How come nobody talks about how much they make as a game dev?

In any aspect of the field, what are your reasons for not divulging? If you are somewhere in the periphery of the field (assets for example) or directly creating games, perhaps you could share what you make? Mulling things over...

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-much-money-do-you-earn-from-your-games.271820/

 

In many parts of the world it's considered vulgar to talk about how much money you earn.

Aside from that, there are a few potential reasons. One is just straight up making little or no money, which is evident if you look at the number of sales / downloads / reviews most games get*. Another is non-disclosure, as plenty of contracts stop you from talking about details of the contract and/or commercially sensitive information... which would include agreed payments and/or sales numbers. Another is playing your cards close to your chest: if you hit on a market where you're quietly successful would you really be in a rush to tell your competition about it?

If your mulling arises from the fact that there don't seem to be a lot of rich people in indie game dev, that's right. If you're here to make money then keep in mind that, like any other business, it's highly competitive. It's potentially a bit more competitive than most, because

* Of course, Steam and other platforms do a great job of showing us games which sell rather than games which don't, so it's easy to miss this if you're not looking for it.

 

I wonder what percentage of frequent posters on this forum make any money at all in game development.

The only thing I've ever earned from game development is a few prizes from winning game jams. I also helped sponsor the events, though, so actually I'm in the red.

 

I would imagine most of the frequent posters are hobbyists like me. I'm a member of other programming forums where I am a professional and expert, but I don't post much. I rarely need to ask questions, so I check in rarely just to answer other questions that other people haven't yet.

I don't make any money from game dev. I guess technically, I take a loss buying licenses and things like that. I enjoy making games, so it's no different to me than spending money buying a new xbox title. I write code professionally in a regular 9-5 job to support myself. I honestly wouldn't want to make games full time, tying my rent to my ability to produce sounds just plain stressful.

I was also raised in a household where 'don't ask, don't tell' was the policy towards finances of other households.

 

I've made THOUSANDS from selling assets, compared to 0 from making games. But this is most likely from me falling into the trap of this meme I saw the other day (posted at the bottom). It's way easier to make money selling assets (for me at least) because they are a very specific task I want to complete versus the hundreds of tasks in a game.

 

As mentioned it's generally bad form. There is plenty of reading on the internet if you want to get an idea what kind of money people are making. indie game dev community is much larger than just us who frequent here

 

I have only made money from games since the 90s. That was the time I had a job outside the game industry. I do occasionally do consulting and illustration work on the side that isn’t game related but not much.