3 Ways To Make Money BEFORE Finishing Your Game

Did you know I brought in enough money, six figures in fact, for both my games, Pinstripe and Never Song, which are on pretty much every platform out there? I brought in enough money, six figures, before I even launched the game. A lot of you probably think in order for me to become a full-time game developer, I got to make games and sell those games and sell copies and make money that way. And even still, we all know that most indie game developers don't make a lot of money. Somehow I figured out how to make money before even launching my games. It's kind of weird. And I didn't know that when I started making indie games when I was 16 years old. I'm 31 now. I'm going to share how to do that. All right, the first way to make money before you even finish your game is work with publishers or just secure investments from investors. I think going with publishers is probably an easier route because there's a ton of publishers out there. All you got to do is find the publishers, find their email addresses. I recommend finding actual individuals and their email addresses, not just info@ curvedigital.com, but rather find the

maybe the CEO, the COO. Find their email address and email them [music] with a maybe a good subject line, a catchy subject line, maybe any awards you've gotten for your game or just good reviews. And then send them a press kit. So, on screen right now, here's my press kit for Never Song. You just send something like that over to a publisher and then start the negotiation process. Now, the caveat here is that they're going to take a rev share, probably 30 to 50, maybe even 60% of your game sales. But you can secure an advance upfront and the advance can be $30,000 to upwards of $300,000. And you can take that money and go full-time and quit your job. This isn't crazy. This isn't some weird secret. This is what I do and this is what a ton of indie game developers out there do. And I actually get emails from a ton of indie game developers emailing me saying, "Hey Thomas, I'm actually going to meet with Armor Games." Or, "Hey Thomas, I'm going to meet with Serenity Forge. Are there any tips you can give me?" So, I I I I think I've gotten maybe a dozen emails from indie game

developers who are doing exactly what I did. So, that's the first way. Just reach out to publishers. If you're willing to give up a rev share when you launch your game and hey, it might be worth it because of the income that those publishers bring in with their marketing efforts, efforts maybe you don't even understand how to do, the income they bring in might actually be worth the 30 or 40% that you're willing to give up. So, reach out to publishers if you're interested making enough to go full-time before you even finish your game. The second one is, you guessed it, crowdfunding. Again, this is not a crazy thing. It's not some pie in the sky dream. I remember I was at the beach, some vacation with my friends and family, and I was sitting out on the patio and I was thinking, "Maybe I should do a Kickstarter campaign." This was a long time ago. This was before I even did my my Pinstripe Kickstarter campaign, which Pinstripe is my first commercial release. And I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, "I might do a Kickstarter campaign." And this was again, a long time ago, so things haven't really changed. And maybe you've heard this as well, "Oh, Kickstarter's dying." Or, "Oh, Kickstarter's too

hard." Or, "It's really hard to get traction on Kickstarter and you're you're going to fail. And what if you fail publicly and you're going to make a fool of yourself." And I remember sort of saying the same talking points in this conversation. And it wasn't until a year later that I flew out to California for some tiny, tiny little indie game competition. And I met a guy there. His name was Nathaniel Weiss and he made a game called Songbringer. He made a decent amount of money off of his smaller Kickstarter campaign. And he said, "You should totally go for it. What do you really have to lose?" Now, obviously you do have a few things to lose. You can lose credibility if you only raise like 500 bucks and then a publisher, let's say you want to work with a publisher maybe, they might see that campaign and say, "Well, it only made $500. That's a proof of concept that failed, so we're not going to work with you." So, that's that's kind of really the only thing you can lose. It's it's significant, but I wouldn't worry too

much about it. So, ultimately he said, "Thomas, what do you have to lose?" And so, I launched my first Kickstarter campaign and this was not without a lot of effort and a lot of research and typing on YouTube how to, you know, do a Kickstarter campaign, how to get views for your Kickstarter campaign, how to get a Kickstarter campaign to go viral or hit the homepage on Kickstarter. And I also reached out to people at Kickstarter in New York. And I reached out to them and actually had a call with one of the the higher-ups in the game department. Just talked to them and figured out the best way to to launch a campaign. So, ultimately my point here is that I started out probably right where you're at right now thinking, "Oh, I can't do that. I don't want to make a fool of myself." Or, "It doesn't work like it's not that easy." And it is kind of hard. I went from that point of view to actually launching it and and securing over $100,000 with my campaign [music] for Pinstripe. So, I did the same with Never Song. Raised $86,000 for Never Song and then also another like $10,000 in a post

campaign with a platform called BackerKit. So, ultimately Kickstarter is something you should consider. It is scary. You are putting yourself out there. I get it. It's definitely not nearly as simple as reaching out to publishers. But ultimately, you can do it. It's totally possible and the reason I say that is because again, I was in a position where I thought it wasn't possible. And then suddenly I realized, "Oh, it's possible. It's totally possible." Now, I know what you're thinking. I want to I want to answer this question really quick before we move on to the third reason. You can launch a Kickstarter campaign while also working with a publisher. It's not either or. So, I actually partnered with Serenity Forge, my publisher for my second game. I partnered with them while also doing a Kickstarter campaign. Now, I didn't say in the Kickstarter campaign that I needed the money and if I couldn't get the money, I wouldn't be able to finish my game. I made sure I was clear and honest and said, "No, we're working with Serenity Forge. They've provided a little bit." And it was a little bit, tiny bit and I'll admit that, at least

to me. It was a tiny little bit of money, not near six figures. But they did offer up a developer to help me full-time, which was a huge part of the deal. So, check out Kickstarter or maybe even Indiegogo. See what you think. It might be worth your time. The third way to make money before you even launch your game is a variety of things. So, we're I'm just going to sort of list them off here because they're they're smaller sources of income, but they're income. I just don't want to make it into like 10 points here. Patreon. I brought in about $700 a month with Patreon and that was via my social media. I just sort of had it as a link in all of my social medias and I would also pitch it as a call to action, "Hey, support me on Patreon." On my YouTube videos, I brought in like $400 to $700 a month from YouTube ads. I understand that most of you guys don't have YouTube channels, so I'm not even going to sort of dig into that. Maybe that'll be a separate video. But it wasn't a lot of money, $400 to like $600 a month from YouTube ads. Also, this is something that I do now. It's not what I did previously, but I just started doing it

recently. One of the ways you could bring in income is sell tools. Spend about a month of your time creating a toolkit for maybe a first-person shooter. I'm actually working on that right now. It's called the classic FPS pack and I actually used it to create my game. So, I'm selling tools I created for my game. This was obviously with a huge help from my buddy AJ. I want to let you guys know AJ is a one of my buddies in Australia and he put together this kit. We're going to sell that on the asset store. Or maybe some brushes on Photoshop. I have brushes and I include those in my online programs, templates, art templates, or maybe 3D assets, 3D modular assets, 2D modular assets, sound packs. The list goes on and on of things you can sell on the Unity asset store or TurboSquid. The beauty of this, the beauty of this, is that it's a slow drip of income. It just slowly drips into your account. But it adds up. Now, one of the bigger income streams that I receive because of

tools available is I offer up programs. So, you heard me pitch my online course 2D Art Pro. That's that's another huge source of income. Now, admittedly, admittedly, it's good for me to disclose this, that has recently overtook my game sales. So, even though game sales brought in, you can look at my website fulltimegamdev.com, I disclose all of the amount of money I've made for my games. I've brought in over half a million dollars in game sales. Whether it's partnerships with publishers or partnerships with platforms like Apple Arcade or or just game sales from Steam or Humble Bundle or, you know, what, maybe a Steam daily deal. All of that income, Nintendo Switch, you get it. All of that stuff is over $500,000. So, yes, game sales are a huge portion of my income. Partnering with publishers or doing Kickstarter campaigns, all of that is a huge source of income. I think it is important for me to note that my programs have recently overtaken those numbers. But it's it I think it should go without saying that the majority of my career, about a decade,

was just bringing in income outside of tools and resources available for game developers. But it's certainly something to consider. Can you consider maybe adding some assets to the asset store and just selling them slowly, piece by piece by piece? It's a drip of income. It's a little bit. But guys, these income streams that I'm mentioning in this third point, they add up. $700 from YouTube ads, $700 from Patreon, $500 from assets. They add up. That's about maybe half of what your small, maybe if you have a small, tiny budget, that's like half of it for the month. So, consider doing that. And these are all driven by social media. And you've heard me talk about this in my previous videos. Build a social media army because you can pitch your products to that army and they're happily going to embrace them because they love you, they love what you do, and they want to learn from you or they want to maybe purchase your programs or purchase your assets or just support you on Patreon. Anyways, guys, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to leave a like, subscribe, and comment

below. I love to read your comments.