Can Your Game Be A Success If You Make No Money?

Just wondering. If you make a game and release it for free, can it still be a success?

Lets say you get 10 million downloads and good reviews, but don't make a dime. Is that a success?

 

That depends on your goal, do you wanted your game to have millions of downloads? Then it was a success! Or you wanted to make million dollars? Then you didn't have success.
Anyways I would consider it a success, you or your company will earn renown, building trust in the potential users for your next apps or games.

 

I think that's a fail. Because if I could get something in front of 10 million people and sell to only 1% of them, for even $0.10 each, that would still be $10,000. Getting nothing at all when you could have gotten something is a failure.

 

It's a success.
Now you have an audience awaiting the next big project you push out.

 

Actually, that's been handily disproven by real developer's stories. Subsequent game releases are actually subject to the law of diminishing returns.

 

If you release a 'success' hitting over 10 million downloads with positive reviews it would result in a decent fan base; a playerbase you could market to in the future for a release of a new product. That itself is a success.

Having millions of people willing to listen to what you have to say and sell is quite the achievement. You would see buyers that originated from the initial game release.

 

It's a pretty unlikely hypothetical. Games that achieve that level of interest are either going to have to have spent a fair amount of money on marketing (which is unlikely if they have no monitization plan), or be an exceptional game done by a developer who if savvy enough to create such a game, would also have a plan for monitization. A game like that would have a significant time investment by a skilled developer.

Also if the game is multiplayer or has external content, that amount of users would be a significant cost to developer to maintain, so it would be losing money.

As far as building a user base for your next game, as @Master Frog pointed out, it's not likely. In addition, no guarantee that a follow up game would be a hit, and more importantly, no guarantee that the free users of the previous game would convert to payers.

 

Dwarf fortress is free. And earns money too. Why not do both? Isn't that called epic success?

 

If it makes you happy, then it is a success. If it doesn't make you happy, it is not a success.

 

There are so many games that people might not even remember your last game, especially on mobile

 

No better way to put it, neginfinity. Ultimate goal is to be happy.

Happiness can't be bought. Money is simply such an universal intermediary to facilitate things, the compensation for long work hours almost always is going to be money, and hence most people's measurement of success.

Whether you wish to have a hobby that's a little expensive, improve your wardrobe, live in a nice place, travel more... the end goal are the experiences you can get, which is the real profit.

If you can ever skip the money and be happy directly, you're successful AND efficient.

 

It's a success and one you should find easy to leverage to make money if you want too.

 

Depends on how you measure success.

 

Thanks, everyone, for your opinion. I guess the definition changes depending on what you value.

For me, I would probably be happy just finishing a game and releasing it, regardless of what happened after that. However, at the same time, it would be disappointing if no one played it, or if it disappeared into the ether. So you kind of have to think of the business/marketing aspect as well, even for a free game.

I think that all makes sense though. Thanks.

 

Another thread about #£%# semantics... They are just words.

 

Without them you can't write complete A.I.! They aren't that bad...

 

If you have 10 million downloads and good ratings then people will probably trust and buy your next game.

 

Exactly! They'll know who you are and if your reputation is good, SELLING future games should become much easier. But make no mistake: 10 million downloads is a hard job, even if it's for free.

 

Well, I was just using 10 million as an extreme example. In reality, even 100k would be great.

 

Maybe.

This thread can entirely depend on "how do you define success". For a hobbyist like me, a small handful of downloads is a success. Someone sends me a personal email saying thanks for a forum post or a YouTube tutorial, and that's a success.

Then you have stories like flappy bird. Millions of downloads. Hunderds of thousands of dollars a day. Yet the developer breaks down mentally and pulls the game from stores. Was that a success? He made enough money not to work for a few years. He definitely got the downloads. Was it worth it?

Each dev had there own personal goals and definitions of success. If you are happy with the outcome, call it a success. And forget the opinions of the internet.

 

facebook does alright with their free product. many ways of monetizing a brand once you have a loyal following...