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A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

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Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#121

Post by krutzger »

amirrajan wrote: post #107
qzervaas wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2 cents: 1. Charge more than 99c. Double the price and your sales will likely drop by less than half, making it profitable to do so. 2. If you’re going to half-ass the port to Android, why even bother? It will do more damage than it’s worth.

It works great on the devices I’ve tested on. Which is like 4 out of the 15,000 possible OS+Device+Carrier combinations.

If it looks like a half-loaded web page on a nexus (which is the reference device for the platform) then something is wrong.

Please don't take offence, I'm just trying to explain why it did so bad on android.

edit: you don't need to test your app on 1500 devices. They are all the same, if you plan for it only two devices (big/small screen) should suffice. Source: former app developer.

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#123

Post by mentos »

prewett wrote: post #105
castle-bravo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it doesn't make any sense at all. He grossed over 800k on a video game, loves programming, but after another three years he has to go back to his day job? It sounds like he's burning over 100k/year and lying about his expenses in this report. In any case, there's a lot of information left out.

He has a revenue sharing agreement with the original creator of A Dark Room, which I think is 50%. Self-employment taxes plus regular taxes will be somewhere around 35%. Apple takes 30%. So, ($800k * (100 - 30)%) * 50% * (100 - 35)% is $182k. So not bad, but it's only $60k/yr for three years.

I really feel like Apple's 30% tax is not optimal and a lower % would actually stimulate more development for them

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#124

Post by gargarplex »

JamesBarney wrote: post #116
gargarplex wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been seriously, actively interested in building a tech biz or startup since 2003. In 2003, I started selling chat bots on the Internet. In 2005, I cofounded an affiliate marketing website that cracked the Alexa top 10k In 2007, I built an app that scaled to 100k MAUs and was acquired for $20K In 2009, I started a SaaS but couldn't break $~600/month in revenue. In 2010, I built a business that ran for over 5 year…

Would you mind going into a little more detail about the hole that you plugged and how you plugged it?

For me it was learning all about sales. I actually got a job selling industrial equipment specifically for this purpose. I learned that a good sales person is an agent who advances the best interests of the buyer as well as the seller. I also had the epiphany that my ads and website are - essentially - salespeople, selling to exactly one visitor at a time. So if I can't sell without the website, I can't sell with the website. But once I can sell, and then once my website can sell in my stead, it's about getting the website in front of as many people as possible - just like a productive sales rep will make many phone calls per day. Just as a salesperson will tailor her approach based on the market or personality of the buyer, a good website should do so as well. Therefore, I have segmented mailing lists, different landing pages for different buyer types, and so forth.

You may also find this comment I wrote about a year ago useful as well, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13283234

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#125

Post by moron4hire »

mentos wrote: post #123
prewett wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a revenue sharing agreement with the original creator of A Dark Room, which I think is 50%. Self-employment taxes plus regular taxes will be somewhere around 35%. Apple takes 30%. So, ($800k * (100 - 30)%) * 50% * (100 - 35)% is $182k. So not bad, but it's only $60k/yr for three years.

I really feel like Apple's 30% tax is not optimal and a lower % would actually stimulate more development for them

I don't think quantity, or rather the lack thereof, is the problem with any app store.

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#126

Post by cabaalis »

fragsworth wrote: post #5

This is incredibly depressing. It hits home for me because I'm in a very similar situation. I and one other guy almost went broke making Clicker Heroes, but it turned out to be a great success. But so far since then every project has not been worth doing. > I didn't do ads, I didn't do micro-transactions, scummy energy bars, and all those other bullshit monetization tactics. We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't…

I appreciate your making that game, it and Adventure Capitalist have been my mainstays :) I'd love to know your thoughts on monetizing with reward videos. It's how I am thinking of monetizing my own idle game.

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#127

Post by Apocryphon »

myth_drannon wrote: post #29

Similar recent interview with him on indie hackers : https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/a-dark-room

If he's talking to the press, here's hoping he might restore some of the content he removed in his data purge. There's got to be interesting, useful knowledge in there for other game dev and future generations.

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#128

Post by cornholio »

mentos wrote: post #123
prewett wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a revenue sharing agreement with the original creator of A Dark Room, which I think is 50%. Self-employment taxes plus regular taxes will be somewhere around 35%. Apple takes 30%. So, ($800k * (100 - 30)%) * 50% * (100 - 35)% is $182k. So not bad, but it's only $60k/yr for three years.

I really feel like Apple's 30% tax is not optimal and a lower % would actually stimulate more development for them

I'm sure Apple made a complex assessment to determine 30% as 'optimal'. The problem here is the oversupply of apps and the undersupply of paying customers - Apple has a duty to it's shareholders to skim that market as much as possible.

While it might appear unfair for Apple to take such a large cut of 'your' money, Apple looks at this the other way around: you cost them quite a lot of the money their customers are willing to spend on apps.

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#129

Post by vermilingua »

amirrajan wrote: post #81
loteck wrote: post #27

This guy made a lot of really questionable decisions. Put his future and family at risk. His only hit was porting someone else's hit game to iOS. He himself admits he is working again now only so he can build a stash and gamble it all again. I hope he finds success some day, but given his track record, I'm very skeptical of his conclusions.

>questionable decisions That’s an understatement. >His only hit was porting someone else’s game Yep. He’s a hack job for sure. There is no way he’ll be successful in future stuff tbh.

Sarcastic self-deprecation without actually addressing the complaints doesn't really work to your credit tbh.

Re: A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k

#130

Post by pinchharmonic »

k__ wrote: post #97
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #11

The math on this makes no sense at all. > - Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just save. - Do this for a year. - Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. - Celebrate by living off of $30k a year. - Do this for three years. - Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year in…

lol, I did a year off with 10k.

Nice! Where did you go/what was your living style like?
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