if you’re a solo dev also working a full time job, making a full game in less than a year is an absurd ask…

[@TheGonzaDev]

My games are x1000 times worst than his but i made 2$ in total! The learning value was incredible tho, I'll keep going :)

[@Seven-ko4hx]

As a game developer myself of 5 years (Not a solo dev but I've worked on fun projects alone) there is absolutely no way he spent well over 3k hours on this, $1000 on assets is practically a finished game, it'd probably take a few weeks to set it all up perhaps even a few months, another note that this is a really simple game, low-poly shooters come out almost monthly at this point, shit even Roblox has games like this. Originality is key, doing a project like this is bound to not go anywhere 700k owned copies is a big throw off too, game never got past 100 active players meaning most of these people never even download the game, they just leave it idle in their steam library. yes game development is no joke especially as a solo dev, but these numbers might have been slightly boosted - supposedly he's been doing game development for 8 years, I don't know if I believe that either I highly respect him for being honest about his earnings though I'm also not hating or anything I just wish this was more clear in his video I'm really glad this project helped him learn more about this side of it all! - Pro-tip to indie game devs, please don't make projects free :D Loved that part LOL

[@2centschange]

As Thor pointed out, one unicorn micro-transaction on WoW made more money than Starcraft 2: Wings of liberty.

[@JC-jz6rx]

I have huge respect for game devs. I’m a programmer in a different field and i chose money over game dev. I would do game dev in a heartbeat if it paid. The same people making these games are also the ones that could be making bank with their skills somewhere else but choose to follow their passion instead. That takes determination , willpower , and a willingness to put your heart into something.

[@diddlez2]

"Popular Game" lol no. He makes quite a bit considering how little anyone plays it.

[@stephsnotfluffy]

>free to play game >"why hasn't this game made a lot of money🤔" bruh

[@SamwiseLovesJesus]

Friendly reminder to put your shopping carts in the corrals 🛒

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

‮ ⁦‮‮‮⁠‮‮⁦⁠⁠‮ a t‮suj si ega,ailihpodeP҇!҈..‮. esilamroN ‮⁠‮‭‏⁠‮rebm‮un⁠‮⁠‭‭⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠‭⁦‮ esuaceb tsuj..!!. ‮gnorw yllarom s'ti naem t'nseod lagelli si ti

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ...

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ...

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

😂😂😂​@@Ksksissh-n8k

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

​@@Ksksissh-n8k😮😮😮😮

[@basedbrit4206]

>Free game >Doesn't make money This is surprising how?

[@xboxman5ify]

this game isn't that popular, it only has 1454 reviews. and it's a free game that only makes money off micro transactions. i don't think anyone thinks a free game with 1400 reviews is making millions.

[@NuggieNugs555]

This is either gonna be very interesting, very humbling, or very horrible.

[@muffinman7479]

Oddly abit of all 3 😂

[@hnceyed]

how dare youtube hide this from me for 39 seconds 😡 0:01

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... ..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . .. ...

[@DaLawnMower]

Kids will literally do whatever to get attention.. But it's hilarious how mf piss poor their Grammar, and English is. The accounts they make, and the shit they spam is so mf pathetic.. At least we all can collectively agree, that they'll never amount to anything in their sad pathetic lives.

[@themalmana]

80% skill issue 20% luck

[@themalmana]

Why expect that a solo dev is skilled with engineering, art, marketing and game design

[@anni_ie3096]

this might be the longest title for a video from charlie

[@Kreapypastoid]

I just filtered the comments to see whose recent because this same bot almost immediately went under my comment after I left it, this shit is sad🤦🏾‍♂️

[@_Phrogg_]

0:14 THAT is SO crazy how true you can be in like two seconds

[@WesterlyPrune99]

Should have made the game $1 and he would have made bank

[@BatMan_Commenter]

I thought he would’ve ATLEAST made 20k with the amount of downloads his game has

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... ..

[@Ksksissh-n8k]

I just uploaded a hilarious clip of ‬‭‮ namow a crying about her dog being put down ‬‭‮!emoh ym no . . ... ..

[@Sukuna_da_Goatxx5]

Ur werid ​@@Ksksissh-n8k

[@DONTREADMYBIO1901]

⁠‏‭‮ tnetnoc ym esuaceb regginԙ... a uoy era is better🤣 .. .

[@catfacecat.]

​@@Sukuna_da_Goatxx5dont reply to the bot. it gives them engagement, something you dont want.

[@TGIDante]

Makes me respect indie devs even more. That they'd sacrifice their time for a passion project.

[@junior37390]

Paint Warfare is so inactive, not a big shocker that it made that little money

[@BaddieBrad]

For anyone here wanting to become a dev. There is no shame in starting on platform that doesnt charge to for servers. Like Roblox or VRChat for example. There are lots of people (in Roblox atleast, idk much about VRChat) who have made 6 digits off them. Edit: Also Rec Room is a great platform to create games now that it supports Unity for players to create with.

[@SpaceKadet1454]

A free indie game with not even a hundred players playing it at once, AND the in-app purchases are only cosmetics (which is the right thing don't get me wrong), yeah no shit this isn't gonna make much money. Did this dev reach out to you to make his game more popular?

[@abuDA-bt6ei]

You just explained why doing the right thing makes no money with a noshit at the end. If making money is wrong I don’t wanna be right..

[@SpaceKadet1454]

@@abuDA-bt6ei sad world we live in

[@LycanKai14]

​@@abuDA-bt6eiYou're twisting things. The entire point is that if you expect your shitty FTP game to make you rich, you're delusional.

[@bananadev]

No i didnt

[@SpaceKadet1454]

@@bananadev okay. just to let you know the way you made your game was the best way you couldve, there just wasnt that many players

[@holycrudproductions7996]

5:46 no Charles, vegetables are good for you

[@ka3n]

Not true,vegetables have anti nutrients so they are worse than meat items

[@OnitonTTV]

Why tf are there people saying "Good video" when they haven't even probably finished the video at yet

[@roobes]

Where he went wrong is free to play, and also making a game in a overpopulated genre.