Should You Sell Your First Game?

Should you sell your first game? I share what I did for my first commercial game launch.
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[@Joshuahendrix]

Tim, thanks for your contribution to the indie game dev space 😀👍

[@GnastyMusicTV]

My goal was to recoup the cost of Construct 3 for the 3 months ($48) that the game took to make by putting my first game out free and then just hoped people would do the 'support the dev' thing on Itch. Lol, and that definitely didn't work... but what Tim and others have taught me is that actually finishing the the game is the important part. Tim you got me over that hump and I am forever grateful!

[@Jabrils]

Tim Ruswick whats up player ✌️

[@RobLang]

Awesome video! So much energy, positivity, honesty and actionable information. Great job, Tim!

[@davedoublee-indiegamedev8633]

Oh hey, I remember you ;D

[@JeffGiassonYourIndieGameCEO]

Make the price reflect your game/experience/etc. Even selling at $1 will give you valuable insights. Great video Tim!

[@ferdowsurasif]

Sometimes I find a video that feels like it was made just for me. This feels like that. Thanks Tim!

[@CreativeSteve69]

Hey, Tim thanks for this great video. Ya released it at a good time. I just had my first official Ludum Dare experience this year and had a blast. Now that I got motivated from it, I'm determined to finish it and someday release it. thanks for the motivation. :)

[@MidnightBloomDev]

I've been making my first real game for 4 years (with breaks) so would be weird not getting paid rent by it.

[@TheAnimatingFeller]

Great video! We just released our first game on Steam Last friday (April 30) and we got a grand total of 6 sales so far! It wasn't our intent to make a lot of money, we needed to prove to ourselves that we could go the extra mile and complete a game and go through the process of releasing it. It was a very long development period but we finally did it! Having said that, we've emailed many news sources and contacting 80+ curators to review our game but haven't heard anything back. I'm not sure how long it usually takes before you get any responses but we're hoping to get some feedback at least!

[@tim-ruswick]

Congratulations dude! Just keep at it! I bet you’ve learned a lot in the process and can keep applying that as you move forward!!

[@Luxalpa]

I had asked myself a similar question when I considered launching my Patreon. I felt like my stuff wasn't good enough to sell. Ofc I still don't make a lot of money, because my quality is only worth what it's worth. However I think the most important point for me is having this baseline. Knowing "my first game made me $50", now this gives you something to beat for your future games! You just collected your first data point. Doing this, knowing that people are willing to spend money on your stuff, even if it's just a few, will make you far more self confident. And of course, experience trumps everything. For your next game launch you no longer feel nervous before hitting the publish button. You know whether you can change the price later on, you know how things like discounts work and how to plan them, you'll have a better idea what to charge and what paying customers expect. And how to communicate your stuff so people won't be disappointed. Again, it will make you more self confident.

[@david_peter]

Standing position gives more energy to presentation. One of the best video. Thx.

[@nichevogames4669]

Great video! Totally agree with #4, "The Things You Will Learn". I launched my first "proper" game on Steam last week, and while it didn't go as well as I hoped, I don't regret it because: 1. It helped me learn about the whole process of getting it on the store in the first place (which was a little daunting). 2. Growing a thicker skin when dealing with negative feedback. I've admittedly never been great at handling criticism, but this is helping me/forcing me to get over it and turning it into something constructive. 3. Being better prepared for a bigger, better launch in the future. Releasing this first game allowed me to identify a few areas where I went wrong and I feel far more confident for next time. And 4., although I've barely made any money so far, I hope to eventually at least make back what I put into my first game, and I'll re-invest it into the next one.

[@irql2]

Pro Tip, they are critiquing the product, not you. Always remember that. Take that shitty feedback and put yourself in their shoes. You might be like "Yea, this does suck and I can definitely do better" and then go execute.

[@nichegames9590]

I'm going to sell my game just because I want the experience of selling a game. I have so much to learn and my first game is my test dummy. So basically I'm selling my game mostly for exactly what you said.

[@Blackclanstudio]

Same here. Been working on my game for 3 years and wanted to sell it soon. Im doing it to actually get myself out their and build my game company. The experience is indeed something we need because we don't know nothing about this field until we step in it.

[@nichegames9590]

@@Blackclanstudio Cool. I just took a look at it. I like following game development seeing as I'm trying to do that myself.

[@MonkeyShark]

My main reasons are so I can say, "Hey, I have a game on Steam!" and I've been working on this for years lol

[@ulicesisaia]

That was awesome dude!! thanks for the advices, it means a lot!!

[@RealLifeGlitchEntertainment]

This is such a great and informative video, especially for someone working on their first game. Honestly better information than what they teach in college.

[@ac3_train3r_blak34]

I love this energy!!! Tim Ruswick is back

[@creationallabs]

Thanks Tim!

[@jarithius6695]

Great Video Tim, I like the video, and the points you are teaching. Cheers!

[@NeatGames]

I'm happy I tried selling my first game!(I worried about everything you said in the beginning hehe) I learned so much and a feel more prepared for my 2nd game :D

[@PhodexGames]

Ah hey, Neat Games I remember you :). What's the name of the game you have released? I would like to take a look.

[@PhodexGames]

Oh I just noticed I can visit your channel for that :D

[@arthurbourdot8765]

Thanks Tim for the advices!

[@deusxyz]

Your videos motivated me to think more about the process of selling my game.

[@nw42]

IME nothing brings out the weird like “free”. When you purchase something, one of the first things most people do is judge the value they feel they’ve received against the price they paid to determine whether they got a good or bad deal, and the quality of that deal then colors their perception of the product. You’ll usually feel at least okay about a crap product if you got a good deal on it, and you’ll probably always be at least a little unhappy with a good product that you got a bad deal on. Now, this isn’t real math, it’s a hand-waving analogy, but we could loosely boil that dynamic down to a pretty simple equation: *(value / price) x satisfaction.* But when you get something for free, you’re *dividing by zero,* and that breaks a lot of people’s brains. In theory, people should only have one of two reactions to free stuff: indifference (because it cost them nothing) or gratitude (because it cost them nothing). And sure, _sometimes_ that’s how people react… but sometimes they’ll totally devalue the product, no matter how good it is-if it’s free it must be crap, right? Sometimes they’ll feel entitled, almost like they already own it and you’ve just been babysitting it for them, getting furious at you over any perceived flaw, no matter how small. Sometimes they’ll act like they’re doing _you_ a favor by accepting it. On the other end of the scale, sometimes they’ll get insanely attached and make it part of their identity (coughlinuxcough). Don’t believe me? Try selling something on Craigslist, and then try giving something away. You’ll see WILDLY different reactions. Point is, “free” isn’t just another point along the price spectrum, it’s Bizarroland. Someone’s reaction to a free product can be _completely_ different than if it cost just a dollar, and that reaction is significantly more likely to be unhinged.

[@PhodexGames]

To give me two cents as somebody who has done some commercial games in the past and who also progressed drastically in the quality of the games I make, I can tell you that you pretty much always will think that you haven't put enough effort into your game. Still, I think there is a point where you can be confident about your product, but it's really hard to reach and is a combination of your mindset AND the actual quality of your game. I have days where I think my game is great and on some days I think it's shit, that shows how inconsistent this is, but yeah in the end. SELL YOUR SHIT. That's the only way you will learn from it. I mean I still have this bad feeling in my guts, for selling one of my first games (it's still available on Steam), because I think it's not very good, but hey you have to deal with that if you want to get serious.

[@40wattstudio41]

Great advice!

[@devilchats9528]

Exactly! We have to start somewhere after all.

[@REDACT3D]

Keep up the good work bud! For me, I feel like you need to get into selling the game, so you can learn about the market. You know, you're not really in the same market if you're doing free games. it's a different animal. You need to actually setup your business and take care of things like tax and accounting. What about return games? what do you do? All this is good to learn about from experience ^.^

[@simonmalicek]

I think another good reason is to build an audience. Even on itch.io you might get a few people to follow your content and that can be vital for your motivation and next game.

[@dukemagus]

Free prologues (cute name for demo), work better than paid games on itch

[@dreamingacacia]

Hello Tim, nice to see you again. One of reasons I want to sell my first game is because I want to stop feel like I'm pretentious when talking about game development. But my first barrier is obviously to finish a proper game, not just some tech demo or toolbox like I usually did. Tho most of the time I spent working on worldbuilding and I'm better off just write some novels which I actually wrote the novel to clear my mind from game development stuffs. I'm also struggling on what kind of things I want to show to people so they know that I'm working on the game. Probably do more devlog soon to update my progress tho the progress also not much improve because I was sick for like a month Sadge.

[@Luxalpa]

Pictures and Videos are by far the best things to show to people and get them interested. It doesn't even matter what it is, just a mini screenshot of your healthbar or some ingame menu can already make people excited.

[@mrstarfire9336]

Yup needed this video today..

[@DINGOS30]

So will my skin glow under the lime light after switching from video to card games too? Lol looking good Tim!

[@MarioDoodles]

Hi Tim... Well done video as usual. Lemme know if you do ur card game with pixel art as I suggested u :) I think it would look awesome...... greeting grom Italy.

[@arsenbabaev1022]

I think to sell something developer needs to feel great about it. If the product is bad it needs more work or it needs to be abandoned. I don't see a reason to release bad game waste 100$ and disappoint any following or audience you had to just get selling experience. This topic isn't so binary there are a lot of variables to it.

[@Luxalpa]

Be honest in your game marketing and people won't be disappointed. If people are disappointed with what they get, you learned a valuable lesson, which is that you did not communicate the state of your game clearly and need to work on improving that. On the other hand, it's also a chance. Your followers probably know that they won't get the most promising, best game ever made, but they'll probably stick around and encourage you. Things that you think are bad, they probably think are really great. Things you love, they hate. You'll get tons of feedback.

[@NotFamousReal]

Hola Tim!

[@GameDevJosh]

Miss you buddy

[@Zizaco]

Awesome video

[@Amelia_PC]

"Should You Sell Your First Game?" Good question. I was thinking to sell my first game for $4 or less. Just to learn the process of selling, taxes, fees, etc. Seems Itch.Io has a weird way to collect sale taxes. Each country has its own rules and Itch.io doesn't handle it, leaving the dev to deal with this. Yeah! First itch.io. Steam later. Epic Store... Only when they want. GOG? I don't know if I'm ready to bow to China. When you run a Kickstarter campaign for your bunny cards, you'll be rich! All card games are massively funded there o__o (Or have you contacted companies like Dee Water Board Games? They're always looking for cool board/card games).

[@tymondabrowski12]

Sorry for writing so late here, but could you tell me more about GOG and "bowing to China"? I thought it's a company purely located in Poland, which means UE, which means GDPR. What do they do with China? I like them because of the "no drm" policy and you made me worried now.

[@Amelia_PC]

@@tymondabrowski12 Epic, GOG, and a bunch of other companies sold a percentage of their companies to Chinese companies (Tencent and others. Epic has sold about 40% of the company to Tencent). When the Chinese government asked to shut down a game that "offended" their leaders, Steam didn't think twice and banned the game from their platform. GOG did the same. I think the name of this game is Devotion. And yeah, it was in our Western Steam and GOG, not the Chinese Steam. They did similar things with other "subversive" games (aka freedom of speech and artistic vision were killed). Money always talks loud, and big shareholders talk louder.

[@RealLifeGlitchEntertainment]

Sell your game, sell your film, sell your art!

[@MrRed1Decisiv]

1k views = 1k flappy birds games selling for 20$ :D

[@COOPALOOPTROOPA]

If it's good why not ?

[@Alex-tl7ii]

Yes. But nobody will buy it =)

[@DrWoofOfficial]

Yeah…

[@CMZneu]

It's not really selling if you are making the game free.

[@aelfwif4309]

NEVER GONNA-

[@chadamitecheckoutredpillpl2641]

no