View Full Version : Released a game?!?
CiNiMoDZA
15-08-2007, 11:38 AM
I was just wondering, has anyone on this forum released a game properly before! When I say properly, I mean like making money???
Miktar
15-08-2007, 11:40 AM
Yes. Cainswm has.
cairnswm
15-08-2007, 12:15 PM
From 1995 to 2000 I ran a play by email Rugby Management Game that earned me some money from donations.
In 2000 I did some contract work on a Rugby Match Engine for a company in Italy, I got paid, and had a fully paid 3 week trip to Italy to work on the game.
In 2002 I released a shareware game. I never got any sales (but I didn't market it very well at all)
Last year I earned some money for doing some game dev contract work for a company in Denmark.
Coolhand is the real guy who has released games :) - he has done proper games.
CiNiMoDZA
15-08-2007, 12:40 PM
How did you get know enough to go work for these companies?
cairnswm
15-08-2007, 01:17 PM
I've made lots of small games that shows
1. I know enough about game dev
2. I get things finished
3. The quality is good enough
And then I have them all available on the internet so that people can see them and contact me if they want something done. The job for the Danish company I answered an advert and got given the contract.
CiNiMoDZA
15-08-2007, 01:27 PM
Cool, where did you post your games so that they could be seen publicly? Did you use GM? Sorry about all the questions, but Im really interested in this!
cairnswm
15-08-2007, 02:10 PM
I done (most) of my games in Delphi. They have mostly been posted to www.cairnsgames.co.za (but its out of date at the moment) as well as game dev sites like this one and www.pascalgamedevelopment.com.
Another important thing is to be involved - let people from your regular sites recognise your name. (and in a way my nick being my name and initials I think has also helped)
FuzzYspo0N
16-08-2007, 05:05 PM
yea cairns is ftw, the games i made i never released so my answer is no not yet, will be releasing all my old to new ones when i release my full feature game , demo on the way in fact
Flint
16-08-2007, 05:29 PM
By making money, do you necessarily mean making a profit? :p
We get a little bit of cash trickling in every other month from sales of smallfry's (http://www.smallfrymobile.com) games, but it's not nearly enough for one person to make a living from, never mind our 3-man team.
Tr00jg
16-08-2007, 05:37 PM
Hey there Flint.
I checked out your new games (after BBQT) and it looks beautiful. Wonderfully sprite-y!
Flint
16-08-2007, 05:46 PM
Hi TrOOjg. I take it you mean PlikPla? It is pretty, not to mention tough :) It's actually doing fairly well too, it just shows that people want simple, fun, pretty and cheap on mobile :P You just have to look at the number of daily score submissions for it on www.rumblex.com to see how many people are playing it.
Tr00jg
16-08-2007, 06:02 PM
Yeah, Plikpla. Quite a kewl name too. :)
Wow, you quite have a significant amount of players... Care to submit real data from your escapades, ie monetary wise? It would really be interesting to know.
Flint
17-08-2007, 10:43 AM
Sorry, nope-but suffice it to say my cut for the last six months won't even cover groceries for a month.
Tr00jg
17-08-2007, 11:39 AM
Sorry, nope-but suffice it to say my cut for the last six months won't even cover groceries for a month.
0_o. Do you think it might get better if you have better marketing? Coz, its a nifty game!
Cyberninja
17-08-2007, 12:55 PM
Are you advertising your game on http://www.getjar.com/ Flint. It's quite a popular site for showcasing mobile games. :-)
Flint
17-08-2007, 01:35 PM
Our earlier ones yes. Abyss (http://www.getjar.com/products/852/Abyss) has been up for about two and a half years and in that time has amassed just over 150000 downloads (though most of those were in the first year). I haven't got around to adding PlikPla there yet though.
We also used getjar's beta testing services for our games, it's a great way to get lots of very handy information (especially if you transmit some system and performance info with score data).
0_o. Do you think it might get better if you have better marketing? Coz, its a nifty game!
It's a little bit more complicated than that. Yes better marketing and distribution to more providers would help, but we would also require the time and manpower to develop multiple asset versions and custom code to safely target a lot more devices than we currently do. The write once-run anywhere Java myth is even less accurate on mobile ;)
Cyberninja
17-08-2007, 01:41 PM
Our earlier ones yes. Abyss (http://www.getjar.com/products/852/Abyss) has been up for about two and a half years and in that time has amassed just over 150000 downloads (though most of those were in the first year). I haven't got around to adding PlikPla there yet though.
We also used getjar's beta testing services for our games, it's a great way to get lots of very handy information (especially if you transmit some system and performance info with score data).
Ah. Cool. :-) If you don't mind me asking, how does one setup a sms payment service? As in, the customer sends you the code/payment for the game through a sms, and you send them the game through a sms.
Flint
17-08-2007, 01:49 PM
We don't have one set up ourselves, so I couldn't give you the nitty gritty. If I understand the system correctly though, you buy a number from vodacom/mtn (or just a code ti an existing number from a third party who bought the number from vodacom/mtn). You then have a backend system that interfaces with theirs (I assume it will be web service based) and on receipt of a message you route a return message back through their system to the user. Of course there's more than just handling those shortcodes, you need to worry about protection of your content as well so people don't just copy and share it.
If you are looking at getting your existing mobile games sold, I would suggest you contact our publisher, Orange Pixel (http://www.orangepixel.net). They specialize in 'indy' stuff, and if they had been around when we started three years ago I believe we would quite possibly have been able to go fulltime by now. As small as our sales are, most of them have come in the last couple of months since we joined OP. I believe if we were selling stuff through OP that was as cutting edge now as Abyss was when we first released it, we would be doing extremely well.
Cyberninja
17-08-2007, 02:05 PM
We don't have one set up ourselves, so I couldn't give you the nitty gritty. If I understand the system correctly though, you buy a number from vodacom/mtn (or just a code ti an existing number from a third party who bought the number from vodacom/mtn). You then have a backend system that interfaces with theirs (I assume it will be web service based) and on receipt of a message you route a return message back through their system to the user. Of course there's more than just handling those shortcodes, you need to worry about protection of your content as well so people don't just copy and share it.
If you are looking at getting your existing mobile games sold, I would suggest you contact our publisher, Orange Pixel (http://www.orangepixel.net). They specialize in 'indy' stuff, and if they had been around when we started three years ago I believe we would quite possibly have been able to go fulltime by now. As small as our sales are, most of them have come in the last couple of months since we joined OP. I believe if we were selling stuff through OP that was as cutting edge now as Abyss was when we first released it, we would be doing extremely well.
Thanks alot for the info man. I appreciate it. :-) Will have a lookie at the site.
Flint
17-08-2007, 02:09 PM
Do you have a website? Drop me a mail http://tinyurl.com/26z4qe (no PM's please, I hate the things) and I will put you in touch with them if you're interested.
Cyberninja
17-08-2007, 02:17 PM
Thanks. I will contact you when I get my site up and running. Working on some pc games in Gm at the moment. Will be in touch. :-)
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