three years of full-time indie dev
ยท 8-minute read
hello! it's been three years since i became a full-time indie dev & translator. i started in 2023 april & things are still going swimmingly. i made a post after the first year & the second year so this is a post after my third!
this year i switched partway from using notion to obsidian for keeping my dev work organised, so i don't have the same references for data, but i'll share some general stats!
working days
i moved my general task tracking system from notion to obsidian so i don't have an easy way to check what days i worked and what days i didn't, but i do know that i took a lot more days off this year than the year before! (mostly because i was in hospital for a couple of weeks & resting for a good portion after that.)
currently in obsidian i'm using tasknotes to track stuff. it does have a time tracking system, but i'm not familiar enough with it or obsidian currently to make a formula that would show me more information about the overall stats. i mostly use the pomodoro timer to keep me focussed!
revenue
my revenue split is more like it was again in the first year! year two was an anomaly with android at the top because A TAVERN FOR TEA came out on play pass on google play. this year i didn't have anything like that, so things have settled back into the previous rhythms.
steam is my steadiest income with regular sales during steam seasonal sales & festivals. i would like to release more of my itch games on there but i have to brush them up some first!
i tried releasing A TAVERN FOR TEA's prologue comic, A TAVERN BEFORE TEA, as a dlc on steam, but it's sold very little haha. i'm thinking that bonus dlc like this is harder to sell after the initial release. it doesn't help that i didn't really do any marketing for it, but to be honest, i didn't really want to do any marketing & am kind of thinking i don't want to do much more marketing stuff for my games in the future. (more on that later.)
i'm still going to be releasing another bonus dlc in may for a different title since i want to though, so we'll see how it goes! (keep an eye out on the A YEAR OF SPRINGS steam page... ๐)
android is at 18.2% mostly due to revenue from A TAVERN FOR TEA on play pass still. my paid games on play pass still do much worse in comparison. it honestly feels rather weird to have money coming in from this because i don't really 'do' anything for this revenue. i guess the same could be said for my older more popular games on steam, which continue to sell fairly regularly whenever i put them on sale, but for android it feels even more like whether or not i get money is kind of just out of my hands, because i was just lucky to have the opportunity to put A TAVERN FOR TEA on play pass.
translation is 12.9% this year - lower than last year! i didn't do as much translation work this year but i still had the opportunity to work on quite a number of fun titles.
i have a few translation things lined up for later in 2026 already too, so i'm looking forward to that!
› my translation (& other work) portfolio
patreon is at 11.2% this year, so that hasn't changed too much. as usual i'm very grateful for people who support me on patreon since i can share stuff that's still more work-in-progress or stuff that i don't end up releasing at all.
i also just enjoy drawing the monthly postcards a lot haha. so thank you for your support on patreon! ๐
console is at 7.8% this year, which is higher than last year but lower than year 1. i don't usually sell a huge amount on consoles & i think that's the case for a lot of less popular games because it's hard to find anything on the store pages unless you're high up in the rankings or people already know your title (so they can look it up). there isn't an easy discovery method like steam.
that said i still like having my games on consoles because it's cool!!
› (look up A YEAR OF SPRINGS, A HERO AND A GARDEN, or Marron's Day on the console of your choice!)
next is other at 6.0%! this section includes stuff like A YEAR OF SPRINGS being in a fanatical bundle, some honorariums for having my games in gallery events, & ko-fi (which i've lumped into this section instead of having as a separate section like before).
the revenue from the plushes i got made for A YEAR OF SPRINGS also fits in here. i'm really happy with how they turned out! i'm not planning on doing another lot when the shop runs out of stock, so pick one up while you can if you haven't got one already โฃ
itch is at 4.7%, so about the same! as usual, itch doesn't sell much, but i just like releasing my games there because it's easy to do so & i can do silly stuff that's more experimental or not quite finished yet, like my roguelike game that i made in renpy - planning on updating this more in the future!
finally the sliver doesn't actually get a tag on the chart, but gog is at 2.11%. the year before i tried to get marron's day on gog but they never responded so the game still isn't on there & i don't imagine it'll ever be on there at this rate 🤷 i might just lump this into 'other' next year...
bonus: expenses...
the chart above doesn't include expenses, but my top expenses for this year were...
- exhibiting
- translation
- software
which is exactly the same as last year which was also the same as the first year! it's nice to see that pretty stable. i think for 2026 exhibiting will be much lower though, since i don't have any big plans for exhibiting.
in closing!
so, that's three years of full-time indie dev & translation, & i'm now in my fourth year. i'm hoping i'll reach my fifth!
as usual, if you yourself are considering going full-time indie in dev (or translation) & have any comments/questions, feel free to leave a comment below or send a private webclap.
i'm glad i can still do this because i love just making stuff that i enjoy & being able to do it on my own terms. the games industry here has been increasingly trying to push ai which i don't personally want to use in making my stuff, & if i were working a job at a regular game company, it would be hard to push back.
i mentioned earlier in the post about how i kind of don't want to do any more marketing stuff for my games, but seeing ai being used in even a lot of indie games (& some of these games being fairly acclaimed) has made me feel more & more like i don't really mesh very well with the more business-y indie dev scene at large, & i've found that a lot of so-called indie events here are more focussed on the business side too (which inevitably has more people using ai for their games, or so it feels to me). i just don't enjoy trying to market my games at events between games made with ai & speakers promoting ai, so at least at this point of time, i have no hard plans for exhibiting my games at any big event this year, & i just generally don't feel up to marketing my games more online either because the whole scene feels so dire.
this might just be me feeling a bit catastrophic about everything, but the thing is, i chose to go full-time indie dev because it's something i love doing. up until now, promoting my games at events was something that was tiring & a lot of work but still fun because i got to meet people with similar goals & chat with them about making games &c. but now i go to events & i get to hear about people making assets with ai & trying to explain that no, they're good at code so it's ok that they use chatbots to help them do the tedious stuff or whatever.
i've honestly kind of given up talking to people about how i think ai in games kind of sucks because every conversation i've had about it in person is exhausting & never convinces anybody already using ai to stop. a lot of these are conversations with people i respect & otherwise generally agree with on many things, which makes it even more exhausting.
so to sum it up, i just don't feel very positive about game dev as a whole recently. i feel like all i can do is make my games in a way that i am personally ok with. i can't change what other people do, but i can choose what i do, & i still do want to make games. i hope i will still be doing this next april. we'll see!