I'm wondering if he'd still feel like quitting had it been making ton of money. One thing I've noticed is any passion project that becomes too much like work starts to feel like a chore and the passion for it disappears. I don't think making money off of it would change that. I've learned that when I do side projects, I need to think of it as having fun and playing. And with that, you accept to stop something and mov…
So, even though I was making money, I still wanted out. The reasons came down to those listed below:
1) Taxes.
I wonder if it's easier now, but back then, I had to manually pay individual counties in my state, I had to pay individual states, and and then there were countries. I chose not to sell my game in any non-U.S. country just because of this. So, the tax nightmare wasn't something I was interested in, and was a big part of exiting the game selling business.
2) Make updates or create something new?
I originally did well updating my game. It kept people interested, and seemed to spur new sales somehow, but working on the SAME game for months and months and only making minor updates was not fun. It was work. So, I decided to make more games. I had one game make about another $30K, but everything else didn't sell at all. This was incredibly discouraging.
3) Reviews and Customer Support
When you are dependent on game sales, you check your reviews daily, and you freak out about anything less than 5 stars. Every mean comment hits hard. Customers start writing you, and some of them are crazy. I received death threats for removing a small feature for example. I also received CONSTANT questions about getting my game to work on different devices and computers. I couldn't keep up efficiently.
4) Daily Sales Stress
I would watch daily sales like a hawk. If an hour was slow, I'd stress. If a day was slow, I'd panic. It all had to just end. I couldn't market all day every day and work on new features and new games, so I was at the mercy of the app stores and it made me nuts.
5) Sales slowed
Finally, sales started slowing because of all the competition to my game (maybe). Other devs saw it doing well and a bunch of clones started showing up. Some even used my assets. Some Just added an "!" after the name of my game and were somehow using my code. I wasn't getting sales because my game had been out for a while, and then there was pirating and fakes. I know some people have their own opinion about pirating, but I would get emails from people telling me my game gave them a virus, then when we got down to it, they had stolen it from some shady site and still wanted support and to blame me for installing an infected game.
So, all that being said, yeah, making okay money in the game industry just wasn't enough to make me want to continue, but I REALLY like to make games, so part of me wants to try again anyway. Perhaps learning from these experiences will make the next adventure a little easier, who knows?