Worth it financially?

Hello everyone,

i came across CoG and I am willing to give it a try. Sounds like a fun project ! I was wondering if people with published games make any decent money and if it was worth the time…

I see Hosted Games with 5k-10k downloads at 2-3$ a pop on Android. thats between $10k-$30k raw income for CoG. If the author gets 25%…thats quite some money…but the question is …how long did it take you to write the game…and …is it worth it for the money /?

Thanks

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It is possible to live with money from making these games, but it is an unreliable source, your game could sell 20k copies or it could sell 1k, it is better to use COG as an additional source of income in my opinion.

But yeah, if you have some free time, why not? It is totally worth it, just try to avoid having COG as your main source of income.

Thanks for your answer. Makes sense. I am not planning to quit my job :slight_smile: Like you said…additional income.

BTW… do free games make a lot of money from IAP ? I tend to believe you can make more with a paid game which costs 2-3$ upfront… rather than relying on people to pay for ad removal…

COG was banned from adsense, so you probably won’t make more money by going F2P, that is why most authors charge for their games.

@Interestedparty
Indeed, the COG prices are unbelievably fair compared to most games out there :smile:

Put it into perspective. You can by a taco for 5 dollers, and most of these are more enjoyable than tacos

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If I ever finish a game I would like to charge for it but from what I understand that is not my decision to make…? CoG sets the price or the author ?

Yeah, COG chooses the price based on the quality and length of your game, but they will negotiate with you.

If I remember it correctly, you could also use a “pay as much as you want” option.

By the way, this is the math for the App Store:

Hosted Games:
Apple 30% of gross
Author (25% of remaining 70%) = 17.5% of gross
COG: 52.5% of gross
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I would suggest to anyone writing a game:

  1. Don’t quit your day job.
  2. Write something that you want to write, then you’ll have benefits other than financial ones while you’re waiting to see any money from it.
  3. Don’t keep track of how many hours you code. If you divide your profits by hours, it gets depressing. Just think of it as a fun hobby that, if you’re lucky, you can sell.
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I agree that you should write about something you enjoy, but at the same time, if you want to maximize sales, I’d suggest picking a genre with a significant pre-existing audience and then putting your own spin on it to “make it your own.”

Don’t try to please everyone, but know your audience.

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