There is absolutely no guaranteed return on an indie game. You might lose literally everything. Some people obviously cannot afford to take that gamble, and I suspect a lot more people *can* but decide they do not want to risk it.<\/p>\n
Would you risk $100,000 if I said you have a 25% chance of losing it all, 25% of getting it back, 40% chance of making a 30% ROI and 10% chance of making a 200% ROI? In theory the expected return for this is…<\/p>\n
0.25 * -100k = -25k plus<\/p>\n
0.25 * 0 = 0 plus<\/p>\n
0.4 * 30k = 12k plus<\/p>\n
0.1 * 200k = 20k.<\/p>\n
Total expected outcome is $7k profit, 7%, so not bad, better than the banks. But would you risk it before you did the maths? I suspect not. I suspect most people would not. The big problem is the fact that most people do 1 game a year, or even every 2 years. Thus your ‘rolls of the dice’ are pretty limited. If you have 1 roll, and lose it all, you are fucked. If you have 1,000 rolls, the chances are high you will get your 7% return.<\/p>\n
This is why publishers are a thing. They spread their bets, and reap the 7% premium. They get that 7% because they are able to risk $100k. The maths are not different for them, just the scale. The same thing applies to movie studios and record companies and TV networks.<\/p>\n
Shadowhand or Democracy 3 or my top secret other thing may fail and lose me at least $100k. The chances of all three doing that are really slim, so I’m not worried. But if I was a new indie dev with one roll of the dice, I’d probably be pretty scared.If your $100k of kickstarter and friend-funding is your one chance, you are basically taking a 25% chance of your career imploding with that single dice roll.<\/p>\n
BTW Those figures above are pure guesswork, and I suspect the real figures are MUCH more hit-skewed. I wonder if steam spy has the stats…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is absolutely no guaranteed return on an indie game. You might lose literally everything. Some people obviously cannot afford to take that gamble, and I suspect a lot more people *can* but decide they do not want to risk it. Would you risk $100,000 if I said you have a 25% chance of losing<\/p>\n