cybereality I'm glad you get it CyberReality, that gives me hope for this engine because when dealing with new software or even a new site or platform I always check to see if people can see the woods for the trees or not. It's surprising how often people who should know better just don't get how some businesses operate on the back end. Free speech is very important to me and especially after seeing how Unity got hijacked through it's auto-update system by a political activist I'm very wary now about what I install on my machine.

    Well, I won't claim to speak for all Godot users. But I do a lot of research, and I'm careful about who or what I support. Like I was using Unity for a while. Then they made an update (which happened automatically) and it uploaded all of my projects to a cloud server. Now, it's not like I was doing anything secret or illegal. But, on principle, some company should not be remotely accessing and downloading private files from my "personal" computer. So that is when I stopped using Unity. Also, around that time, I started learning Linux, cause I got fed up with it.

    I can make a very easy argument against all that nonsense that's even better than privacy, corporate espionage. It would be so easy for rogue employees to peak at your work and steal your ideas and code, then profit off it but that's another rant for a different thread.

    I want to thank all of you for the feedback and opinions. This conversation has given me a lot of food for thought and I am not really sure whether I want to actually take the time to build my first game without getting some return on it.
    I know it sounds a little bit like something a college graduate would say but, my day time IT job pays well but takes a lot of my personal time to upkeep, so I don't really want to spend 2 years+ of my life to deliver the game I want to make, and have it being a complete time waste financially. I know it is about passion too but, my reality and family responsibility (I got 2 kids) has some weight in my decision to how I spend my time.

    I will think long and hard on this.

    Well, if you want to pay your bills, just get a normal job. You might even make more money doing traditional IT / business app development rather than game programming. Designing games is an art form, and like making music or drawing, lots of people are trying and most don't make any money. The ones that do hit it big are millionaires, but it's a small chance, unless you already have a ton of experience. Making a hit game on your first game is almost impossible. So the smartest thing to do is not quit your day job, and just work on games as a hobby, until you think you have enough skill to do it professionally.

    I think it's also worth pointing out that unless you're a lunatic like me another smart thing to do would be to would be to really downsize your projects, you are not going to make the next Halo or big open world game on your first try. Even I thought I was being sensible when I focused on just making a very basic platformer but that was quite a struggle for me as a beginner. Now I'm settled into the Godot engine I could probably whip a fairly decent one up within a couple of months but the size of your project should never be underestimated.

    Now I disagree that 2D is generally 'easier' than 3D, it depends entirely on what you're making and what your goals are but I'd say what ever you're probably thinking of you should downsize to about 1/5th of that. You also need to take into account things like art, sound and music as well. For the record, none of this is meant to discourage anyone from being a game dev or making games, it's just when it comes to projects and actually putting them out there and making money you have to be very grounded in reality.

    Again, thanks as these are the real conversations that one needs to have to live in the real world of what to expect. For some context, I am a seasoned software developer (Microsoft Stack mostly so Godot C# is what I have adopted) and so far the learnings have been fairly straight forward. Admittedly, it is a whole different ball game than commercial software and yes, more of an art form.

    The reality here is that I am weighing options in my head of just going ahead and building yet another business app with the hopes of making some passive income, or try something 'fun' and do the same with a game. Nothing too fancy, 2D top down RPG) but, as Lethn has alluded to, would probably explode in workload as I have seen how much work it is and have barely completed 2 levels, without sound et al. I was hoping to build a 2d top down RPG that is inspired by old-school games like Buck Rogers and Countdown to Doomstay. Was a lot of fun back in the day...but I might be out of touch with the current-day gamer. (I probably am)

    It would be a bit of a hobby, but I would prefer that it makes money. I have absolutely no intention of becoming a 'game developer' or leaving my day job as I am very successful. I just don't want to throw away the game after 2 years just because the style of game I plan on, would just not be what any mobile platform player or any other would pay $$ for...or that I chose the wrong platform or monetization scheme. If the game doesn't account for at least 25k after 2-3 years of effort of work, I probably would not bother. But trying to do any form or projections would probably be a lot more easy if I can find similar projects and measure their success/effort. Something I would still need to do, but just wanted to hear from the pros here
    🙂

    In terms of what game you want to make and 'throwing it away after 2 years' I completely understand, if you go into games development it is a very good idea to focus entirely on genres you really, really enjoy playing otherwise you'll burn out on a long term project fast. I have a fairly wide range of games I enjoy but it surprised me finding out I wasn't into platformers as I thought I was. As a result with my game dev I'm focusing on shooters, RTS' and RPGs, gotta have that pew pew otherwise I'm not satisfied 😃

    I have heard Epic has a better percentage rate for developers, has anyone posted there?
    And what about GOG? I use them WAY more than Steam these days.

      SnapCracklins And what about GOG?

      GOG on this list is probably the most decent… if we can talk about decency here at all…

        GOG have been caught doing censorship and being dodgy about handling money so I'm definitely advocating for itch really, I am also not a great fan of CD Projekt Red these days.

          Lethn GOG have been caught doing censorship and being dodgy about handling money

          And they aren't exclusively DRM free anymore either. So basically no selling points left.

            GoG is also heavily curated, and you basically have to have a name for yourself before they allow your game. Same with Epic, though Epic is even more strict. Yes, if your first game is really good, or has press, let's say from a Kickstarter or you have a publisher, then you can get on those platforms. But if you aren't established, you have very little chance of getting your game accepted. Steam allows everyone, but requires a review process, while Itch allows everything, similar to YouTube, you just upload whatever you want.

            Lethn GOG have been caught doing censorship and being dodgy about handling money so I'm definitely advocating for itch really

            By " this list" I meant Epic and Steam. I should have been clearer. itch.io is out of the competition.

            Not bad at distributing games on Patreon.

            Unfortunately, my thinking is purely theoretical — I can't really test them in reality at the moment. I cannot withdraw money to my country via the payment services they work with.

              I've been looking into crypto payments (please don't discuss your opinion on NFTs, or whatever, I am talking about in respect to a game development business). However, not many people actually use crypto aside from investors. I think the businesses that have offered it as an option only get around 10% from crypto, and 90% from credit card and PayPal. So it would be very difficult to make enough money without standard forms of payment.

                cybereality I've been looking into crypto payments

                I don't know about other countries, but in ours, you have to pay a very high percentage to cash in crypto. It is extremely unprofitable to get involved with it.

                So it would be very difficult to make enough money without standard forms of payment.

                Strictly speaking, "standard forms of payment" is a transfer to a bank card number. Now everyone is used to services like PayPal and has already forgotten that they were originally designed not to publish their card number publicly. Developments in bank security and the issue of virtual cards have made these services irrelevant, but the force of habit and mindset inertia is too strong.

                But the option of having their own website and a virtual card number for transfers should seem to work. Although, of course, not as successful as the already familiar services.

                  Well, direct bank transfer is complex and unsafe. You need to know additional information (aside from the number) and it's not protected, like credit cards are. So if you do a wire, and the other person never gives you the product, or disappears, you legally can't get the money back (at least in the US). With a credit card there are many protections for bogus transfers, and you can dispute even a transfer you did make and usually get the money back. Sadly PayPal, and other popular forms of digital currency, are just way easier and more convenient, if you can use them. Crypto was supposed to be the answer, but it doesn't work like it's supposed to. You could also easily lose money on conversion fees or market fluctuations.

                  Anyhow, this is maybe too off-topic. I guess my point was that, if you want to make money, it's much easier to be on a platform like Steam or Itch. In fact, I see that Itch recently lost PayPal payments (maybe due to the adult content they host) so it's not like anything is guaranteed. But it's a lot more work to sell a game from your own website, then it is to let Steam (or whoever) handle everything for you. And this is why they take the 30%, because there is a lot of business work they are doing for you that would cost you a lot more if you did it yourself.

                    By the way, this might seem unrelated, but it is related to how much traffic and interaction one might get depending on which site you sign up to. Some recent news dropped regarding twitter and apparently a whistleblower has come forward confirming what a lot of people have suspected about big tech sites and that is that they fake a lot of their user growth for the sake of appearing bigger than they really are.

                    This would definitely explain CyberReality's experience of noticing that on Itch there seem to be a greater amount of user interaction on itch compared to other sites. I've had my own suspicions about steam itself for some time now as well and it will be very interesting when the inevitable advertiser lawsuits roll in after the twitter court case concludes what information will find out about big tech sites in general because people are going to ask "If twitter is faking user growth, how many other sites are doing the same to get my ad money?" the answer will be a lot.

                    For those who have no idea what I am talking about, look up 'dead internet theory'. Do not be fooled by steam and other platforms' shiny claims about user numbers. It's more important for less experienced devs to get real interaction and feedback from their users anyway but I can tell you now on a personal level I have been regularly posting my work on alt-tech and I am getting interaction from randoms I never got on big tech which is confirming a lot of my suspicions about big tech in general. People make the mistake of looking at a site and going "WE'VE GOT 8 MILLION USERS!" and thinking if they get even 1% of that they're going to be millionaires, but how many of those users even post or interact with the site? That is the big question, if they don't then that amount of users may as well not exist and be a lie.

                      Lethn dead internet theory

                      Read a similar text on a German news outlet. The gist there is only a few humongous players dominate the internet and its information flow.

                      Was it initially meant to enable users to exchange information, and part of it outside of what the mass stares at all day long on their mobile phones is certainly used for such applications, much of it has become a swamp of dumb messaging and misinformation.

                        cybereality Well, direct bank transfer is complex and unsafe.

                        Yes, there may be problems with direct transfers.

                        And this is why they take the 30%, because there is a lot of business work they are doing for you that would cost you a lot more if you did it yourself.

                        But 30% is clearly too much, three times more than it should be at most. The easy money is corrupting, as we can see from their example.

                        I see that Itch recently lost PayPal payments

                        But the documentation says they work with PayPal. Stripe looks quite acceptable, but it's not available here either. Otherwise itch.io would suit me completely.