Is Anyone Making Any Money From Their Games?

Yeah me too. But you know what, not sure who said this but "The code I do not need to write is the code I do not need to debug". How is this translates to BuildBox is that instead of focusing on technical details and beautiful software development principals we can just concentrate on game design.

 

I totally agree with you but the reason of my comment was we all read theories and books time by time specially during my graduation i have read many books but many times the real life facts are totally different from bookish knowledge and here we all are like a family and we have to care and share together but its not happening here some people earning well but most of the member here not getting reward of their efforts due to lack of experience maybe because those who got experience not willing to share the actual fact and mostly refer to the theoretical stuff again , I agree that sharing experience is their own decision nobody can force them but most of the people would like to listen them sharing the practical findings.

 

I believe the reason is that there is no silver bullet. There is no right way or wrong to do games. But there are tons of principles that takes time to learn. A toddler will fall thousand times before can properly walk and then takes couple of months before can jump and run. And to earn gold in olympics it takes years, many years after that. Even if the best coach teaches the toddler how to do the breathing technique correctly and how to position body and correct leg movements, a toddler would not be able to understand. However, that toddler needs to do it, fall, stand up and try again, fall, stand up and try again and again. And slowly learning techniques. And it is not about whenever you can program or know BuildBox inside out, it is about game theory and color theory and music theory.

PS I am still a toddler...

 

what is the purpose of community than? if we still have to learn individually? community help us to grow faster we all are toddlers but what if every one guide each other which approach is right and which approach is wrong its different having a coach and having 100s of helping minds.

 

This may be the most brilliant analogy on the entire forums about design and success... And believe me, I have read every single post made since joining... This says it all...

@trudnai I knew I liked you for a reason...

 

Honestly I believe people here are very helpful. By going through forums you can literally find an answer to question you have. You shouldn't expect people to solve all your problems for you or give you all theri game development and marketing information. That's like me asking you to publish your BBDOC file for every game you make to the forum.

Buildbox is a really great software and is doing to game design what 3D CAD software has done for Mechanical Engineers. Previously to creat the models for a part the Engineer had to work with a draftsman to layout the drawing for a part, and most times the draftsman would get it wrong or spend a lot of time making changes to the drawing for every update. Now with CAD software there is no need for a draftsman (programmer in the case of BuildBox), so the Engineer can focus of the design aspect and easily make updates as needed..

No one is going to teach you all the methods to design an innovative game because that is the whole point of innovative design, to use the tools you have to create something unique. If it has already been created, then it is not innovative.

 

Not enough for that private island I always wanted, but yeah

 

I think you forget one really important aspect: style! Making games is an art-form, a commercial one (most of the time) but in its essence it's still art. So no, it is not about the theory but rather about the praxis and how you are expressing your art through the tools available. And there, I completely agree with Machine Rise: it's about how you go through your life and everything you do. And all this experiences will show up in your games. Having said that, I completely agree with Taimoor too. In the end we all are having our own journey. It doesn't mean that some books that worked for someone will work for others too. But it certainly can, so it's always nice if someone recommends to others what worked for her/him.

But there is this other part nobody is talking about and what we are saying I suppose, is, that some people here have the experience and a learning curve which would allow them to talk about it and share their experience regarding marketing and publishing. Helping others by sharing the knowledge. That's all. And yes, I think there is a silver bullet. There always is. More when it comes to how the industry works. The process, the numbers, the market, the interests, what to do and what not, etc. We mostly do not lack creativity, but we lack at the commercial part. So this is basically what we are saying: we ask people with knowledge on this part to share their journey (hence the title of this thread) and when we do, it somehow is a little disappointing when Machine Rise gets back to us with the same response of the books that helped him so much. He completely ignores what the question was about. It would be better to say: I can't talk about it or even: I don't want to talk about it. Or even silence would probably be better. And that's it. We all can move on and hopefully someone else will talk about it later. But as said before, we have just a very few developers here who would be able to talk about it and Machine Rise, you probably are the most successful of them all. That's why we all have so much high expectations when you give an answer. lol. But somehow I feel this is a deja-vu...

Just keep going and we all will get there eventually.

 

wait... this is coming from the same @Christoph that said art serves no purpose?

 

Haha yes. Damn art is everywhere. I should have said we all are pimps and are prostituting art. But that's another discussion.

 

Art is very important I agree. But at does not make a game great by itself. It helps on the aesthetic for sure. And helps to get people to try your game ("hey look at that game, looks cool, let's download it"). But if you look at Flappy Bird, that's not a very artistic game. At some extent I would say childish graphics (no intend to pun here). What about the game play? Very simple, one rule and one tap... People like it? See so it is not that easy, who would have thought that would be a top got game one day? That's why we have to learn and learn constantly.

But the silver bullet you are talking about is actually not a single one. One silver bullet is what @Machine Rises taking about: Learn game theory and design for game and try and try and try an until you succeed. Second silver bullet is what @TreySmith talking about: Analyze what people like, what is trendy and then make a game that contains key elements (and that includes art too)

Other thing is what Trey was talking about could of months back about a different subject but it is true here too: Even if you have the right formulae it may only work momentarily. Especially if you share that with others it will no longer work. Imagine you know Pokemon Go will be the next hit and you share this idea here and all in a sudden everyone is coming up with a clone. There gamer is no longer unique so would not be that exciting anymore. Not yours, nor those 100 other clones... and then next day forum would be full of with compound that "hey you said it is the next thing but I only got 100 downloads, can you tell me what's wrong?"

I think everyone is here to help but no one will share their formulae for this reason. But people already pointed out that you should read a book. Sorry, not "a" book but a specified book with title and author. And Trey already told us many times how to analyze current game his and collect ideas from there. We just need to listen to them

 

telerebor i think you need to read the thread from start because no one is denying with the fact that some people here are really helpful i were talking about the practical stats outside of buildbox, some real life fact....

 

About the community. On one hand people are helping here in ways that keeps my faith in the human spirit
but on the other hand I was warned many times not to showcase my games in development because people my still them.
I would love to show you what we do, the progress from concept to a full game but sometimes when people worn you of a wolf, there is a wolf .

 

Totally agreed.

 

I think i should take first step to answer your question
before I share my knowledge, i must tell you this data is for 1 jan 2015 to nov, 2015.


50,000 downloads= that amount
(this is overall data from chartboost)
plus Admob $250+ earning

 

Thanks Bilz for sharing the stats. This is what we want to see but I'd also appreciate your thoughts regarding the revenue you have. Are you using Chartboost alone or with Heyzap? What do you think is it low or okay? And why do you think is it how it is? To be honest, I thought it should be a lot more than that. 50,000 downloads is a pretty nice amount of users. But you only earned 0.022USD per download if I calculated right (I'm really bad with math).

Question to everyone:
I saw with my first game that sometimes the CPI is really really high. Like it goes up to 25USD and sometimes it is really low like 0.02USD. I've set up Facebook and Admob with Heyzap. Admob is the one which runs stronger but can it be, that if they need to compete with Facebook they give you a higher CPI to get the ads placed by themselves and will not lose them to Facebook? If this is the case it would be recommended to set up always at least two competing ad networks?

 

i haven't used Heyzap yet.
Yes the amount i earn is very low its because it took me long time to improve my gameplay enough to get "Active Users". during the period i learnt a lot!

If you want profitable then you must consider your work very hard in 2 steps (basically)

50% your product (your game, includes quality, Enjoyable)
50% is marketing (getting traffic to your game and beating your competitors in fun way)
Bonus % how you popping Ads? its really matter!
Ads frequency should be 3 or greater, in that way user can experience the "game" instead ads.

This is what i learnt from my timeline.



lastly, Sorry for my Awesome English lol