Looking at First Mile Numbers

I have to apologize, I meant to get to this blog sooner. In fact I meant to do a lot more this week but I've been rather sick most of this week. This turned out to be a mixed blessing as I needed some time to reflect on things. Particularly the numbers.

For the first few sets of numbers I do feel it's important to at least post generally how I've been doing. This allows others to see roadblocks and pitfalls and hopefully promotes more stable independent game development.

How Much?

So now that it's nearly 2 weeks how has first mile been doing? All things said and done I've earned just under $2 dollars. If you count donations, it's closer to $5.



Now I can't actually collect the $2 dollars or anything from those sources until they've exceeded a specific amount of money. It's somewhere between $25 dollars and $50 on most places. And paypal takes about 30 cents from every transaction.

I was expecting low numbers but those are indeed shockingly low.

What now?

Now I did release earlier than I wanted specifically because I wanted to see how the revenue flows worked. So the game's content and level of quality isn't as high as I would like it. This is also why I broke things up into first mile etc. I'm actually really happy with this decision. I wouldn't have known (or been able to correct) what I knew now without doing that.

I mentioned before the level of quality grows things exponentially. So as I continue to improve this, I will be making more and a lot more but the question is, how long will that time frame be?

Now I obviously can't afford to wait 10 years, or 5 years or even 1 year to reach enough enough stable money to be subsistent. (Pay for lodging, food, utils etc.) So I'm slowing progress on 2nd mile until I have a clear path on how to make this possible. I've already made few changes.

Immediately after starting to see the feedback I saw the trend coming so I've been looking for ways to further monetize things. And I'm trying to be careful here, as going for any sort of an all out cash grab won't win you any favors or friends. I added in ads (and for the record I really don't like ads at all) to the preloader. These only show up on certain sites. There's also additional and optional ads with every new wave. Allowing them to be seen will grant you a bonus to your score.

I'm doing more as well, even outside the game, but plans are still loose, so more on that later.

Some people have asked me how I'm so calm during times like this. I'm not calm, I'm concerned. And motivated to action. I've always believed it's very easy to deal with things when things are easy. Your measure is how you react and deal with things when they are not so easy.