TroyHepfner
March 10th, 2011, 03:49 PM
TechCrunch ran a story (http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/10/angry-birds-maker-rovio-raises-42-million-from-accel-atomico-and-felicis/) today about Rovio, the makers of the popular Angry Birds games, who just raised a mindblowing $42 million in funding for their game from various venture capital firms.
Holy bank balance, Batman!
I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit jealous. People have said since 2004 that Fashion Cents had huge possibilities, but nobody ever offered to invest anything like that in it.
I did get an offer from PopCap once to buy the game IP for $25K, but I was looking for a publisher not a buyer. On a side note, I was a bit surprised by the offer, especially after a PopCap developer told me at the 2004 IGF that dressing girls would never appeal to a broad enough audience, and that it would have to be changed to robots or cars or something. Can you imagine what they would have done to the game had I sold to them? I shudder to think.
Anyway, it would be nice to get even a fraction of that kind of funding. But the truth is that many indie developers never see that kind of cash. I know many indies who earn less than $100 per month. Myself, I've only had one month in my 8-year history in which I earned more than $1K in sales and royalties. It's tough to get noticed online when there are millions and millions of web sites and an oversaturated game market.
I'm happy for Rovio, and I'm encouraged that it is possible to see that kind of money. But I'm also discouraged by the fact that I'm in the majority of indie game developers who struggle financially. But at least I'm better off than most - my business currently earns enough to pay for its own expenses and put a little bit extra in my pocket each month. But I still need a second job to eat.
Hopefully, now that I'm working full-time on the game company, I can start turning it around. I'm putting the extra effort into Dirk Dashing 2, and investing in it with quality graphics, sound, and writing. Hopefully that will help it sell even better than Dirk 1 has over the last 5 years. And after that, I plan to work on some smaller puzzle games that I can churn out a bit quicker (Dirk 2 has taken me over 2 years to finish). I'm also advertising more. And I'm focusing on adding good indie games to my catalog that aren't found elsewhere, to help distinguish my site from Big Fish and other big game portals.
Holy bank balance, Batman!
I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit jealous. People have said since 2004 that Fashion Cents had huge possibilities, but nobody ever offered to invest anything like that in it.
I did get an offer from PopCap once to buy the game IP for $25K, but I was looking for a publisher not a buyer. On a side note, I was a bit surprised by the offer, especially after a PopCap developer told me at the 2004 IGF that dressing girls would never appeal to a broad enough audience, and that it would have to be changed to robots or cars or something. Can you imagine what they would have done to the game had I sold to them? I shudder to think.
Anyway, it would be nice to get even a fraction of that kind of funding. But the truth is that many indie developers never see that kind of cash. I know many indies who earn less than $100 per month. Myself, I've only had one month in my 8-year history in which I earned more than $1K in sales and royalties. It's tough to get noticed online when there are millions and millions of web sites and an oversaturated game market.
I'm happy for Rovio, and I'm encouraged that it is possible to see that kind of money. But I'm also discouraged by the fact that I'm in the majority of indie game developers who struggle financially. But at least I'm better off than most - my business currently earns enough to pay for its own expenses and put a little bit extra in my pocket each month. But I still need a second job to eat.
Hopefully, now that I'm working full-time on the game company, I can start turning it around. I'm putting the extra effort into Dirk Dashing 2, and investing in it with quality graphics, sound, and writing. Hopefully that will help it sell even better than Dirk 1 has over the last 5 years. And after that, I plan to work on some smaller puzzle games that I can churn out a bit quicker (Dirk 2 has taken me over 2 years to finish). I'm also advertising more. And I'm focusing on adding good indie games to my catalog that aren't found elsewhere, to help distinguish my site from Big Fish and other big game portals.