WereCoder

@werecoder.gamedev.blue

845 Followers 119 Following

🕹️ Solo Game Dev 🎮 Former AAA Dev. 🌳 Working on a custom engine + survival game. 🔁 I repost Indie Dev progress.

Question: What's more likely to break even, a lottery ticket or an indie video game? Answer: A lottery ticket is more likely to at least break even (return your initial investment) than a typical indie video game is to cover its development costs. Lottery Ticket Odds of breaking even: The probability of winning a prize equal to or greater than the ticket price is generally much higher than the chance of a game breaking even financially. While the odds of winning the jackpot are astronomically low (one in 292.2 million for Powerball), lotteries offer smaller prizes, and the overall payout structure means a small percentage of tickets do return their cost or more. Expected Value: Lotteries are designed with a negative expected value, ensuring the house (the state) always profits over time. Indie Video Game Odds of breaking even: The statistics for indie games are stark: around 70% of indie games never break even. Many make less than minimum wage when accounting for development time and costs, and some literally earn under $1,000 in their lifetime. Complexity: Breaking even on an indie game requires not just creating a quality product, but also successful marketing, good execution, luck, and navigating a saturated market, which demands significant time, skill, and often substantial initial investment (anywhere from $10,000 to $1 million). Even for the small percentage of games that "catch on," success is not guaranteed. In summary, a lottery ticket offers a statistically higher chance of simply recovering the initial monetary cost compared to the significant financial challenge of an indie game covering its extensive development costs.
A dungeon room with debug geometry denoting areas that are reserved for a particular purpose.
A girl with a sword examines two dungeon stairwells which intersect and block each other.
A girl with a sword walking down a ramp in a crude dungeon.
Soccer balls thrown into a video game world bounce off of the floor and one wall, but slide through another wall which does not have proper collision.
A medieval woman attacking a skeleton with a sword.
Video of a female adventurer walking through a fantasy forest with tall cliffs. Later, she kills some skeletons in melee combat.
This is a weird looking flower. Google says it's called Red Spider Lily, Lycoris radiata, Hurricane Lily, or Surprise Lily.
F32 NewAnimTime = GetAnimTime(); for (const AnimationEvent& CurEvent : MyAction->Events) { if (OldAnimTime < NewAnimTime) { if (OldAnimTime < CurEvent.Time && NewAnimTime >= CurEvent.Time) FireEvent(CurEvent); } else { if (NewAnimTime >= CurEvent.Time || OldAnimTime < CurEvent.Time) FireEvent(CurEvent); } } OldAnimTime = NewAnimTime;
A torch glowing in front of a cabin with woods in the background.