Great work! I picked Ballionaire up during the winter sale I think? Hope it keeps crushing
Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
321–330 of 379 posts
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#322Oh god, I love watching RCE playing it. I'll steer clear off it though, pachinko games are a bad idea for my ADHD :-)
Congratulations on the success.
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#323Incredible work, Brian! I'm in awe of what you've done in such a short amount of time. I started an indie game company (still working on our first title) and had a few related questions if that's OK? 1) If you didn't need a salary or marketing help, would you still have signed a publishing deal? My sense is most of the publisher value lies in getting paid before the game launches, and with marketing around launch, bu…
Thanks Rand! 1) It obviously varies w/ each dev's situation, but I think your sense of the value prop is a fair default one w/o context. In my case, there were four reasons: 1) having a partner to help with (to me) "the unknown unknowns" (i'm only a dev and a novice designer, literally anything else would be my first time doing it, so i figured having an experienced partner there would be wise) 2) the advance was nic…
"Don't overbalance" is an invitation for Spiffing Brit to play yet another perfectly balanced game :-)
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#324Hi, I enjoyed playing Ballionaire. I do like this style of rogue-likes where things can maybe break the game itself (infinity, slow down the game completely when too many eggs are spawned). I was curious in your platform choice of windows only. Was this due to the framework/programming language you're using? Or was this more of a time savings of trying to support more than one system at a time? Or maybe both?
FWIW, it works on the Steamdeck, natively, without Proton -- so it's a native Linux game in other words. Apparently a lot of folks are playing it on desktop Linux, as a result. It's just not "officially supported". I'm a one-man dev operation, so it's strictly a matter of opportunity costs of my time. Linux and Mac are miniscule gaming markets, like 1% of Windows, but could potentially generate a significantly propor…
Godot makes it easy to export to Linux and I'm sure it's still true that feedback from Linux users is better even in terms of finding bugs as mentioned in this interview with Croteam in 2015:
> The feedback from Linux gamers is great – they seem really happy that we’re supporting the platform and they are a huge help in finding bugs. Often, bugs that are initially reported as Linux specific turn out to be issues in all version of the game, it just sometimes happens that it’s easier to reproduce on some platforms. So, yeah – we’ll definitely keep on supporting Linux in the future.
[1] https://www.marcosbox.com/2015/02/13/interview-with-croteam-...
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
In gamedev we usually count it like this: * Refunds and VAT 16% overall * Steam cut 30% below $10,000,000 sales * Publisher cut from net profit after recouperation is around 50% So developer get around $5.88, but obviously for some countries it's can be better because there is no VAT or lower VAT, but price there would be like $5-15. PS: And yeah from $5.88 you still owe some corporate tax.
why are refunds so commonly counted against sales in this way? Wouldn't a refund cost essentially nothing?
To be honest it's just a thing from financial models inside industry. When you plan how much copies you suppose to sell to turn profit you must consider refund rate as well.
Another reason is that games on Steam can and are often refunded after quite long time has passed. E.g people buy lots of games on holidays or sales and then refund them when they decide not to play it. Sometimes refunds can happen even after a year if e.g player can't get your game to run on their device, etc.
But yeah it make sense not to include it in math for single sale that was not refunded.
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
I literally started a company on that thesis. It failed, but I still believe in that mission.
Were you trying to make short games or offer some kind of abridging service? Because I've wondered about that too. Like, right now there's a pretty big dichotomy between "purchase and play a game myself" and "watch someone else play it on youtube/twitch". But it would be interesting if there was a market for a kind of interactive guided tour, like for $10 let me play the best 4-6 hours of AC:Odyssey, and that's deliv…
I love this idea; I can no longer justify 40-100 hour playthroughs. Lots of people rave about Elden Ring but the time investment is just really offputting. I'd buy a version of it at half the price and one quarter of the playtime.
That said, I'd imagine a fair chunk of the impact of major set pieces and end bosses is that you've spent many hours to get to that point. An abridged version would have to leave bough in to allow emotional investment in the story. This is still possible.
Gamers Digest? (For those of you who remember Reader's Digest).
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#327How did you determine the price of the game?
Since this game both have a publisher and at least partially funded by them (by author comments here) most likely it was publisher decision on pricing.
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#328Great work! My game has some features inspired by Ballionaire. I also used Godot, i need to dissect your pck file to see how you organized things. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3499470/Rogue_Bricks_Demo... Although i should caution poeple, most indie games fail. They fail hard. #1 tip: your game must be good looking to sell copies.
> your game must be good looking to sell copies
Nah, vampire survivors and balatro look like crap by modern standards, yet are breakout hits.
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#329Just put in a request for a cheat on WeMod :)
Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam
#330inspiring story. thanks for sharing