Author Topic: $100 per day with online games? (Read 8105 times)

toto · « **on:** December 09, 2006, 09:30:55 AM »

Who makes over $100 per day (average) from their online games?
I don't, but I hope I will at some point.
I've heard stories of people making over $30,000 per month from their sites, but I don't feel I'll be one of those selected people

codestryke · « **Reply #1 on:** December 09, 2006, 10:14:15 AM »

I'm doing about $60 a day when all the games are running...

Between rounds though each game is down for about 3-7 days for backing up the db, code, pulling it off the server, burning it then uploading all the new changes for the next round...

KingMonkey Throughout! · « **Reply #2 on:** December 09, 2006, 10:22:25 AM »

well.. i make..... ?0 a month

hehe

toto · « **Reply #3 on:** December 10, 2006, 04:06:14 AM »

codestryke, I think I saw your URL on some of your other posts, and you had about 5 games. $60 is with all 5 games working? It's a nice amount, definitely.
Are you on a dedicated server in order to handle the visits?

codestryke · « **Reply #4 on:** December 10, 2006, 08:10:04 AM »

That money is earned from only two sites, the other is lucky to bring in $60 a month (on a REALLY good month LOL). The other games are still in development so I don't charge for anything in the those games yet.

Yes I'm on a dedicated server P4 (not sure what the htz are) with 2 gigs of ram. Not the biggest server but it's not a cheapy either

Even with that hardware I'm still running a load average of anywhere between 2-12 depending on time of day so we'll be leasing another server starting sometime first quarter of the new year.

----------------------------------------

This goes out to anyone now reading this and going hummm 1,800 a month!!!

If you are planning on running a game for profit as a motivator just stop now and don't even bother going forward! My first web game (I use to code C64 door games back in the day LOL) I didn't charge anything for the first 5 years of running it, including a year of paying for dedicated hosting which isn't cheap! I write these games for the love of writing games and watching a community grow around those games. $1,800 doesn't come close to paying for the time and dedication it takes to run and admin a mildy successful game. By mildly I'm saying anywhere from 20-40 people logged in playing at all times of the day.

It's get up check and answer emails and in game message, go to "real" work, come home check and answer emails and in game messages, answer forum posts, code new features, fix code, fix accounts, market game etc etc etc. The money as a raw number looks nice but the time involved WAY out weights it.

Toto the above wasn't written for you but for everyone who reading this because once someone starts putting out real numbers to people the gears start spinning and they start thinking well I could make this if I did that

I don't want to discourage people from writing games but if you are going to write a game and put it out on the web don't think about money, think about the game, how it works, how you could make it better, spend LOTs of time marketing it, listen to your player suggestions and try to build the best game you can.. Then and only then will money even start to trickle in.

toto · « **Reply #5 on:** December 10, 2006, 08:59:06 AM »

Thanks for the tips, codestryke, I think you're right about the general philosophy of making a computer game.

Yeah, I know what you mean, there's always that "special" site that brings in over 50% of your income. In your case, they're two special sites which make up most of it. I'm sure you'll be able to pull some more when your other games launch completely.

(A bit off-topic:) I am currently on a dedicated box too, and am planning to change my hosting company (they currently charge 400 a month, and their support is terrible). Do you know any reliable companies which you could suggest?

Here's my two cents (basically agreeing to everything codestryke said):
--------------------------
I agree with you with the fact that the only motivation to create a game can not be profit.
However, earning something from your own games is very important. For example, I used to run a site with tens of thousands of users, and hardly earned enough to pay for the server costs. That made me want to invest my time on other more rewarding things. Had I done things properly and earned a decent amount from that game, it would still be running today.

I remember the time when I received over 100 daily "support" messages, which usually ended up being written by 10 year-olds, saying things like "Hey, ur site'z kewl" or "can i add u to msn?", when the only reason a member was supposed to e-mail was to report bugs, etc.
I know for a fact I dedicated over 5 hours/day to that site, and people never seemed to be happy with the amount of time invested in it.

About starting a game for a profit only... I have been considering the idea of running a game without doing anything (apart from the initial design) myself. I would first hire a programmer, who would code it; a graphic artist, who would make the layout, and when the game started running, a "Game Manager", who would do the support. I guess there are many people who would enjoy being in the "GM" position, and would cost about 1200 a month (or even less, depending on the time involved). I might try that in the near future.

My maximum earnings on the Internet were around $2500 in a very good month, and, seriously, the time and effort dedicated to learning enough in order to run those sites was far above the reward.

Game development is a difficult business - one day, you can be at the top of online games, and the following day, a hacker can access your systems and destroy some of the things you have created. However, when you enjoy working on it, you cannot avoid running games.
Besides, that way you can cheat on your own games and have an advantage over others!

Zeggy · « **Reply #6 on:** December 10, 2006, 09:11:19 AM »

Haha. Unfortunately I don't really get 'immersed' in playing my own games.
I generally code a game, then I get bored of it, scrap it and start a new game with a different play style. Before my current game on zegghq.com which is an RPG, I had a game called Mine Wars which was a tick-based game.
On both of them I have become so bored that development has come to a halt. Not because of too many support tickets, not because of lack of players or player interest. Mainly because the coding just became a tedious task after a certain point, and was no fun anymore.
I think that while earning money from your game might be encouraging for a while, but eventually, it's just hard work keeping your game going.

codestryke · « **Reply #7 on:** December 10, 2006, 09:34:26 AM »

I use ev1servers.net for my hosting

Beware though they are unmanaged servers so you have to do all configurations, site setups etc yourself. I'm very comfortable with using linux, apache and mysql so the cost benefit they give me because I can do that was worth it to me. For those that aren't familiar with those applications then I wouldn't suggest using ev1server.

If I had a penny for every time one of my games was hacked I'de have enough to own my own private island LOL. It's gotten better because I know what to do now but I still get hacked because of some thing I wrote quickly and threw it up to see how it would work. Course being a lazy programmer it's "hey it's working". On to the next task without going back and adding all the necessary checks.

BordelloBattles has been running 7 years.. 7 years of looking at a code base is damn near enough to make a person go crazy LOL. Sad thing is now I'm outlining and designing on paper the 3rd and hopefully final rewrite of that code base. Adding more CSS compliance to the templates, using Ajax on some pages and finally the move to mySQL 5.0 and the use of stored procedures and triggers.

toto · « **Reply #8 on:** December 11, 2006, 01:32:33 AM »

I'm still not confident enough to begin managing my own servers - I could still use them and hire an external management company, however.
Yeah, I know what you mean - you leave a small exploit in the game without noticing, and nobody will tell you (they make virtual money from it, lol!)
Wow... 7 years! That's a long time for an online game, it must be extremely famous!

Marek · « **Reply #9 on:** December 12, 2006, 10:45:03 PM »

Even if you have to put a lot of time into the game, it must feel good to know that at least you're not *losing* money hosting it.

I'm trying to get a game together, and although I don't mind investing some money in hosting etc, I would feel better knowing that I could get back the costs.

What form is your revenue codestryke? Do you charge for accounts, or use advertising or something?

How viable is advertising on a browser game anyway? I'm guessing that since the pages get refreshed a lot, the click through rates must be pretty low.

I've also seen many games that accept donations. What are your thoughts on that? Is it possible to keep your hosting alive with only donations?

codestryke · « **Reply #10 on:** December 13, 2006, 03:39:43 PM »

Quote from: nano on December 12, 2006, 10:45:03 PM

Even if you have to put a lot of time into the game, it must feel good to know that at least you're not *losing* money hosting it.

I'm trying to get a game together, and although I don't mind investing some money in hosting etc, I would feel better knowing that I could get back the costs.

What form is your revenue codestryke? Do you charge for accounts, or use advertising or something?

How viable is advertising on a browser game anyway? I'm guessing that since the pages get refreshed a lot, the click through rates must be pretty low.

I've also seen many games that accept donations. What are your thoughts on that? Is it possible to keep your hosting alive with only donations?

Yup it is nice that the game pays for it's own hosting now

For BordelloBattles you can buy a premium membership for $2.00 that will give you some benefits in the game. You can buy a set of 100 turns (for everyone) for $2.50. Since the game has a turn cap on it (you can only save so many turns in your turn bank) I only allow 20 purchases a day to prevent players from going over there turn cap. An average round I'll sell the max purchases 25 out of the 30 days the round lasts for.

StateofCrime charges for points. Points allow you to do special actions in the game or aquire special items in the game that "in-game" cash won't.

Cypher is donations.. Any donation over 5 or in a multiple of 5 I add 100 turns to everyones account. If Cypher was on it's own server then the donations wouldn't be enough to cover the hosting costs. It makes enought that it could pay for its own shared hosting account though

I don't and will never have any sort of click or any other advertising on my games. It's just a personal preference I have about putting ads in online games. Plus those few that I've talked to that have done it the income wasn't all that great.

Marek · « **Reply #11 on:** December 13, 2006, 05:35:03 PM »

Sounds like a good approach. After all, ads can really detract from the game experience.

Thanks for the answers!

beam · « **Reply #12 on:** March 29, 2007, 04:20:10 PM »

I've made a grand total of $0 from my games. Back when I ran SmashMethod I always had people offering to pay, but I didn't really want it set up that way. Now that I look back on it I realize how much of a dumb idiot I was.

lewt24 · « **Reply #13 on:** October 15, 2008, 06:45:59 AM »

I disagree about the whole not for profit....

i have run all of my games for profit.... and all make profit but the difference is i make profit and then invest most back into the games if its needed.... i can make alot of money fast with these things... my first ever site i made approx $1000 in the first month and then $700 the second.... i was a big noob back then and cant code to this day but i survived ran it well and it was fun.... now when i make them they are all just for profit...

rowbvp · « **Reply #14 on:** November 08, 2008, 03:50:34 AM »

My game makes $10-$60 each day 1 game active.We just gave away $500 Cash.
great thing about it we don't make money from players buying turns we make it from sponsers and Cplead
fallensword and MafiaDeath and Dark Orbit have this survey system where they give members items like turns for filling out 5min surveys and you earn the commission.

http://www.cpalead.com/

jeffsupersaiyan · « **Reply #15 on:** February 21, 2009, 05:22:49 PM »

im not a coder either i usually pay people to code my game. even though it is only in beta stages and already only has 400 players it seems like a lot of people are liking it. if i get past server costs then it will be self sufficent

i did have an earlier version that was running pretty good about 300$ a month but it crashed and i lost everything. people normally get more my by hosting ads . though now that i think about it by playing other games ads are really annoying even if they increase the worth of your site

codestryke · « **Reply #16 on:** February 21, 2009, 05:37:12 PM »

Quote from: jeffsupersaiyan on February 21, 2009, 05:22:49 PM

though now that i think about it by playing other games ads are really annoying even if they increase the worth of your site

Yup. Playing a game should be a suspension of disbelief, least that's my humble opinion. I don't want to see an ad while I'm playing I just want to enjoy the game, hell if I want to see ads there is a slew of other places I can go to see them.

Course with FF dominating most of the game playing market how many of those people do you think have Ad Block installed, like me?

jeffsupersaiyan · « **Reply #17 on:** February 21, 2009, 06:51:37 PM »

i was talking about the ads off to the side or the adds at the bottom of your site or game

raestlyn · « **Reply #18 on:** February 22, 2009, 03:12:26 AM »

Yep, Ad Block blocks them too. Relying your income to those adds is a bad idea.

zandal · « **Reply #19 on:** March 10, 2009, 03:50:04 PM »

well i dont have an own web i just play zandal for fun ...
but a friend of mine have an anime web with over 7000 unique visit a day
and make no more of 100 month
but its a latin web ... so it pay less...

and ... something really important
ads google every day pay less...
because 2 years ago they pay 3 time more ....
and things looks to be worst in the future

GL!!!

Chris · « **Reply #20 on:** March 11, 2009, 04:52:27 AM »

Quote from: zandal on March 10, 2009, 03:50:04 PM

and ... something really important
ads google every day pay less...
because 2 years ago they pay 3 time more ....
and things looks to be worst in the future

4 years ago I had 5 times less traffic and 2 times higher adsense income. So, it is more like 10 times less... Soon even PW will be more profitable

jannesiera · « **Reply #21 on:** March 11, 2009, 08:40:15 AM »

Quote from: Chris on March 11, 2009, 04:52:27 AM

Quote from: zandal on March 10, 2009, 03:50:04 PM
and ... something really important
ads google every day pay less...
because 2 years ago they pay 3 time more ....
and things looks to be worst in the future
4 years ago I had 5 times less traffic and 2 times higher adsense income. So, it is more like 10 times less... Soon even PW will be more profitable

I heard Yahoo! ads pay more, but show less relevant ads.

cpvr · « **Reply #22 on:** July 19, 2009, 09:03:48 PM »

Quote from: toto on December 09, 2006, 09:30:55 AM

Who makes over $100 per day (average) from their online games?
I don't, but I hope I will at some point.
I've heard stories of people making over $30,000 per month from their sites, but I don't feel I'll be one of those selected people

I know pet games can easily take home $200/day on the right amount of content.
I wrote about this on my site pet games? make money.
Every web game has the potential to make money, but its up to you as a game owner to promote, market, and excel at your game.
If you don't build it, then how do you expect to make money?

An online game = business and should be treated as such. If you don't maintain the game, then you won't make $$

zykal · « **Reply #23 on:** July 28, 2009, 03:54:38 PM »

My friend and I used to have a basic hack and slash game that we built. was about 6-7 years ago.

had very little content at all.

but because we were always there on the forums or in IRC and we were always listening people donated alot.

we eventually made a gold version for like 3.95 a month and had 75-85 subs any given month for a few months.

the donations were actually more money looking back at it.

but we wanted to give them something for their "donations"

worked out well for a couple teens on a VPS machine.

was alot of fun.

tellmore · « **Reply #24 on:** December 30, 2009, 02:26:11 PM »

30K a month?
consider my best payment was 400 euro nett a month, and i was a raw material inspector for the worlds 8th largest tire manufacturer.
I did deal with hazard from chemicals, did deal with a HUGE variety of test (lab was 2 floors, total if 160 square meters) and you try to tell me someone can manage 30K a month?

Please, say.. why don't they tell only 1K euro. At least i seen that amount of money once in my life.
bah..

//you don't want to what does it feels like for me reading those stories on blokes who earn more in a moth than i ever did for half years. --> notice while this post has been created, sever swearing took place and some items also managed to break.

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Author Topic: $100 per day with online games? (Read 8105 times)