…and then I started working. I’m not saying this is a SMART way to make games (actually it’s super dumb from a business perspective) but it’s what I did. So, to find my target sales numbers, I have to look at what I’ve already spent on the game, and work backwards from there!<\/p>\n
So, here are my Bleed 2 expenses so far. The chart represents $42,000 USD. Yikes!!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/breakdownMinusMeB.jpg?resize=573%2C337\")
<\/p>\n
Obviously the size of the pieces aren’t accurate — sharing how much I’m paying people feels inappropriate. (Why did I make a pie chart, then? It’s for dramatic effect, okay?? Just hold on a second!!) Things that may be unclear include ‘Advertising’ which is how I categorize exhibitions, and ‘Misc’ in which I lump collaborations that didn’t work out (but still had to be paid) and my occasionally paying to work in a collaborative space. It’s a LOT of money already, but thankfully Bleed did pretty well, so I could manage it…<\/p>\n
…except for one glaring thing the chart is missing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The missing element is: paying myself. (I told you this would be dramatic!!)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/breakdownWithMeB.jpg?resize=573%2C337\")
<\/p>\n
When you include the amount of work I’ve put in, the total costs for Bleed 2 come to $242,000. Damn.<\/p>\n
Yes, I’m saying I’ve spent (at least) $200,000 USD of my time working on this game. Where am I pulling that number from? Well, Gamasutra does salary surveys<\/a> of various game development positions. The latest one I could find is from 2014, but check it out:<\/p>\n I’m arbitrarily picking $50,000 as my own potential salary, which falls short of the lowest average. I’ve been working on this game for about 4 years now, so $200,000 is what you get. Obviously (sadly) I’m not actually paying myself, or I’d be out of a job, but it tells me the numbers I need to hit for this to have been “worth my time” financially.<\/p>\n How many copies does that translate into? Well, I believe I’m going to charge $10 for Bleed 2. But, you have to factor in taxes, Steam taking their cut, and maybe even launch discounts, since launches are (as far as I know) when games make a healthy percentage of their revenue. So let’s say, in the end, I make about $5 for every full-price (or near-full-price) copy of the game that gets sold.<\/p>\n That means I need to sell:<\/p>\n The first goal: maaayyyybe — hopefully? I’ll personally be happy if the game sells this much. The second: I dunno about that one — honestly, I’m hoping for the best and preparing for the worst!<\/p>\n If this is giving you a headache (I know I feel one coming) please keep in mind that “financial success” is only one definition of “success”. Don’t get me wrong, I want the game to be financially successful (GIMME UR MONYYY) but I’m in a privileged enough position that I won’t be destitute if it fails (and in my opinion it would be foolish to risk that much on making a game, no matter how much I believed in it.)<\/p>\n All I’m trying to say is: if this post makes you worried about me, or the game — don’t be! I’m already RIDICULOUSLY proud of everything I, Joonas and Jukio have accomplished. No matter how much it does or doesn’t make, it’s a resounding personal victory and exactly what I wanted to create. All I hope now is that enough people want to play it that I can create more in the future!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last two weeks I’ve been working non-stop on getting PR stuff together for the announcement of the game’s release date, and trying to raise some hype before launch (you thought I got a vacation, huh? Maybe later!) You’ll see the results of that soon, so let’s talk money instead! This week I was asked […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bleed-2"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2022,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/2022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bootdiskrevolution.com\/NEW_BLOG\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/avgPay.jpg?resize=530%2C267\")
<\/p>\n\n