I’ve heard not to waste time developing for PC as I won’t make ANY money.
But I don’t have a mac and I can’t afford a liscense.
What do I do?
Word says the best market to get into is the iOS market. But you’re going to need a mac, an iphone, and the iOS license.
If you can’t afford that. Well, I think you can get on the android market with only your pc and an android license, right?
That’d be more affordable. You don’t need the android license now. Do the same that I’m doing, start the game and worry about testing it on a mobile device later!
If you work on a game and come up with something nice, maybe you can get on something like kickstarter.com to get some funding. But 400 bux for an android license shouldn’t be that hard to come by, right?
Not sure about how much money you’d make by selling a PC game of your own. But perhaps an even bigger challenge than money itself is finishing the actual game!
I never finished a game, ever! It’s really not at easy at it sounds!
If you can make a quality game from start to finish, complete with at least 2 or 3 hours of gameplay guaranteed, then I’ll give you my honest respect!
Rubbish ofcourse… PC platform is still very strong, especially the low-mid segment (pricewise) is booming.
amen bro, very true.
i dont think that making window games is a waste of time, but you should be worrying more about completing your game instead of worrying so much how much sales you are gonna get , because after all without a complete game no sales at all ever.
completing a game, thats the challenge you should be focusing on
That obviously not true.
–Eric
When they say that their referring to very small app like games that are for like $1. Those games belong in app stores and you will make more money that way.
If your talking something with a lot of content like a full fled RPG or FPS, (or something like that) then the PC is your best option, and you will make money if you can market it.
Is Win7 getting an “EXE Store”? That would be the way to go for casual games. If it ever materializes.
It’s called Steam.
Thanks guys! It helps to see that people don’t think PC is completely dead.
And Don’t worry, me and SodaCan studios will complete a game that will be well over 5 hours.
Thanks for your input.
Hm one might say that you are overreacting…A LOT. I mean calling PC market dead? How do you came to this conslusion?
I think that if you take a look at sale numbers of any AAA PC game you cant call that market dead. If Xbox and PS3 or anything else has more sales it doesnt mean that something with bilions of dollars in profit is getting towards its end.
He kind of said the opposite of that dude. Read again.
Well, I didn’t exactly mean that the PC market is dead. I just wanted to know if it was possible to make money on PC indie games.
Well, I’d say the PC market itself is not dead, in fact it’s huge and it’s growing, just look at the “charts”! X)
It’s the PC market for small indie games that MrDuskling is probably concerned about.
Right now, I wouldn’t get into the PC market if I’m not prepared to work perhaps 1 whole year on an idea that I really like. But if I start such a big project, I don’t think I’ll succeed, my life is not stable enough to guarantee I’ll work 1+ years on a single project.
That’s why I like the iOS market better, I mean, I have no idea if I like it yet! But I’ll know in a couple of months, when I finish my game…
if I do well, I’ll love the appstore; if I make very little money (if not zero), then I’d be very disappointed at myself!
I would suggest you to change your opinion on this. Do not be disappointed at yourself at any cost. Your game is right now looking very nice from technical and graphical view, you havent done nothing wrong on it so far. I cant comment yet about whole picture, becouse you havent finished it yet, bit if you are going to make that game better and better there is nothing that you can blame on yourself. It is marketing that can be b****, just make sure you put enough effort into that too. If you do that and if it still doesnt sells well, if i were you i would go outside of house, grab empty can, put Iphone and Mac in it and see how well can they burn.
Thanks janpec! Well, for what I’ve been hearing around here, it’ll take a very active marketing to push any game forward! And I bet it’s not going to be an easy job! Especially not the first time! And it wont be an overnight thing either. So you’re right, not doing well on sales the first time is no reason to be disappointed, and even less to give up! (That’d be crazy foolish) “Failing” is only the beginning! n__n
one word: Minecraft. Clearly you can make money on the PC. I personally beleive the indies will overtake the market in the next 5 years or so because its the indies who will innovate and bring something fresh and new that big name publishers don’t want to risk. Make anything worth paying for and I bet you can find customers for it. Good marketing also helps. I would guess it wouldn’t hurt to approach noteworthy bloggers and game sites with a free copy for them to review. Also, perhaps get in touch with Valve and their steamworks system. Many many indie games are gaining popularity through steam.
this ^
iOS and Android Markets are flooded like the PC market nowadays.
Than you have to target all of them to at least have a chance to succed. To survive, you can’t focus on a single market.
Yeah, marketing and all that other stuff that isn’t writing code really sucks! People should just buy what we make once we think we’re done with it.
If only we could just write code without worrying about anything else.
Oh wait, yeah, I remember now… That’s called “WORKING FOR SOMEONE ELSE!!”
People who are good at all the various disciplines required to create, publish, and market a game will have no trouble selling on ANY platform. PC is only difficult as there is no well-known open and cheap way to do the publishing and marketing portions, so even if you get the creation part down you still potentially have an uphill battle.
Right now, if you are on a budget, you should focus on making some projects. Not just one project. Make a few; start small. Really small. Work your way up. Along the way, even before you get to your “main event” idea, you’ll start to make games and projects that are FUN. You’ll get complements. It takes time and effort but it will happen. Once you have a product you think is salable, you have many options on how and where to publish it as you are on Unity. If you still have no money at this time, you could shop around for a publisher; if your game is good, as many have mentioned here, Valve is a good direction to go for PC publishing. You will need to wow them with your game, and you are going to need to hound them a bit. You might even need to go up to Washington in person or find them at an expo to get their attention.
Otherwise, you can do Android publishing for 425 bucks (400 for Unity, 25 for access to the Marketplace), Mac for the price of a Mac + 100 dollars (Get a used Intel Macbook, sub-500 dollars), and iOS for the price of a Mac, plus 500 dollars (400 for Unity, 100 for a year of publishing). If you can borrow the money, do it; over the course of 2 years, without additional advertising above and beyond getting out there on forums and twitter and facebook, you will make back your initial costs even for a modest project. If you have multiple projects, you’ll make it back even faster.
So, in summary, start making games, make a lot of them, and as you get better at it, they’ll get better, and eventually you’ll have games that can sell themselves.