Well there's my question . Is anybody earning a living from the apps they are creating with AGK . This is my end goal although it may never happen this is what I want to achieve . Maybe in another year or so . Is this realistic do you think . Been at this for 18 months now and my games are definitely improving .
Unfortunately not :( - However I do make a living from Visual Studio, Delphi and PHP which is mostly boring stuff as I'd rather be making games.
That's still cool. Would be good to find someone who is making it and find out how they have gone about it . Still very cool Qube. Out of all the thousands of people using AGK someone must be doing it .
Personally I think there are many capable languages/engines out there, therefore it comes down to your own creativity to bring a game/application to market that (hopefully) becomes very successful.
If your product makes a huge amount of money then you've made it. If it makes you just 'some' money then you'll need to follow up with several more projects to keep the money coming in. Could you do that? Have you got more than one project idea?
I think there are programmers a lot more skilled than me on here but I have a few games I've created which aren't too bad although I've still got a lot to learn shaders and textures spring to mind . But I would like to think in the not too distant future that I might be able to earn a living out of this . I've still got my first game I created with AGK and it is positively crap. But the latest ones are getting there . No they are not AAA releases or anything like that but I'm sure someone somewhere would enjoy them . All my games are free at the moment while I'm still learning but I intend to be at the point where I can ask a modest sum for my creations in the next 12 months or so . It may be you can't earn a living at this as there are too many for free being offered but I would like to give it a shot .
Then keep plugging away! 2 very simple games have made a fortune - Tetris and Flappy Birds. Shaders and textures were not required. ;)
No, but in the past, I have made some nice beer tokens from GLBasic! :)
Like Steve said, just really find a language that suits and finish something, chances are it wont make you a million, but generally, you have the excellent feeling of getting something out there and "earning", and if it does really well, then great! :)
Dabz
There are also a load of games in the iOS app store published by KetchApp. Most of these are pretty simple addictive games but one thing that stands out is they are highly polished.
Quote from: Steve Elliott on August 18, 2019, 18:47:56
Then keep plugging away! 2 very simple games have made a fortune - Tetris and Flappy Birds. Shaders and textures were not required. ;)
I agree with that. No harm in trying your best because one or more of your games just may get traction and earn you a fortune. So create games, offer them to publishers, give away free download codes to review sites, do YouTube videos, twitter and anywhere, everywhere you can find to promote your game. You never know but one thing is for certain... If you don't try then you never will.
Quote from: Dabz on August 18, 2019, 19:21:20
No, but in the past, I have made some nice beer tokens from GLBasic! :)
Me too :P - I made a few decent months wages from Galaxix way way back ( 9 years ago I believe ). Not too shabby for my very 1st 3D game.
I thought GLBasic was pretty cool, not exactly sure why mind, but, even though I loved BlitzBasic et all, I was just more productive with GLBasic... I'd love to know why really, lol, I made my first iOS game as I was picking the language up, yet, had a hard drive full of Blitz[whatever] prototypes that I got so far into then stopped!
Oh, thats a lie, I made Wordish which was complete, yet, never released as I buggered up an external harddrive by plugging the wrong adaptor in and killed it! :(
Weird, but, there we are!
Dabz
I wondered if there was any of Wordish left on the internet, and found this:-
http://michaeldenathorn.blogspot.com/
Eeeeeeee Wheres the time gone? :D
Oh, and I finished that dart game, by converting it to GLBasic and that was one that ended up on iOS
Dabz
Why not recreate "wordish" with your current knowledge ... sounds like something easy to play while waiting for the bus etc.
bye
Ron
Thanks for all the replies very interesting to hear your stories . And yes I'll keep at it . Have a nice evening.
I remember Wordish and your darts game :P - Didn't GfK help you with the dart board?
Quote
Why not recreate "wordish" with your current knowledge ... sounds like something easy to play while waiting for the bus etc.
I know Ron, I've pondered that many times, and I'll be brutally honest mate... I'm too lazy nowadays, well, I wouldnt say lazy lazy, work takes more out of me these days, when I get in, I just want to relax, I'm quite content in picking at that platformer thing for now... Just playing, maybe one day I'll get the urge to visit it again, but, I would need to redesign it as it was a bit too woodern looking, and the thought of spending my evenings in Photoshop horrifies me, because like I've mentioned before, digital artwork isnt my preferred type of RnR after a hard days slog! ;)
Quote
Didn't GfK help you with the dart board?
Yeah, Dave kindly let me use it for Nags, as mine looked like one of them cheapo kids velcro dart boards you get from Poundland! :D
Dabz
Quote
Have a nice evening
Same to you fella!
Dabz
Well I've decided to monetize my games by charging for them . Not much from 1.49 to 2.49 and that's in dollars . I think they're probably worth that . If I don't sell any then I've lost nothing as previously I was giving them away . It will be an interesting experiment to see if it's harder to give them away or charge a small fee. Over the last year or so I've had about 50 downloads .
Not many but there you go better than nothing . It may be that over the next 12 months I sell nothing but I won't know until I test the water. Thinking of getting my stuff on play store but apparently there's an issue something to do with it needing to be 64bit and TGC needs to sort out AGK2 to do this . When it's sorted I'll take a serious look . I did have my stuff on game jolt but I was getting more traffic through Itch.io so that's what I'm using at the moment with my own site linking to Itch.io . Have a nice day.
You could try the "name your own price" option at itch.io (and other platforms).
But... I doubt people like to pay for stuff. Non of my games at itch.io hat a single sale. Had a game in the amazon app shop and it got no sales too.
Yes all of them are mediocre, not as polished as others...but they did not look amateurish or like builds based on buyable game templates.
Sales come with downloads/interest/awareness of your products. If you assume that every 1000th download would be a willed-to-pay-a-dollar one, then you can estimate your yearly income.
Some people here might be able to tell you numbers (downloads, purchases... maybe even inapp-purchases/unlocks.
Hope I am wrong and time will tell but I am pretty sure that sales will be not worth the hassle of declaring the income in your tax report then. This counts for you...and this counts for me and plenty of other less lucky developers around the world.
But as you said: who does not try cannot win.
Bye
Ron
Quote from: Pfaber11 on August 31, 2019, 14:26:33
Thinking of getting my stuff on play store but apparently there's an issue something to do with it needing to be 64bit and TGC needs to sort out AGK2 to do this. When it's sorted I'll take a serious look.
RickV on the TGC forums said: "This is a known issue and we'll have a fix for both Classic and Studio next week."
I made roughly about £1200 with two iOS games in a year on the app store, ironically, the one I thought wouldn't do very well got the majority of the sales, which only took a month to build from start to finish.
So you can make a few beer tokens, but unless you put major effort into marketing (Thats a full time job as well), expect to get nothing or a little bit, you never know though until you try, you may hit lucky and end up building something people do want to pay to play.
Another route, and much better is finding what genres are popular to casual gamers, e.g. 40+ year old bored housewifes, build it to suit them then get sites like BigFishGames to sell it for you, but be warned, casual gamers can be very fickle, and publishers like BigFish are more picky on quality (looks and lack of bugs) then your average AAA publisher where they'll just release anything to get sales going.
Following that route you will make money!
I wish you luck! :)
Dabz
Quote from: Qube on August 18, 2019, 19:28:32
Me too :P - I made a few decent months wages from Galaxix way way back ( 9 years ago I believe ). Not too shabby for my very 1st 3D game.
I guess this is the game...the pilot's name is QUBE.
:D
I never used GLBasic and it's interesting how many people even from the Blitz community found it a very productive tool. How long have you worked on this? Did you release the game on multiple platforms? Where did you get the most sales?
QuoteI never used GLBasic and it's interesting how many people even from the Blitz community found it a very productive tool. How long have you worked on this? Did you release the game on multiple platforms? Where did you get the most sales?
I worked on it for about a year on and off as I'd never done a 3D game before so I kinda dived in and just hoped I would figure things out as I went along. Graphics / coding / sound effect / music were all done by me and the only thing which isn't is the background while docked at a space station which was rendered in Daz3D.
It was only ever released on the original iPad 1 era so getting all the textures to fit into the low memory of the iPad 1 was a pain, hence the low resolution textures. I think the iPad 2 had come out by the time the game was ready for release but as the iPad 1 was the most popular the game had to work on that.
I had planned to release on Android and then a higher resolution / texture version on PC. I'd also planned expanding the game for a story based mode and multiplayer but masses of real work piled in and things moved on over time that it needed a complete rewrite and all the model / graphics done again to a much higher standard.
Also GLBasic's 3D engine was no longer up to the task of creating the look I wanted and also there were bugs creeping in like alpha issues to which they added more alpha commands but never really worked the same in 3D and made all the particle effects in Galaxix look bloomin horrible.
So that's pretty much the story behind it :P
Cool!!! What did you use for music...I can hear some nice orchestra samples. Were you thinking about re-work it using AGK? I think it would sell even without a much higher level graphics just needs a light rework. After re-releasing this one you could make a bigger investment in Galaxix II...
:D
Anyway, great stuff!
Quote from: Kris on August 31, 2019, 20:27:03
Cool!!! What did you use for music...I can hear some nice orchestra samples. Were you thinking about re-work it using AGK? I think it would sell even without a much higher level graphics just needs a light rework. After re-releasing this one you could make a bigger investment in Galaxix II...
The music was done with a tracker style app called Renoise with VST plugin called Editol Orchestral (https://www.kvraudio.com/product/orchestral-by-edirol) which is really old now and no longer available.
If I ever fancied doing a more modern version then I wouldn't use AGK as it's 3D engine does not offer the features I'd need and would more likely use Unity which has a vastly superior render and options available.
QuoteGraphics / coding / sound effect / music were all done by me
Enemy ship destroyed - you have a nice and calm voice Qube ;-)
bye
Ron
Quote from: Derron on August 31, 2019, 21:48:57
Enemy ship destroyed - you have a nice and calm voice Qube ;-)
Yes, people think I'm male :))
This is why I speak out your nickname like "qjubie" ("q-bee") - has a way more female touch, doesn't it?
seriously: regarding your game above - how did sales develop? was there some initiative required to get it "running" or how was it that time?
bye
Ron
Quote from: Derron on August 31, 2019, 22:27:04
seriously: regarding your game above - how did sales develop? was there some initiative required to get it "running" or how was it that time?
Initially from day one sales were pretty good. A review site also covered it but didn't affect the sales. Sales continued for a few weeks then slowly dipped to a handful for the rest of the time it was available. Overall the first couple of weeks were the best before sales went down. As said, it made a couple of months worth of good wages but nothing to buy a house or anything.
I'd say back then it was easier to make money from the App Store than it is now. I've not put any personal games on the App Store in years although I do fancy dipping my toes back in again just to see what happens. I say personal games as I did do a few for others but just got paid to do them rather than any income from sales.
Ok, so just some luck to be amongst less games than today.
Thanks for the insight. And now back to the OP :-)
bye
Ron
Quote from: Derron on August 31, 2019, 23:10:22
Ok, so just some luck to be amongst less games than today.
Yes, I would say there was some luck involved + back then the store wasn't swelling of free to play with in-app purchases by big publishers. I would say that if I released the game today with up to date graphics I'd be lucky to sell 50 units without advertising everywhere. The mobile market is swamped and there are a lot of big players / publishers out there and any solo indie developer will need some major luck to get their game noticed.
Having said that, I will give it another shot someday just out of curiosity and fun.
@Qube>>cool little arcade game :-) , it reminds me of the old playstation games like g-police or colony wars
Cool. Plus you (and Dabz) made some cash from games too. A real shame it's all free to play and in-app purchases these days though. And yes, I know quite a few ex Blitzers who went the GL BASIC route, although I don't think it's as popular as it was.
QuoteA real shame it's all free to play and in-app purchases these days though.
Yup, it's all very over saturated these days and you always see the same publishers.
QuoteAnd yes, I know quite a few ex Blitzers who went the GL BASIC route, although I don't think it's as popular as it was.
Nah, it's not as popular these days as it's showing its age. Along with that it no longer supports Mac or iOS but they blame Apple and OpenGL but yet AGK still works fine with OpenGL on with Mac and iOS as do many game maker tools.
Also I found that after version 10.8.1 ( I think that's right ) alpha blending became broke and was never really fixed properly on the 3D side. Plus getting any sort of 3D particle effects was a nightmare to do.
But yes, over time I would say it's user base has dwindled as it's showing it's age now. Although it was recently released on Steam so good luck the them.
Went and took a look at GLBASIC on steam and it does look pretty good . Could someone who has tried both maybe do a quick comparison . It compiles to machine code which is a plus but I don't think it'll produce an Android app although I could be wrong .
Even though I used it, and quite enjoyed using it, I couldnt really recommend it on the basis it has changed, and I dont know whats different, how sturdy it is and all that.
But, if I was going to make something for Android, I'd be venturing to B4A from Anywhere Software, I've used it a lot, it's pretty neat, the syntax is Visual Basic like so easy to get to grips with, loads and loads and loads of libraries to play with, the IDE is about the best out there for that level of dev tool, and it does now come with game dev [2D] specific libraries, I havent touched that specific part myself (No time), but Erel who is the creator of B4A does some first class stuff, and is always really helpful on the forums... Here is the main game dev section of the official forums for you to have a closer look at:-
https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/forums/game-development.84/
Dabz
Not making a living yet but my last game with Unity can be considered as success (for me). At some point my next one might be the one. But that's Unity (again), a 3d game.
..i used to score some very nice money with BMAX (Hoodwink)..ever since i havent did anything related to games..i did try AGK, and eventually i rediscovered Pure basic, which im using right now actively for my G-Code parser/feeder in to my CNC controllers while whole process for each axis is visible in 3D at machne control display. First choice was B4J, but i had no avail 3D module so there PB took place. So, it makes me some nice money now, its 3D but not games. hehe
Just took a look at the B4A and B4J . B4A is about to become free and B4J already is . In terms of speed what is B4X like say compared to AGK2 . You know I'm only looking at this out of curiosity really cannot start learning another language happy with what I've got for now .
Quote from: Pfaber11 on January 31, 2020, 20:35:48
In terms of speed what is B4X like say compared to AGK2.
Speed is kinda relative, depends on how you use the engines and if they are a good fit for a specific project. AGK's biggest strength is that it's very flexible, you can basically use a completely custom render chain and have something tailored to your project that will look and perform very differently from other AGK projects.
As to living from it, I don't stick to one engine but I do live off 3D work, game contract work and engine addons. If the currently planned project gets greenlit I'll live off AGK based gamedev for the next year or two. Which would be great fun, love working with it.
So far all my programs have been games until I dream up something useful to make . AGK is pretty awesome and only 1 game was uncompleted as It just kinda dried up. Ran out of enthusiasm . I intend to just keep going at it and am quite often learning something new . Practice makes perfect although none of my stuff is that . So it seems quite a few on here are making it pay which is quite encouraging and makes me want to press on . I might even get good at it in a year or two . In my latest game I have only used my own graphics and sounds although this is gonna take some time to finish. I'm on my 11th program in 2 years and 3 months and consider this a learning curve , finding a language I get on with and learning some of the ropes so to speak.
Was just wondering does the B4X language do 3d graphics ? I did see mention of a 2d engine but not 3d . I guess I'll always be looking at other languages just in case the one I'm using goes belly up at some point . Hopefully never gonna happen and gonna steer clear of Mark Silby or whatever his name is . I would like to think what I'm using will still be current in a few years time but yes I know the future can change . I would not use my time to learn a language that might only have support for a year although I did start off with blitz3d so I guess I owe that to him .