• MysticKetchup@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Is it though? 100k isn’t really a lot after Steam’s cut and taxes (unless you live in a cheap CoL country). Even with a 1-person team it probably breaks down to about 50k a year after Steam/taxes and that’s only if you make a top 5 percent game on your own.

    Elsewhere in the report it mentions that games have become increasingly winner take all, where in 2016 top games only made up 37% of all revenue, now they take up 61%.

    • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Making enough to live on as the 700th best PC game in a year is a lot. There weren’t anywhere near 700 actually respectable games released last year.

        • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          The number of games that people published doesn’t matter. There weren’t more than 300 that weren’t worse than dogshit.

          Steam having no barrier to entry is not a bad thing. It’s their obligation given their market share.

      • William@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s only enough to “live on” if it’s 2-3 devs or if their spouses have good jobs. I don’t think many $100k/yr games have solo devs.

        That said, I do think those are good numbers for most teams, and especially new teams on their first or second game.

        • novibe@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Lethal Company has literally one single person as the dev and Battlebit Remastered has 3. I don’t know why it’d be hard for game number 700 to also have a solo developer, or maybe two.

        • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          The 700th best game in a single year damn well better be a solo dev. Even saying there are half that released in a year that aren’t shovelware is generous.

          If you’re a studio that can’t do better than that you deserve to shut down.

          • dom@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            It’s really hard for small games to get noticed. Even if they are good.