Commercial SDL games?

SDL Development
1

Hello people,

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Can I see some of those game (demos) in action? I downloaded some "Abe’s adventure"
platform game, but, I wasn’t very impressed with it. :/–
Best regards,
Milan mailto:milan_g at eunet.yu

2

Hello people,

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Honestly, this is a pretty strange set of questions to ask.

The prices, how many copies, how much profit was made, etc., would all
depend on the game and the company involved!

Some games that use SDL are from huge, well-known game companies.
Others are games for PDAs which were developed (or ported) by one person
and sold for much less (in comparison to desktop games).

I think the answers you get will vary so wildly that it doesn’t end up
meaning anything! :^)

Can I see some of those game (demos) in action? I downloaded some "Abe’s adventure"
platform game, but, I wasn’t very impressed with it. :confused:

Again, it depends on the game, who published it, what platform its for, etc.

It’s kind of like asking “How much do games for MS Windows cost? How many
copies did each game sell? How much profit did each game make?” :^)
Totally useless! Sorry! ;^)

-bill!On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:21:35AM +0100, Milan Golubovic wrote:

3

He’s just asking if there’s any author on this list, and asking for
his/her experiences. That’s not too weird, is it? :slight_smile:

Marc

Bill Kendrick wrote:> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:21:35AM +0100, Milan Golubovic wrote:

Hello people,

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Honestly, this is a pretty strange set of questions to ask.

The prices, how many copies, how much profit was made, etc., would all
depend on the game and the company involved!

Some games that use SDL are from huge, well-known game companies.
Others are games for PDAs which were developed (or ported) by one person
and sold for much less (in comparison to desktop games).

I think the answers you get will vary so wildly that it doesn’t end up
meaning anything! :^)

Can I see some of those game (demos) in action? I downloaded some "Abe’s adventure"
platform game, but, I wasn’t very impressed with it. :confused:

Again, it depends on the game, who published it, what platform its for, etc.

It’s kind of like asking “How much do games for MS Windows cost? How many
copies did each game sell? How much profit did each game make?” :^)
Totally useless! Sorry! ;^)

-bill!

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

–
Bye,
Marc ‘Foddex’ Oude Kotte

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Need a programmer?
Go to http://www.foddex.net

4

He’s just asking if there’s any author on this list, and asking for
his/her experiences. That’s not too weird, is it? :slight_smile:

asking abstract questions is weird… there is no answer, only another
abstract answer, which has very little value.

5

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL
of course).

Gabriel here. My tiny company : http://www.mysterystudio.com

What prices those games have?

$19.95(US), pretty standard price point for downloadable games.

In how many copies are they sold? How much profit they achieve per
week?

Sorry, can’t comment on that. If you’re really interested, go to
http://forums.indiegamer.com where a bunch of independent game
developers gather regularly. My advice : read, read, read, read a lot
before asking “how much money do you make” on your first post. There’s a
TON of knowledge in the current posts and in the former Dexterity
forum’s archive (link at the bottom of the page)

How is sale organized - on some web site or …?

Many of us sell from our websites and partner’s websites (affiliates and
publishers). Other lucky guys have retail deals, arcade deals, and some
have its games bundled with every new Mac sold!

Are there people that actually make living of it?

Yes, some people are.

Can I see some of those game (demos) in action?

Most of us use a shareware business model, which means you have free
access to the game demos.

--Gabriel
6

Hello Bill,

BK> Honestly, this is a pretty strange set of questions to ask.

BK> The prices, how many copies, how much profit was made, etc., would all
BK> depend on the game and the company involved!

I just want to ask is SDL good enough to be used in commercial games that bring
big bucks? And i.e. if I make some game what is the easiest way to sell it?–
Best regards,
Milan mailto:milan_g at eunet.yu

7

Yes it is good enough :stuck_out_tongue:

The only limitation is you, the programmer.

It is a very thin wrapper that allows you to make multiplatform games at
virtualy no cost in overhead.

It could even be very well argued that SDL is BETTER at making proffitable
and successful games than using DirectX or any other lib/platform because
when you write something in SDL, you write it for windows, macintosh, linux,
playstation etc. You dont have to spend time porting to other platforms.

Plus, i have done work in both DirectX and SDL and DirectX (in traditional
MS fashion) is needlessly overly complicated, it takes pages of code to
initialize graphics and most of that code is setting unused parameters in
structs to null or setting convoluted members in data structures to obscure
values.

SDL however, is pretty darn straight forward.

Also think about this, lets say you write your code in DirectX and then
tomorow MS comes out with a whole new API for multimedia. You’d be stuck
porting your code to the new system, costing you many more man hours and it
might not even be worth your time financialy.

If you made it in SDL, you’d be fine because they would just make a new
backend to SDL to this new API and bam, recompile your code and it works
fine.

So yes, SDL is deffinately good enough.

The best way to sell a game as an ameteur game coder looking to become pro
that i can see is by making a website posting your games with screenshots
and demo versions. Take payments through paypal, let them download the full
version upon payment, and try to link to and get linked from as many gamer
type pages as possible.

And dont forget, good games are about whats fun, not about spectacular
graphics :stuck_out_tongue:

PS SDL is included in just about every BSD/Linux/etc distrobution by
default, as a necesity for many critical programs, i should say it’s good
enough for the professional world…cause its already there and very
prevalent.

Hope this helps!> ----- Original Message -----

From: milan_g@eunet.yu (Milan Golubovic)
To: "A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)"

Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 3:02 AM
Subject: Re: [SDL] Commercial SDL games?

Hello Bill,

BK> Honestly, this is a pretty strange set of questions to ask.

BK> The prices, how many copies, how much profit was made, etc., would all
BK> depend on the game and the company involved!

I just want to ask is SDL good enough to be used in commercial games that
bring
big bucks? And i.e. if I make some game what is the easiest way to sell
it?

–
Best regards,
Milan mailto:milan_g at eunet.yu

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

8

Hello Bill,

BK> Honestly, this is a pretty strange set of questions to ask.

BK> The prices, how many copies, how much profit was made, etc., would all
BK> depend on the game and the company involved!

I just want to ask is SDL good enough to be used in commercial games that bring
big bucks?

The answer to that is yes. SDL is good enough for use in commercial
games and is used in many commercial games.

And i.e. if I make some game what is the easiest way to sell it?

Depends on the game. If it is an “A” title or the PC, peddle it to the
big studios. If it is a typical garage game, then go to a site that
specializes in selling such games. Or, you can go the shareware route
and get the game on every DL site you can find so people will see it and
hopefully pay you for it. If it is a cell phone game, then try to get it
listed on the cell phone DL sites. If it is for a PDA, then try to get
it listed on the well trafficked PDA game sites…

The things that sell your game are:

o How well advertised it is
o How good the game is

		Bob PendletonOn Wed, 2004-12-01 at 05:02, Milan Golubovic wrote:

–
±-------------------------------------+

9

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Unreal Tournament 2004 uses it. It sold okay. :slight_smile:

–ryan.

10

Ryan C. Gordon wrote:

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some
web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Unreal Tournament 2004 uses it. It sold okay. :slight_smile:

–ryan.

DOES it?!? I hadn’t heard that! Where’d you get that from?

–Scott

11

Hmm, perhaps he wrote the port …

(hint: http://icculus.org/)

Regards,
Johannes

< http://libufo.sourceforge.net > The OpenGL GUI ToolkitAm Donnerstag 02 Dezember 2004 19:00 schrieb Scott Harper:

Ryan C. Gordon wrote:

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some
web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Unreal Tournament 2004 uses it. It sold okay. :slight_smile:

–ryan.

DOES it?!? I hadn’t heard that! Where’d you get that from?

12

Unreal Tournament 2004 uses it. It sold okay. :slight_smile:

–ryan.

DOES it?!? I hadn’t heard that! Where’d you get that from?

Dunno, must have heard it somewhere.

–ryan.

13

Milan Golubovic wrote:

Hello people,

I’m interested are here some authors of commercial games (using SDL of
course). What prices those games have? In how many copies are they sold?
How much profit they achieve per week? How is sale organized - on some web site
or …? Are there people that actually make living of it?

Sorry for the delay in replying. Work and activities away from the
computer have taken priority.

The company I work for, Funkitron Inc., recently put out its first
commercial game based on SDL. The game, Boggle, is being sold for $20
on various websites (Yahoo Games, Real Arcade, etc.) I can’t comment on
sales, but everyone in the company is able to make a living off of it.

Can I see some of those game (demos) in action? I downloaded some "Abe’s adventure"
platform game, but, I wasn’t very impressed with it. :confused:

Yes. Copies are available on our web site, http://www.funkitron.com.–
David Ludwig
davidl at funkitron.com