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<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p>Ok so this comes a bit out of nowhere and I’m LATE to the party on making this postmortem but that graphic at Summer Games Fest of over 9k+ games being launched on steam had me thinking. So here this goes. Feel free to ask me anything and I’d be more than happy to chat about set up, who to contact, my experience, all the things.</p> <p>Context:<br /> I work in AAA now and I HATE looking at that game because it’s so wack lol</p> <p>Only launched on one console (I regret that but was young and dumb)</p> <p>$135k in sales (about $35k the fist 3 months)</p> <p>20,670 copies sold to date (still move around 165 or so copies when a sale happens</p> <p>Helped me get a AAA job that still work right now<br /> Launched on PS4 to EU and NA</p> <p>I won a Epic Games Grant in 2018 for $25,000<br /> Had no prior experience ever making a game before launching on console</p> <p>Ok so after seeing that graphic at summer games fest I wanted to make a post about how I believe there isn’t enough conversation around consoles being much more friendlier and could help someone out in their game dev journey and/or find new audiences.</p> <p>I can only speak for PlayStation but I know others offer helpful paths to launching on that platform.</p> <p>PlayStation has free public advertising on their YouTube channel. It’s literally $0.00 to post your game to that entire audience. They do this with the YT and social media retweets. I’ve even heard from other indie devs that depending on its reception, they will reach out to chat about the game and placing it in other spots for advertisement. Microsoft will go so far as help fund your game. PS also lets you participate in sales for summer game fest and every single other major games event sale. They don’t exclusively pick and choose. My game, being SIX years old, not very well made, still sells hundreds of copies every time a sale comes up. That small check every month is nice.</p> <p>It’s also gotten WAY more friendly for the folks who may look at console development and run lol. They have videos now that walk you through the process of publishing. YES, you do have to contact epic games to get a specific version of the engine that outputs to a PS5 but they also have an Incredible forum to ask folks for help. They respond fairly fast as well. They’ve also started a dev kit loaner program to get your feet wet. After a year or so, you have to pay $2k for a kit (insane I know, but worth it).</p> <p>I was talking to a publisher scout at GDC and they had mentioned that console is gate kept by “fear” and if you can come to them with a console audience + steam wishlist, they are quicker to respond and hear you out to see what they could help on. I also spoke to folks who work on AAA optimization side and they said if you are a making a indie game and it’s small, 8/10 you don’t need to optimize insanely because these newer consoles can probably handle whatever you are making. Idk I just feel like there is a big “don’t go that way” around consoles, when the entry bar is MUCH lower than it’s being made out to seem.</p> <p>I’m really only commenting on this because I did this and while I have regrets, I honestly think it did more positive than negative. It was hard but when you put it in the context of game development, what isn’t hard lol?</p> </div><!-- SC_ON -->   submitted by   <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Federal-Pension1586"> /u/Federal-Pension1586 </a> <br /> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1tzff7r/6_years_later_20k_copies_sold_135k_revenue_and_i/">[link]</a></span>   <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1tzff7r/6_years_later_20k_copies_sold_135k_revenue_and_i/">[comments]</a></span>