That sort of makes it worse, not better. At $20 a pop, 10k copies is $200,000. And he didn’t get $20 a pop for all of them since I know it’s been on sale on Impulse for a bit less, plus there’s the Impulse cut for sales that way. I wonder if $200,000 even covers the total development cost. It can’t cover it by much if it does unless he got quite a bit of donated time from anyone that helped out.
If AI Wars has done well for an indie game then prospects for indie developers doesn’t seem very healthy :(.
Thanks Spelk and Chris, that was interesting and informative! Chris seems to really think things through and to be able to communicate his thoughts in a way that is seen far too seldom. I expect many great things from his company over the coming years.
3 guys, 1 year of work. Not sure how many people actually worked on it or for how long, but Chris didn’t do it all himself since he’s mentioned artwork and such. Even if you had no material costs, you’re only making 66k a year each in salary. For a self employed person, that’s not particularly good (no vacation, no healthcare, no holidays, nothing).
Add in material costs like any advertising, coding tools, systems, etc, and the picture gets gloomier.
