﻿So you are about to release your indie game and all that goes through your mind is:
How will my game do? Is it going to sell? How much money will I make?
The best way to get an idea is by following other indie games and learning from their experience.
In this video, we'll take a look at several indie game revenues and look at how much
revenue the developers actually made - some an estimate and some to the actual dollar.
All the devs that made this list have been very open with their numbers,
putting them out in Steam posts, dev blogs, and even videos. We love this practice as
it gives other indie developers better chances at achieving successful launches of their own.
We are Ask Gamedev and these are 6 Real Examples of Indie Game Revenues
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First up on our list, THE hugely successful Norse mythology-inspired phenomenon:
Valheim. At the time of this writing, it's been almost 2 months since Iron
Gate Studio's unsuspected giant was released, and it has sold over six million copies with
no signs of stopping there. Valheim is an exploration and survival adventurous sandbox
set in a procedurally generated representation of The Tenth World - a forever drifting Viking
purgatory, where players will have to prove their worth to Odin
in order to ascend to Valhalla alone... (or with friends, thanks to its online-coop mode.)
Iron Gate Studio, the Swedish dev responsible for bringing Valheim to life,
is made up of an astonishing number of 5 people. This fact has put them and their publisher
Coffee Stain Studios into the spotlight, as they ascend at the same sales speed as The Witcher 3,
which also sold six million copies early into its release. By comparison though,
over a thousand people were involved in the Witcher 3’s production globally.
But, how much money did Valheim really make? The devs are yet to announce their development costs
and final return, however, they are very open about their sales units week by week.
Sebastian Badylak from Coffee Stain Studios said "We all had high hopes for Valheim and we really,
really thought it would perform super well, but this is beyond
anything we could have ever imagined." And he's not exaggerating! With Valheim's price
at $19.99 right now, those six million copies sold can translate up to over $100,000,000.
Take Steam's and the publisher's cut, factor in region pricing, and you’re still left with
a hefty sum for the 5 game developers, and should we say 5 Vikings worthy of Valhalla.
Oh, and the game is still in early access... you can pick upValheim on Steam now.
2021 appears to be a booming year for indie releases. The next title on our list was released
on March 4th, and in under a month, has already surpassed the milestone of having a 500,000
player base. Loop Hero is a roguelike deck building strategy RPG filled with all sorts
of old-school 2D visuals, fresh animations, and a set of innovative gameplay mechanics.
The premise? simple enough: Become a hero and save the world, while walking in loops.
Behind this simple idea, hides a deep story about regaining memory and overcoming despair.
Loop Hero was developed by Four Quarters, a team of four young developers who previously made the
2015 experience, "Please, Don’t Touch Anything". The game was born out of a failed attempt at
Ludum Dare 45. Not giving up, the devs continued through their loop again, completed their story,
pitched the demo to Devolver Digital, and received a contract almost immediately.
After 17 months in development, Loop Hero is now available in Steam, the Epic Games Store,
GoG, and Humble. It has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide and
counting! Not bad for a failed Game Jam, huh? Making its 3rd appearance in an Ask Gamedev video,
the next game in our list is Hive Time by Two Lof Bees. We got to know Cheeseness and Mimness about
a year ago when their game was mentioned in our 2020 Godot Game Engine Showcase,
and we are still excited about their work. Hive Time is a Hive-building strategy game about not
only building a beehive but managing its resources and population, facing
disasters to the beats of some spectacular tunes reminiscent of the first Simcity entries.
One of the devs at Two Lof bees, Cheeseness published a detailed assessment of notes and
facts about his finances. As an example, we can find how they got to the suggested price
point of $10 USD on Itch. He also details how he designed a zero-dollar budget model to work
in a six-month development timeline. What did he do to accomplish this? He donated his own time,
calculating how many hours he would work at a certain hourly rate. This helped
him to determine the game's price as well. In the end, the budget for Hive Time was $4,174.52
mainly due to the music composition costs. Called by Rock Paper Shotgun "An Obscure Gem",
Hive time has been downloaded more than 40,000 times from itch.io and is owned by an extra
815,000 users that purchased Itch’s Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The game is
sold on Itch via a “Pay What You Want Model” and has made a bit more than 750 full-priced sales.
According to Cheese, he's still been "unable to approach anything near covering development
costs". This doesn't mean he's giving up. His assessment reflects great growth on a personal
and professional level, and we at Ask Gamedev can’t wait for them to generate more buzz.
Ever wonder how much money a monochromatic 8-bit-nostalgia shoot-em-up about a food-spitting
toaster can make? Well, we did. The fourth entry on this list is Toast time, by solo-based
studio Force of Habit. Released in September 2013 for Android and later ported to iOS,
Steam, Humble, and Nintendo Switch, Toast Time has had quite some time to mature and show some
meaningful results. Its developer Ashley Gwinnell, recently published a video on Force of Habit's
YouTube channel in which he breaks down several sales figures and recaps the game’s progress
throughout its seven years of life. The title was developed by a team of two:
Ashley and his friend Nick, with whom he'd worked with in several game jams prior.
In terms of time, the game took over 8 months of development. At the end of development,
they calculated they would have to recoup 16,000 pounds or 27,000 Dollars to break
even with development costs. This meant selling 11,500 units priced at 1.99 pounds each.
So how did they do? * On Android they sold $10,500 USD
* On iOS they made $19,100 USD * They won the Intel Level
Up Prize for $2,000 USD. * Winning this granted them access to
publish with Steam, where they made $4,170 USD. * Later the game was included in Humble and
Indie Gala Bundles which added another
$8,450 USD to the basket. * Lastly, the game was ported to Nintendo
switch where it is slowly gathering new followers, having sold $2,754 USD and counting.
Over the years, the development costs ascended to $38,385 and the sales have returned $36,106 to
their pockets. Keep in mind their costs are mainly made of the time they've invested in the game,
so Force of Habit has been able to keep on developing new games
thanks to this return on investment. Some clever tips given by the dev after
doing this analysis are * 1. Hold off on putting
your game on discounts and * 2. Don't quit your job.
Next up on our list is Mortal Glory by Redbeak Games, a solo developed fantasy-themed tactical
roguelike game about training gladiators and throwing them into an arena to fight
for your name. Arm them with legendary weapons and magical spells, recruit celebrities,
and even cheat to get the glory you deserve. Mortal Glory was created over the course of nine
months by Auro, a dev with no previous development experience. Using Unity for the first time,
and working during his free time (while keeping up with his full-time job), Auro managed to build his
very first game arming himself with a great set of free tools. He used Paint.net for his pixel art,
Inkscape for his titles and vector art, GIMP for his concept art, and Audacity for his audio.
He also built a custom python script that would track his working hours on the game
and later on be able to calculate his return. So, did Mortal Glory survive its first round at
the indie arena and bring glory to its master? Over its first year in Steam, Mortal Glory not
only reached a very positive rating but also made a total revenue of $128,884 USD! Auro will receive
$76,592 USD after Steam’s cut, returns and taxes. After that, $3,174 USD will be used to cover his
development expenses and $18,355 to cover income taxes, leaving the dev and his game studio with
$55,000 USD or, as he calculated, a $33 hourly wage for his work on Mortal Glory.
Auro is building a solid gamedev channel on Youtube full of tips and tricks from his first
experience as a game developer, we'll leave a link to it in the description below.
Topping our list with one of the greatest indie hits in the last decade, we’ve got Stardew Valley
from solo developer Eric Barone and published by Chucklefish. The idea for Stardew Valley was born
when Eric got obsessed with paying tribute to the many hours he had spent playing the Harvest
Moon franchise in his younger days. The dream was to build the ultimate farming experience,
and he went way beyond that. In Stardew Valley your main goal is to set up a thriving home in
which to farm and live your life to the fullest. This includes crafting, mining, exploring caves,
fishing, building, fighting monsters, making friends, dating, getting married, having children,
cooking, having a pet and more! Eric established his studio ConcernedApe,
and he self-imposed himself to work 10 hours daily during the four years it took him to develop his
dream game. In an interview with Gamasutra, he admitted his working time just increased to 15
daily hours when the game was released. Stardew Valley was released in February 2016 and during
its first year, it earned over 30 million dollars across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation.
During the following years, the farming craze spread to Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch. By
the time the game turned 4 years old in 2020, it had sold 10 million copies across all platforms.
In 2021, the game is still selling and it has also spawned a brilliant board game, announced
in February and already sold out in March! ConcernedApe sure achieved his dream and will be
harvesting from it for quite a long time. Thanks for watching! For more Ask Gamedev check
out this video on Marketing Mistakes, or this list on Video Game Budgets.