How To Make Money As An Indie Game Designer (Full Guide)
Are you an indie game developer? That’s cool! If you did not publish any game before, or even if you did and did not earn so much money to afford your expense, let’s talk about how you can make money in different ways as an indie game developer.
Firstly, selling a game is not the only option to make money, you should be aware of that. If you haven’t earned any money before, you might be insecure about it.
This is totally okay, we all have been through this process.
Selling games in different ways
If you have a game that you can sell, first check other money-making options instead of selling directly. You still can upload your game to Steam, but also you need to check other options. What are those?
You might consider putting your game into some paid libraries, bundle packages (like Humble Bundle), or maybe game services like Game Pass, or Apple Arcade.
I know it is hard to contact someone in Microsoft or Apple to put your game into those libraries, but if you are indie dev, that also means you are the marketing director, salesperson, or CEO of your little game company. You need to try to find a network from those companies or people who have connections with those companies, so you can ask them if is it possible to do that.
If you still think you have zero connections and you are not able to find them, maybe you can go to marketing companies or game publishers. They might contact those companies for you if your game is good enough. This is a pretty advanced way to sell your games but we also have other options too.
What they are?
If your game has unique parts, you might consider opening Kickstarter for crowdfunding or maybe you can create a Patreon page. You can still sell your game on market, but also you can get a subscription from those services every month and supporters will receive a copy of the game, and maybe some other premium features from your game in return.
The key point of doing all of those is; People. Who will buy, who will subscribe, and who will share, or play your game?
Somehow you need to have some followers & supporters. Because if no one knows you are making a game, selling it on market or you have Patreon or something, that means you cannot make any money.
As an indie game designer, you need people around you online. Every day thousands of indie games have been placed on the market and mostly they even cannot make 1K $/ in a year.
Is it so hard to have followers, and supporters as an indie game dev? Yes. Is it impossible? No.
Maybe you might consider opening a Youtube Channel to promote your development process, your game, and even yourself. If you have some editing, and content creation skills it can help you a lot to promote your game.
Lots of indie games are aware of this situation so lots of them opening YT channels. And everybody not getting views as much as before. You need to do something else, something looks different, a new style of devlog, maybe better edit and better quality.
Always observe what other successful devs doing, but do not copy, just take inspiration.
Not Sell Games, But Help Others To Make It
You don’t have to make a full game and try to sell it, you can help others devs to finish their game and get paid. Freelance is the best option to do that, websites like Fiverr, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour; you can create gigs to get some freelance jobs.
There are also so many people doing it, as you can understand industry get bigger and bigger, and every day new people joining to the game. Whatever you do, try to do it differently, and better.
Observe others' gigs on freelancer websites, which one is selling why, and why are others not selling that much? I assume you can conclude after observing for a while, after that, you can create your own gig to work as a freelancer game dev.
If you have specific skills and interests like game design, level design, animations & VFX, focus to offer those because doing something specific better always making more money than doing everything on average.
Reviews are everything for freelancer websites and it is giving trust to new customers, so at the beginning, you can work for less than the average price to get some good reviews, also you can ask your contacts if to can they hire you for little things to have many reviews.
I also do freelance jobs sometimes but freelance is not so consistent job so it is hard to motivate every time and afford your life without getting hard-pressed.
So while you doing freelance jobs, it is good if you are earning money a bit but also thinking big picture, which means; how you will create much stable income in the future by doing the same thing.
Teach People How They Can Make It
This is not so popular way to make money, but still, it is a good way if you are good about some specific cases. Teaching people how to make it means you can create some paid courses, articles, or maybe book to sell. This is not for everyone because if you are a beginner, that means you do not have so many things to tell, so you can consider other options.
But if you are things to tell or teach, consider creating course or tutorial videos.
Tutorials not making so much money on Youtube but they might help you to gain followers, which is good for promoting your other content in the future.
Courses make money but still, you need to have followers somewhere else so they can buy your course.
Sell Your Game Parts, Not The Game
If you are making some assets, sounds, textures, or any game dev companent like that, you can consider selling it.
Even if you are a good designer, 3D modeler or etc. still selling an asset pack is something else.
Make sure you have good trailer videos, well-prepared documentation, and good description in the Asset marketplaces (like Unity or Unreal Asset Stores).
After you prepared your assets, we are coming to the same point; MARKETING.
For assets, there is some Youtube channel where you can promote your assets, maybe you can give away a few copies on social media. It can help you to promote your asset packs and show more developers.
