two years of full-time indie dev

so, it's been two years since i became a full-time indie dev (+ translator)! i started in 2023 april & things are still going ok (i think). last year i made a post with general data from the first year, so i think it'd be fun to compare that with year two.

check my post from last year here!

i'll use the same references as last year, so it'll be total working days & revenue. (last year i also did units sold for some titles, but this year a lot of my total revenue was from sources which aren't unit-based so i'm going to forgo it!)

working days

i continued logging my work tasks on notion like i did last year, so i could keep track of how much i'm actually 'working'.

last year, i only took 36 days off for an average of 3 per month. one of my goals this year was to have more days off. i took 66 days off, which is a full 30 days (pretty much a month!!) more, so i think i succeeded in that sense! on average this was 5.5 days per month though, & i think i would still like to get this higher, haha.

i took a lot of days off in july because i was travelling with friends & it was definitely a good break for me to relax a bit! march also had a lot of days off because of some health stuff.

october leading up to digital games expo had me really busy with the launch of marron's day &c. though, so i had no days off... i'd like to have my days off a bit more spread out!

revenue

here's a chart showing my revenue split over different platforms! i continued pretty much doing what i was doing last year, with games on multiple platforms while also doing my translation work & other stuff.

last year, steam was the highest at 40%, but that's been swapped with android at the top!!! this is only because i had A TAVERN FOR TEA added to play pass. on android, it's a free app (with an optional 'buy me a coffee' donation iap & dlc) which made almost no money before play pass, but it had a lot of downloads (above 700k at the time of me writing this), so when it got added to play pass people were probably like 'oh this has lots of downloads so it must be worth playing' (unlike my other games on play pass which are paid so had much lower initial download numbers), & play pass pays out based on people's play time, so...

the play pass money has dropped a lot since the initial release, but it's still substantial (at least for me who does not make that much money in the big scheme of things haha), so i'm happy i got the opportunity to compare what it's like to release a free vs a paid app on google play pass!

› my games on google play

next is steam at 21.2% - still a good chunk! my games on steam mostly sell during steam sales & festivals. i can't speak for other devs but for me i think steam is the steadiest amount of income & i am happy to have it as a platform for releasing my games. my 'older' games (i say old, but i only released them a couple of years ago haha) still regularly sell on the platform which is nice!

› my games on steam

then i have my translation work at almost the same amount - 20.0%! this is higher than it was last year (9.8%) because i did a lot more translation work this year! a lot of the stuff i worked on this year isn't actually out yet, but you should see some of it coming out rather soon with any luck 👀

› my translation (& other work) portfolio

patreon is at 8.2% this year, which isn't too different from the 11% from last year. patreon is nice for me because it helps support the games i release for free on itch &c. while also giving me a space to share wips or scrapped stuff that isn't as polished (so i don't want it completely public).

thank you everyone who supports me there! 💖

› patreon

then i have itch at 4.2%! as usual, itch doesn't actually sell that much for me but for me the value of itch comes more from how i can just release pretty much anything i want on there really easily! this year i participated in a lot of game jams & the games i made for those are all available to play on itch, just uploaded right away without having to deal with going through approval by steam/google/&c.

it just lets me do a bit more experimental stuff as well as non-game things without worrying about whether it's worth paying steam 100 usd to release haha. there's something really nice about just making a game & releasing it without any extra hassle!!

› my itch games

console is a bit lower at 3.4% (compared to 11.2% last year). at least for my games, i think it's harder to continuously sell games on consoles vs on steam because there's no good way for people to find my games unless they're actively looking for them. when they first release, they get an initial boost, but after that, you can't really see them unless you look through the section of games on sale, but on nintendo switch eshop that's filled with games like a dozen different versions of aaa clock 😂

while it's super cool for me to have my games on console since that's what i grew up playing on, it isn't as helpful revenue-wise.

› (look up A YEAR OF SPRINGS, A HERO AND A GARDEN, or Marron's Day on the console of your choice!)

the last visible label i have is a generic 'other' section at 1.9%, which is just where i slot everything else, like selling games at events & my meagre line stamp revenue.

› my line stamps

for the next tiny sliver that is too small for the chart to label, there's ko-fi at 1.4%! i have my ko-fi page up as a way for people who'd like to buy me the equivalent of a coffee & i appreciate everyone who sends a drink my way through it ☕

› my ko-fi

last but not least is gog at 0.7%... i filled out a form to try to get marron's day on gog but they didn't even reply so i'm very 🤷 about the platform haha. i do participate in sales & such but overall my games just don't really sell there!

› my games on gog

bonus: expenses...

the chart above is revenue without any expenses. looking at my top expenses for this year, they were...

1. exhibiting
2. translation
3. software

which is exactly the same as last year!! stuff hasn't really changed in that sense.

one different expense though is my health insurance which is now with bunbi, a national healh insurance association for artists! previously, i had just extended the health insurance i had through my previous employer, because japan has a system where you can extend your work health insurance after quitting for up to two years - you just have to pay double what you paid before (because previously your employer would pay half). i still had one year where i could extend this, but after that i would have had to switch to national health insurance.

national health insurance has premiums that change based on how much money you make, while bunbi is a flat amount no matter what. depending on your total income, bunbi can be cheaper or expensive than what you would pay for national health insurance, so if you're curious, you can try using bunbi's calculator! (note that national health insurance premiums will vary depending on where you live! the calculator uses the values from suginami-ku in tokyo.)

health insurance premiums on bunbi vs national health insurance in suginami

bunbi only lets you join if you are part of an association that is signed up for it though. (there are many other health insurance associations too, but this is the one that looked like it would fit my work the best!)

originally i wanted to apply through jnca (japan net creators association) since it looked like it included creators that did stuff similar to what i do, but it only accepts people with japanese nationality, which i don't have, so i had to look elsewhere. (note that bunbi does not require japanese nationality - this is specifically a jnca restriction.)

instead, i ended up getting in through jilla (japan illustration association), which just requires that you be doing your work in japan. (while the name includes 'illustration', they accept artists doing a bunch of other creative work too!)

in general, these associations that you have to join to be applicable for bunbi also have their own membership fees, so i'm paying mine to jilla! i would have happily paid them to jnca if they had been open to including non-japanese people, but that wasn't an option, so that's their loss. i've been in jilla for about a year now though & had the chance to participate in various online events & seminars, so i think it was a good choice in the end 😊

in closing!

that's my second year of full-time indie dev (+ translation)! since i managed another year, i'll be going for a third. hopefully i can keep going to my fourth!

also, if you yourself are considering going full-time indie in dev (or translation) & have any comments/questions, feel free to share them publicly in the guestbook or privately in a webclap below!

for me, the decision to not stay with a regular job & be full-time doing my own stuff has been stressful but definitely worth it. even if it doesn't 'work out' as such, these past two years have been an awesome experience & i don't regret it. (note though that my perspective & experiences are of somebody who lives in a country where it's fairly easy to deal with things like healthcare & pension even as somebody who isn't employed by a company, so your mileage may vary. i absolutely wouldn't have gone indie if i lived somewhere that i felt had a weaker safety net.)

i'll have another similar post one year later with more (hopefully good) data!