What is the best method to monetize indie games?

Hello,

I haven't made a game in over 15 years and wanted to try my luck in this industry. If possible, guide me and answer my questions.
Are you satisfied with the income of making the game and can you manage your life with it? Or do you do things like web design and design for a living?
How did you manage to monetize your game and what method would you suggest?
Steam, web games, mobile games, Facebook??

regards,
Saeed

 

Apparently I'm not part of the norm but 10 years ago I made my first game - a drone simulator as I crashed my real life one. It was on mobile, pay up front, no iaps, , it sold fairly well.

I then released my 2nd game, a fishing simulator on mobile, pay up front & it sold really well, players requested i add iap's so i did. It's now sold over 200,000 copies and I still work on it today, full time. I'm releasing on consoles next year too.

Now, apparently that's not how it works for most people, additionally, in that time I've released about 6 other games that flopped, including free to play with adverts that only had 150 downloads.

As I've said in other posts, I think my success come from identifying a gap in the market & giving players something they want, rather than my other attempts which were me making a game I wanted to and trying to convince players to play it.

 

I suggest looking up Chris Zukowski, posts a lot of good info about marketing steam games. That's what I've been studying lately as I prepare my incursion onto steam.

I don't know anything about mobile.

 

ِِDid you succeed on steam?

 

Not yet. That's just the best source I've found for actionable stuff to do (which I will be trying out like a mad scientist). There's plenty of information there based on research of successful genres, games, and marketing strategies, with lots of tables and charts which I like.