An indie developer’s life is far from glamorous. What the public perceives as a developer’s life and reality is very different. More often than not, indie developers have full-time jobs to fund their passion. Others might have someone supporting them whether it’s through a family member or crowdfunding. It’s not an easy job and so many aspiring developers give up because they lack the budget to create the game of their dreams let alone market it.
So the question becomes, how can you make games without little to no money?
Learn how to earn income online by playing video games. Learn how other entrepreneurs and freelancers have leveraged online gaming to make money. How to make money by playing online games? Have a look on these interesting games on the web allows you to earn real money instantly.
Thanks to demand, many engines are free-to-use, with caveats. You don’t need to pay a dime into Unreal or Unity unless you actually start making money ($100,000 for Unity and $3,000 for Unreal). These free editions do have some limitations to them, but if you’re fine with it then you might as well jump on one of them. If you want something completely free then check out Godot Engine. It’s an open source software that allows you to make 2D and 3D games. While it uses its own proprietary language, if you know python you should be able to get the hang of it quickly.
There are several places you can download free assets but one of the most popular is opengameart.org. You can download almost everything from 2D sprites to 3D textures. While free, you’ll want to check out the licenses attached to the artwork before you make any changes as not all of artists allow you to modify their work. If you do end up using an asset from the site, make sure to properly attribute the artist in your game. You can also check out this article for more sites that offer free game art.
For music, there are a handful of options, but one of the best is Free Music Archive. You can browse hundreds of songs in 15 different genres. You’ll need to be careful when choosing which song to use as not all have the same licenses. If you intend on using the song for commercial use for your game, you’ll want to avoid CC-BY-NC-SA and CC-BY-NC-ND songs. These are meant for noncommercial use only. Like the art assets, you’ll need to properly attribute the artist of the song if you intend on using it for your game.
Sound effects can be a bit trickier to find. There are dozens of sites with amazing sound effects, but many of them require you to pay to actually download and use them. Freesound is a great resource if you don’t mind spending some time sifting through all of the user uploads. Look for sounds that have a Creative Commons 0 license as this means the creator waives all rights to the work and you can modify or use it as you please. It’s possible you won’t find exactly what you need here, but you might find something that is close enough.
If you want to try your hand at creating your own music, you can use tools like Tracktion 4, a powerful digital audio workstation (DAW). It allows you to mix or remix your music. This is a full DAW so you don’t have to worry about missing out on any features. If you’ve got the money, you can upgrade to the newest version which only costs $60.
If you’re an artist with no coding skill it might be a bit harder for you to find snippets of code to make your game. In that case, you might look into engines that have a drag-and-drop interface like GameMaker. The problem is that the free version of these engines usually don’t have as many features as the Pro versions. If you’re okay with these limitations then try it out. You might end up liking it so much you pay into it. Luckily many of these engines end up having a sale on the paid versions at least once a year. If you decide you want more features, keep a look out on Steam and the engine’s site for announcements.
If you’re not in any rush to push out your game, you can find plenty of free tutorials on YouTube that can teach you the basics of different engines. Unity and Unreal have great beginner tutorial series and even walks you through making your own games. If you can spare a few dollars, Udemy has some amazing online game programming courses that walk you through the basics from explaining the syntax of the code to how different code can provide the same outcome. Udemy often has discounts on their classes almost every month so jump on one during these times.
Adobe might be the industry standard for creating digital artists, but there are some free options you can check out. GIMP is the open source answer to Photoshop. If you’re familiar with Photoshop it might take some time to get used to GIMP’s interface. Once you do, however, you’ll realize it is every bit as powerful.
Inkscape is the answer to Adobe Illustrator. It’s a great tool for creating vector drawings and especially useful if you want to make create a voxel style game.
For 2D animation the Spriter free version has plenty of features to get you started. Rather than animate every frame by hand, Spriter allows you to rig up different parts of your character onto a basic skeleton and then move them via pivot points. It reduces the time you need to create a professional-looking animation. Just remember, you need to divide up your sprite into different parts in order to get the smoothest animation.
If you’re a 3D animator, there’s no better free tool than Blender. It’s powerful enough to create ultra-realistic renders and can do everything you can do in Maya such as: fast rigging, UV unwrapping, full compositor and more. It even has a full game engine, though you probably don’t want to publish anything you’ve actually made in there. With that said, it’s great for prototyping. The best part about Blender, besides being free, is its cross platform on Mac, PC and Linux.
Of all the necessary steps needed to successfully launch a game, marketing is by far the most time-consuming and hardest. This is especially true if whether you’re s solo developer or have a small team. Marketing requires forethought into your market and consistent, but friendly communication with them. You need to post something everyday on the right social media networks and interact not only with people who comment, like or follow you but with thought leaders and influencers. It’s a full-time job. The problem is most indie studios just don’t have the money to bring on a marketing firm or even consultant. If this sounds like you, there’s still hope.
The best way to stay organized and in the loop is to have one place where you can keep an eye on most, if not all, of your social media profiles. Hootsuite is a great service where you can do just that and the basic version is free. You can follow keywords that interest you, keep an eye on your feed and even respond to comments. Besides this, you can also automate your posts, which will save you a ton of time in the long run. If you don’t like Hootsuite, you can also check out Buffer, which offers the same service but also adds the ability to create your own image, complete with typography.
Besides social media, there are a few basics you should set up. These might cost you some money, but you’ll ultimately get much more by implementing them:
So if you’ve been interested in creating your own games, but were worried about the cost, take heart! Creating a game doesn’t necessarily require a ton of money. However, if you do end up going the budget route, it will take you much more time.
If you are a user of Steam, then you probably know that it is one of the biggest online video game market places out there. However, you might not realize that there’s actually a way to put money into your Steam wallet funds without spending anything.
Keep reading to find out how to make money play games on Steam.
Before getting started, it is important to note that there is no way to take the money you get on Steam out of your wallet fund. So, if you were planning on making a career out of the Steam market place, you might be out of luck.
However, there are other uses for the money you get. While you can’t take the money out of your wallet, you can still use it to buy video games or other things on the market place like trading cards or cosmetics. This is a good way to make your video game habit a lot more affordable with little effort.
By the way, if you also play games on Twitch, read this to learn how to make money streaming on Twitch.
Here’s how you can make money on Steam.
Most games on Steam have trading cards you can receive for playing them. You get one to three cards the first time you play a game after playing for two hours.
Most cards you get end up only being worth a few cents. However, you might get lucky and receive a foiled card that’s worth a couple of dollars. If you want to earn more cards, try using a site like Steam Idle Master.
Additionally, about every week you have a random chance of receiving a trading card Booster pack of three cards. You can either sell the pack as is, which is usually only worth about thirty cents or open the pack for the chance of getting foiled cards.
When you try to sell a card, you’ll notice a graph will appear that shows you how much the card was worth in the past.
Here are a few tips that apply generally to all cards:
Some games give away cosmetic crates that can be purchased with in-game currency or real money. If you get one of these crates, you should see if you can sell them for some decent cash.
Some games that let you do this are:
But, the two main games that people use to make money are Counter Strike and PUBG.
With Counter Strike, you can earn crates by:
Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds will let you get crates with battle points, which are earned whenever you kill other players and last long into the game. You can then sell the crates for twenty cents to a few dollars each.
When a game is available for pre-order, you will sometimes be given an early-access cosmetic item. Hold onto that item instead of redeeming it and you might make a ton of money.
For instance, PUBG released a cosmetic set for everyone who pre-ordered PUBG. Right now, it sells for over $200.
This isn’t the only game that this happens too. A general rule is that if you think a game is going to be really popular, chances are their pre-order crates will also be just as popular.
You might consider trying to buy as many crates as possible and then opening for the small chance of getting a nice item. Ultimately, this is not worth the risk.
Most rare items have as low as 0.01% chance of appearing in a crate. So, you might have to spend thousands of dollars on thousands of crates just to get the item. It’s better to save up your money and just buy the rare item outright on the market place rather than spending all that money on what is basically gambling.
There’s only one way to make real money on Steam which can be redeemed. Making a video game is a long process that requires a lot of skill in coding, writing, and art, but it can be worth the effort.
To put a game on the Steam store, you need to invest $100 for the Steam Direct Product Submission Fee. After that, you can start selling games you’ve made on Steam. Steam takes a 30% cut of all sales that you make. If you sell $1,000 worth of games, you’ll be refunded the $100 you paid originally.
It’s important to remember, however, that your game will need to be a decent quality to get good reviews and actually make sales. It also takes a lot longer to develop a game than to sell some trading cards.
Hopefully, after reading this guide, you have a better picture of what it is like to earn money on Steam. It isn’t as easy as you think but it can help you save a few bucks on the next video game you buy.
Do you think it’s viable to sell Steam cards and cosmetic crates? Have you scored any major sale through the Steam platform? Let us and our readers know about your experiences below, as well as any tips you think can help others who may be trying to learn how to make money on the Steam platform.