[kibbi]

Surely you're not claiming that a game with fewer than 1000 reviews is "languishing"? Any indie game with 1000 reviews is very successful.

Picking your first example, Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum has about 460 reviews, roughly 20,000 copies sold, an estimated revenue of about $120,000 while it's still in early access, and apparently a developer team size of 1. I'd guess that this game will net the developer several hundred thousand dollars over the next 10 years.

(Regarding multiplayer games: yes, these are a different case because they need to reach some critical mass to have a chance.)

[Hammershaft]

Deadeye deepfake Simulacrum has been in development for ~4 years and is still getting updated, so even at this estimate we're looking at a take home pay of 30k - 40k per year before taxes.

[kibbi]

You're right. Three things:

1. He isn't working on this exclusively. In the update notes, he mentions that he's making the game in parallel to a job. He recently finished his degree and sometimes takes time off for his next project. In 2021 he said, 'As I’ve mentioned before, game development is not a full time job for me, it’s just a hobby that consumes a lot of my nights and weekends.' Obviously this must be considered when evaluating the revenue.

2. After he finishes the game, it will still have a long tail of sales over the following years. He can develop another game, whose long tail will overlap with the first one, then with a third game, etc. But I don't know how to estimate these long tails after the first couple of years.

3. It seems to be his first game on Steam.

This is actually a very interesting case. I think he does most things right (though he doesn't seem to do enough marketing on Twitter). I assume that he'll arrive at a place where he has the option to go full-time sooner or later.