Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Gratuitous Business Expenses

cliffski

I did some analyzing of the last 10 months of positechs expenses and I get this graph:

chart

‘Training’ might seem weird, but it’s because positech is not just me. There is another person doing some writing and proofreading, and yeah, I’m actually investing in training for that person, which is a very long term investmenty thing.

Infrastructure is stuff like web hosting, accountancy and other ongoing expense stuff. Shows is a new one for me, and basically that’s attending GDC in the US as a visitor (including flights and hotels) and exhibiting 2 games at rezzed (including hotel).

PR includes fees to PR people, plus similar expenses on game trailers and website design and coding, including this blog.

Actual expenses are about 22% of revenue. Note that salaries and dividends as the owner of the company aren’t included in all this. Game production costs are basically contractor payments.Obviously if I included a calculation for my own time, the game production cost would be dramatically higher.

Current projections put this years profits lower than last years, although that may turn around once Redshirt and Democracy 3 go into beta.

Yeah, I’m a chartaholic.

7 thoughts on Gratuitous Business Expenses

  1. That is a lot of advertising.
    Where do you spend it?
    And can you track the effectiveness of ads?
    How is the ROI?

  2. Do you know why this years profits are projected to be lower than last? Is it market or is it your expectation that D3 sells less than GSB?
    As D3 is less graphical game, did it cost less to make than GSB?
    Is the profit / total expenditure ratio similar for the different games?

    Kind regards,
    Dave

  3. my business year is october to october, so the profits will probably be lower because we are only going to have a month or two at most of new games being on sale. I’d always expect years where I’ve had a brand new game on sale to be more profitable than others. I expect D3 to do as well as D2 (hopefully more) but right now it’s all cost and no income.

  4. “my business year is october to october”

    I just wondered, is there a specific reason why you don’t do the British tax year of April->April for your own records?

    Also a *real* chartaholic would have multiple chart types … all displaying the exact same data! ;)

  6. I personally cant wait for GSB2
    every day i check gratuitousspacebattles2.com to see if it says something besides
    “good things come to those who wait”

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