Question for indies:
If I gaze into my crystal ball, I can relate the current app market to the early/mid 80’s when a single PC developer could make a decent game and make money.
Compare that to today, and it is impossible to compete against game companies like EA that spend $100+ million to make a game with hundreds of developers. Or you need to be an awesome developer and do something niche like Minecraft (and you are probably not one of those people!)
I foresee a similar situation very soon with Phones/tablets. Games will soon be too complex/etc to be done by one person. This implies there is a limited window in which to make money.
Obviously, in the above scenario, one can either be the next Angry Birds (like winning the lottery), or aim to make several games, build a brand around them and get bought by a larger company for $$$.
Has this crossed anyone else’s mind ? If so, how much longer do you think we have before getting squeezed out ? (We are already 2-3 years into this… as measured from iPhone v1.0 release).
Some rough numbers:
- assuming you need $2million to retire
- means $4million in revenue (before taxes!)
- assuming you have 4 years to make this
- means $1m/year = $3000/day income needed!
- at $1 eCPM, $3000 = 3 million adverts/day
If you are not doing this… I hope you have a day job !