This guy is making TONS monthly from HTML5 games

[Gunner]

truevalhalla.com
https://www.truevalhalla.com/blog

I found this guy in GameMaker forum, apparently he reports monthly of his monthly income, and actually, isn't the amount not bad? It looks to be pretty sustainable and slightly above average.

Only sometimes I feel like it's not legit? Is this guy telling the truth? It sounds a little too good to be true. I see him in many HTML5 forums everywhere.

Basically he makes casual HTML5 games, then sell them to publishers. The games he made aren't too much of a big of a deal also.
You can play it here (he focuses on being able to play on cellphone as well)
https://www.truevalhalla.com/blog/buy-html5-games

Also he sells a book which is super expensive for like $30 and you know what? It's actually only 30 pages long. Lol. I know this because I pirated the book to skim first before buying and see if it's worth my money (I do this to every book anyway so don't judge).

What do you think? I would love your inputs on this.

[hallsofvallhalla]

Truevalhalla...interesting...

I can see him making those numbers. Most of his reporting's around 8k a month. He is averaging around a 100k a year. The average salary of your standard non senior programmer. You flood the market with quick easy games you will be surprised on the plays you can get and ad revenue.

I say kudos to him if he is doing it.

[Gunner]

So you think he's not making anything up?

Well then that's something I'd LOVE to do for some alternatives. How much feasible do you think will it be for us?

It's just it sounds a little too good.. Make crappy clone games then get average US salary? Count me in!!

[Jackolantern]

Haha! I had seen this guy before and had wondered if you had seen him before, Halls. We will write down in the official history books that he added "True" because he was envious of your name.

Anyway, I will say he likely is working 3x harder to make that kind of money compared to the non-game programmer with 3 or 4 years of experience (in most cases). We can chalk that up as part of the price to live your dream and make games for a living. But most definitely he does prove it can be done. It can'tThere are more people than you think out there making a good living doing exactly this. I applaud him doing this. It can't be easy to post those $4,000 months to the blog when he is averaging $8k a month.

But for me, the idea of making swarms of mini-games and getting them put up on game portals or getting them sponsored has never appealed to me. My interests in game development have always centered around longer projects and making more involved games. Basically, my game would have to take off for me to be able to consider doing it as a full-time job and that is never a good thing to bet on, particularly these days with the massive amounts of games releasing every month through Steam and the mobile stores. But for people who absolutely want to make games full-time but don't want to work for a AAA studio (and today, I really can't understand the appeal of doing that), this kind of strategy is the most sure-fire way to make it work.

[hallsofvallhalla]

I agree completely Jack. That is not the type of game development I want to do and 8k a month as a full time job is not that appealing to me. It would be a step down to sell a bit of my soul

[OldRod]

Depending on how much time it required, $8K / month would be a nice income... but it if took every waking moment to make that, then it wouldn't be worth it. Money is only nice as long as you have enough to live on and spare time to enjoy any extra

As for "selling your soul", I don't know about that. He's making games that people want to play obviously, if they are willing to pay for them. So he's providing a necessary service. I guess it would be a little like if George R.R. Martin wrote Harlequin romances in between Song of Ice and Fire books, to make ends meet

[hallsofvallhalla]

Totally understand that, I think I more meant that my soul could not take using games as a way to make my living. At least not games that I do not enjoy. It would be selling my soul for me. If he is happy doing it then more power to him for sure!
Even at 8 hours a day I could not endure the constant struggle of building games hoping they will sell for a small salary.

[Jackolantern]

My main problem with going this route would be making hordes of little match-3 and Angry Bird-type games. In fact, even Angry Birds may be a bit too large for a developer going this path to make. I have little-to-no interest in "Memory" games, or little casual games like that. And unfortunately that is the bulk of what devs who go this path need to make. The most successful ones turn out a couple of games a month since it is all a numbers game. Sitting down and starting a project that would take 6 months to complete would mean bankruptcy for many devs like this unless it was done at a very strategic time with lots of completed games bringing in revenue to fund the development time. And multi-year projects are totally out. At that point you need funding, and that is a very different type of indie dev.

[Gunner]

Aye I agree Making those kinds of games not only deter your souls, but also hard as well.. They may look simple, but they just take sooo much time from the moment you start the project to actually publishing it... Let alone A LOT of them.. Since one or two of those won't cut it..

But hey, I guess, still better than working on your local coffee shops for quick bucks wouldn't it?

[Jackolantern]

I guess it all depends on the person. I am sure tons of people do find a lot of enjoyment in making any kind of game. So I guess it is a personal decision. Me personally, I would rather work in traditional development, making the same kind of money for what is likely less work, and work on games in my spare time.