I had to stop playing for a while because the music really got stuck in my head. What a fantastic game though, it really is so fun. The "Woooow" at some upgrades always make me chuckle. I'll definitely come back to it soon.
Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
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Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#32Why did you go with a publisher rather than publishing it yourself?
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#33Out of curiosity, what kind of margins do you get when you sell a game on Steam? Like, what percentage of a sale ends up in your bank account (pre-taxes). Also, how do Steam sales affect that? Congrats on making a game to completion, and doubly so for making something that gets fairly popular. Making a real game has been on my bucket list for about as long as I've known how to program, and I haven't completely given…
Steam takes 30% and the publisher ( https://rawfury.com/developer-resources/ ) takes 50%, so the dev should end up with 35% of revenue (which then needs to be taxed etc.).
Who is the publisher? Isn’t it steam or the author itself?
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#34Congratulations! The game looks amazing—its quality is truly impressive. I'm currently feeling burned out. I have an app idea and a prototype that I believe could turn into a viable project to support myself. However, I don't have the courage to quit my job—I’m afraid of the anxiety that comes with paying rent and insurance without a steady paycheck. I do have some savings to sustain me for a while, but I'm unsure if…
Have you considered switching careers rather than quiting. I took a two year break from tech and did English teaching. The pay was low but it sustained me with my savings and I had tons of mental energy to work on my side projects. Any job that's easy to clock in and clock out, where the work gets done on the same day, no deadlines. Can do wonders for your mental energy.
When I returned to tech I had a pretty impressive portfolio of projects. Turns out unsurprisingly that not coding all day for work makes me want to code more for fun.
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#35Congratulations. Looks fun and one of those "omg, I've spent so much time on this" kind of game.
Can you expand in the part of talking to publishers. How did you approach it, how much previous context did you have, how did you evaluate what was good vs not. I know what mobile game publishers ask for but not desktop/steam ones.
Any advice? (Not that I'm making games but just curious what form it actually takes)
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#36I realise you can make games in any language/engine. But could you explain the language/system/engine you used? How did you go about validating the game is fun? Did you end up having an intuitive sense for it, or did you need external feedback to refine the mechanics? My steam deck might as well be a billionaire/balatro machine.
Godot 4.2 / C#. Godot is an amazing engine and I highly recommend it for indie devs. The iteration cycle is a few seconds. IMHO, using Unity will absolutely slow you down, as a designer/programmer. I can't comment on the reality of a 3d game with a complicated art pipeline, however. But for a game like Ballionaire, Unity or Unreal would have been a mistake.
Ballionaire was fun by day 3, the first time a ball dropped and hit a trigger that caused an effect. It was luck a bolt of lightning to me. I am a VERY pessimistic person. So the fact that it felt compelling that early, and like, anyone who saw it could understand it and felt the fun, was a huge sign to me. Unfortunately, not every game has a premise that allows for that. I don't think you could hope for the same kind of feeling while making a 4X for example.
But if you're making a game that ultimately should feel fun from moment to moment, like these kind of quick-play games are, well, I think you can get there quickly and with little work, if the idea is solid. And if you can't get it to feel fun, I would be wondering if the idea is solid, versus it needing more time/polish etc.
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#37Congrats! This game looks amazing.
Thank you! :)
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#38Congratulations! Looks fantastic. I'm curious about marketing and your relationship with the publisher.
There's a LOT of games launching on Steam all the time, some solid games go largely unnoticed. How did you get word out about your game? Did you build an audience during development? How much assistance did the publisher provide? Additionally, did you have contacts that introduced you to publishers? If not, what got their attention? Fanbase, demo, you personally?
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#39Out of curiosity, what kind of margins do you get when you sell a game on Steam? Like, what percentage of a sale ends up in your bank account (pre-taxes). Also, how do Steam sales affect that? Congrats on making a game to completion, and doubly so for making something that gets fairly popular. Making a real game has been on my bucket list for about as long as I've known how to program, and I haven't completely given…
Between returns, taxes, and other stuff, I think you can model at ~55% of gross Steam sales. Then, whatever your split w/ your publisher is, on top of that. So I think it's easy for ppl to severely overestimate how much a dev is actually earning by just multiplying units times price :) I think in general the uptick of sales volume more than offsets the discount during a Steam sale. There's a reason Steam sales have a…
What factors made you choose to go with a publisher vs. self-publish?
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steam takes 30% and the publisher ( https://rawfury.com/developer-resources/ ) takes 50%, so the dev should end up with 35% of revenue (which then needs to be taxed etc.).
Maybe a dumb question but... in the age of Steam, what does the publisher do these days? Advance funding? What do those numbers look like?
Most of the marketing will come from the publisher. It's easy for a game not to be noticed, and to crater thanks to no audience. The publisher runs the early and mid ad campaigns.