Making money on Android

Develop has an interesting article up titled What's the best way to make money from Android Games?  It definitely has some good points especially about freemium games, but the best info is that it can be pretty difficult to develop for Android because of all the different handsets and firmware combinations that are possible.  If you add to that the fact that the Android emulators are notoriously slow so that testing games is nearly impossible, then you definitely have one king-size headache brewing.  I guess I will just have to see for myself.

What's my motivation?

I got my first donation - thanks Rosario! Just to give you an idea of how online economics work, 2 months of people clicking on my ads barely evened out with what I got from Rosario's single donation! So if you are looking to get rich from a blog, don't hold your breath =)  This experience really got me thinking...as life crowds in, there are times when priorities shift and change and some things that used to be vitally important move to the back-burner.  As indie game developers, we often have the difficult task of trying to squeeze game development into our already busy lives.  So I started thinking about our source of motivation since I was finding it harder and harder to find the time to work on the project.  Getting a donation really snapped me out of my funk and made me really look at how I can better motivate myself to keep up with the project.  I think if we were to list all of the possible motivations that figure in to a game development project we would quickly run out of room, but I want to hit on a few.

I think that I have mentioned before that part of the reason that I am doing this a public/open project is because I feel that it will help me to stay on track, so the expectations of others can be good motivation.  If you fall in this category, I would encourage you to find some public forum, whether it be family, friends, the internet, etc., and let them know what you are working on.  It is hard to slack off on a project when people are always asking how things are coming.

Another reason is that I just love creating something that others will get enjoyment from.  It's also the reason I like to play music up on a stage--I love to see other people getting enjoyment from something I am creating.  If you fall in this category, you may want to get prototypes out in front of others to see their reactions.  It will help you to stay motivated (as long as they like it) and help you to know when you need to make changes (when they don't like it).

The last reason is plain old money.  I think when it comes to the creative process money may feel like a dirty word, but I think we would be kidding ourselves if we took it out of the equation--certainly when we hear of others that get rich off a game that went viral, we can't help but wish that we could be next.  Getting a donation made me realize the real pull that money can have on motivation--I thought, if what I am doing is important enough that people are willing to pay money to support it, then I have to keep going!

In reality, I think that our motivations are very complex and shift constantly.  If you want to see a project through to the end, it's important to maximize all of the motivating factors so that there will always be a reason to continue and give you the extra boost when times get rough.

Effective advertising

So the end goal for any indie game developer is to make at least enough money to be able to continue making games.  I have been researching some of the options available for earning money from games and the tough part now is to decide on what to do.  I know that it may be a bit early to think about it when the game is so far from completion, but I like to have some idea what I may do in case it will effect the development.  So far I have heard of these options:

• Virtual currency
• Direct in-game purchases
• Pay to play(subscription)
• Charge for the game
• Charge for expansions
• Advertising
• Donations
• Sell to a publisher or game portal
• Some variation of the above

The difficult thing is finding the right balance.  You don't want money to get in the way of the game and yet you need money to continue to improve the quality of games that you can provide.  Even if you go strictly with open source and free tools,  and do all the coding, design, art and sound yourself, you will still have to worry about somehow getting test devices, upkeep on your hardware, application fees for app stores, etc.  And let's face it, if you work alone there is a limit to the kinds of games you can produce in a reasonable amount of time.  For a simple game like Radioactive, I think I am leaning towards either pay up front or make it free and pay for expansions, but we'll see!