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it's been one year since i started being a full-time indie dev (+ translator) last year in april, so for my own records i decided to make some graphs. (i am actually one month past, but i was waiting for the first quarter gog revenue report before posting.)

i think the info is pretty interesting so i want to share in case it can be of help to any other devs who may want to do it full-time or already are & want to see what other people are doing!

my data will be on my total working days, revenue, & units sold.

working days

one thing i was curious about was how much i would actually work if i had no 'fixed' schedule from a day job. i've been logging all my work tasks on notion for a while, so i made this chart of how many days i didn't do any work on per month.

in total, i took 36 days off from the start of april 2023 to the end of march 2024, for an average of 3 per month. some months i didn't take any days off, while in february i took 13, which was about half the month (as i was having some health issues). overall though, i think if anything i'm working more days than i did when i had a full-time job, probably because i have more energy to work on my own stuff! while most of my working days are shorter than they would be at a full-time job, i do think i should take some more days off though overall... at least one day a week.

revenue

since i don't have a set salary any more, one of the big things i wanted to make sure of for my first year was to make sure i had various places to earn from. even if each platform only sells a little, for somebody like me who isn't making that much overall, every little bit helps a lot.

right now i'm also thinking about releasing on iphone (but i have said this a lot... i keep putting it off because i'm honestly not sure if it's worth it plus apple requires 100 usd per year & it just seems like a pain... if there are any iphone devs who think it's a really great platform (or otherwise) please let me know your thoughts.)

anyway, here's a chart of every source of income i've had in the last twelve months.

steam is by far the winner. it accounted for 40% of all my income, more than double the next which is android at 16%. steam has the biggest audience for pc & with its festivals, sales & wishlist features, it is the easiest way for people to actually find my games & buy them.

>> my steam games

for android though it's only this high because i was fortunate enough to have my games added to google play pass. (i got this because A YEAR OF SPRINGS got into the top 10 for google indie game festival in 2022.) without google play pass my games make very very very little. my games are not designed for android, since you play through them once & that's the end. for my free games, they have no advertising & they only have one 'buy coffee for the dev' style in-app-purchase, which not many people buy. my paid games also don't get purchased much. however, with play pass, a lot of people will play just because it's part of their subscription anyway, & i get a little bit of money based on the playtime of each player (at least that's how i think it works).

>> my google play games

after steam & android is patreon at 11%! since i actually do just release a lot of free games on itch, patreon is what makes that possible for me. thank you to everyone who supports me there.

>> my patreon

next is consoles, also at 11%. since i have a publisher for my console games, my revenue is split with them, & they manage everything on consoles for me which i appreciate! i only have two games on console right now, but they still are doing ok for me.

>> (no link specifically... just look up A YEAR OF SPRINGS or A HERO AND A GARDEN on the console of your choice!)

after that is my translation work at 10%! i got to work on some pretty cool stuff over the last year & i always love it. one thing i worked on actually isn't out yet, but it should be out later this year...!

>> my translation portfolio

itch finally comes in here at 6%. i love itch but i don't actually get thaaat many sales there in the big scheme of things! that said i think itch provides way more value outside of sales - i only got into game making as much as i did because of itch & i wouldn't be here without it. it is my favourite platform for free games & i will keep making free games for it for the foreseeable future.

>> my itch games

after that i have "other" at 3% - this is where my random other stuff goes, like selling merch at events or getting rid of my card game stock or my line stamps which sometimes sell randomly.

>> my line stamps! i think they're cute

the chart won't even label these because it's too small, but the next is my gog revenue at 2%... i do like how gog is very simple for me to manage - the gog people will email me & ask if i want to participate in sales & stuff & i just have to reply to say yes - but i think not many people use it overall. however, it's also worth noting that a pet shop after dark, A TAVERN FOR TEA, & A HERO AND A GARDEN were only released on gog in the last quarter of 2023, so these stats only include six months worth of sales for those titles. that said, i don't think it makes any substatial difference.

>> for you gog users out there...!

finally is ko-fi at under 1%! i don't really update the page much & i think many people who might buy me a coffee on ko-fi might as well pwyw for a game on itch instead to be honest because then you also get a little bonus on itch...! but i'm grateful to everyone who buys me a coffee anyway ☕

>> my ko-fi

that's the summary of it! now to get into some more specific numbers...

sales on itch, steam & gog

i wanted to compare sales numbers for the last twelve months for the platforms i'm on. (however, this does not include consoles because i don't have exact numbers for console & it also does not include android because google play console is terrible & maybe there is an easy way to extract data from it for a certain date range but if there is i DON'T KNOW HOW & looking at google play console always gives me a headache.)

i'm only comparing the titles that are on all three platforms, so that's A YEAR OF SPRINGS, a pet shop after dark, A HERO AND A GARDEN, & A TAVERN FOR TEA.

this echoes the data above, but yeah steam sells the most by far! like you can't even compare, hahaha. 93% of my units sold are on steam, while 5% are on gog & 2% are on itch...

but you'll notice that the percentages here don't really match up with the revenue from above. gog sold more units than itch but itch had more revenue, & the units on steam are much higher but the percentage is less different for revenue.

that's because i have far more games on itch - some paid games & a buuuunch of free games that are only there! i think maybe it would be worth it to release the paid games that are itch-exclusive on the other platforms too, but that's something i will think about more some other time.

as well, something to note is that itch does not do regional pricing while steam & gog do. what that means is that for itch, you will pay the exact same base price wherever you are in the world. vat is also added to the itch price, while it is included for the other platforms. essentially, steam sells way more units, but a lot of those are for a lower price than the default itch price. (i think this is overall a good thing though, because the usd price on itch can be far too expensive for some people.)

something i also want to mention is that for steam, most of my sales come from the seasonal sales & steam festivals. pet shop got a bunch of sales during the halloween sale, for example. gog also seems to get some bumps when the games are on sale, but to be honest on itch it doesn't seem to really make a difference if my games are on sale or not - they sell about the same regardless. i think this is because there's no actual good way for people to be notified when a game is on sale on itch, so people are only buying stuff if they are already on the page already.

bonus: expenses...

i showed revenue above but that's just the money that goes into my bank account & doesn't include the stuff that's taken away for taxes or expenses.

unfortunately i don't have my expenses sorted as neatly since unlike payments that come from set places (steam, google, itch, &c.) i have expenses paid to a bunch of different places, but just looking at the top expenses i have listed...

the top three things i spent the most money on!

1. exhibiting
2. translation
3. software

1. exhibitions are expensive! they cost money to exhibit (& sometimes just to submit an application) & then there's travel costs & various other small expenses that really pile up. i exhibited a lot last year & i think it was too much... i plan on cutting down on that this year.

2. translations are a necessary expense & help a lot more people play my games so i'm not really worried about this. if anything i'd like to have more translations!

3. software is generally stuff i'm buying to make games. i lump stuff like fonts & game assets in here too. some stuff i bought that i didn't end up using (unity stuff.........) so these expenses will probably go down this year.

since i work in my own home, i don't really have a lot of the costs that would come from having to deal with a rental office which is nice! sometimes i'll take my laptop out to a cafe & work though for a change of pace.

in closing!

that's the summary of my first year of full-time indie dev (+ translation)! i've survived & can continue doing this still, so for me that's a win. steam is the biggest source of income for me right now, but i wouldn't have been able to survive the year with only steam, so i'm glad to have lots of different platforms for my games.

for the next year, i am hoping to keep doing more of the same, but we'll see how things go!