Making the Dream Work

Post Copied and shortened from CrazyHoundGameDesign.itch.io original date 16/07/2025

The original post on itch.io included discussion of the business considerations, potential income streams and marketing, these sections have been removed to reduce length.

Part 1 - Setting Up for a Return

About

After a little more than year learning how to make games, there are a few things that don't seem to often be discussed, or I'm looking in the wrong places.  One of the big things seems to be "How to start making money" or rather, how to start from nothing and get to a point where my gamedev activity can fund itself.  In this devlog I explain the process of how I'm figuring this out and trying to get to a point where I can get a return on my efforts and feel like more than a hobby developer.

This is the first post in what I hope will become a series of posts that can record my progress in formalising my gamedev activities, and I hope that my experiences can help others who have gotten to this point.

This is a long read, if you want to skip to the Tips I can give you, scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Realisation of a BIG Gap

Over the last year or so I have participated in more than a few game jams, started and stopped many experimental projects, improved my musical capabilities, and started to naturally acquire followers and "dev friends" through the jams.  But one big step has, until recently, been a step too far.  Not because I feel incapable of taking the step, but because there really doesn't seem to a lot of information out there on how to do it.

That step is moving from a hobby developer to a supported or paid for developer that can try to make a return on the time investment of making games.  Now I'm not talking about making the next multi-million dollar AAA game, I'm talking about moving on from relying on game jams for visibility, or only ever offering free to play games that never seem to receive a donation through itch.io

This problem is really two-fold.  First you need to set yourself up to be able to receive payments and upload projects to appropriate app stores, all while ensuring that anything you do can be done legally from a tax and business perspective.  The second part of this problem is Marketing, ensuring that you can build a following that is willing to download and interact with your projects.

While I've not really started focussing on the Marketing problem yet, I have recently been getting myself set up to be able to really start pushing forwards with this big step.

Over the last few weeks I have been doing a lot of research, and started following a plan to move towards the reality.

Google Play Developer Account

Although I plan to eventually offer my games and apps in multiple marketplaces, as I will be starting with Google Play there are a few points to consider about using the Google Play Store to publish my apps.

Recently (early 2025) Google Play changed its policy about the information it displays to users about the developer for accountability and transparency purposes.  After doing some reading on the changes, there has been quite a negative response from developers on these changes.

If you create a Google Play developer account, you will need to provide your Full Legal Name and Address, a developer email contact and a developer phone number.  With the changes in policy, this information will be publicly accessible to everyone that uses the Google Play store.  The negative response from developers has been focussed on the perceived risks of providing this information knowing that it will be publicly available, to the point where some developers have allowed their apps to be removed from the store rather than provide this information.

As part of these changes, for Personal accounts, Google Play has also introduced a closed testing policy that needs to be followed before your apps can go live on the store.  The closed testing requirement appears to be for 12 people to download and use your app for 14 days.  If this is not followed, the 14 days starts again from day 1.

If these considerations initially deter you from using Google Play to publish your apps, I would recommend fully investigating other services, but ensure that you fully understand both the requirements and possible risks of using any market place you intend to use.

My Tips to You

While I have been considering how to do this since before I started making games, over the last few weeks I have tried to research and focus on doing this.  Figuring out a plan and setting everything up.

Even though I'm only just starting, I hope the following tips can help other developers and maybe save you a bit of time or stress.

My tips to you are:

• Figure out what you want to do - Before you really start figuring this out for yourself, you need to figure out what your end goal is, what does success really look like to you.
• Figure out the steps you want to take - When you know what your goal is, figure out the steps you think you need to take to make your goal a reality.
• Do your research - When you figure out the steps you "think" you need to take to do what you want, do your research.  As you research the steps or actions you want to make, you will likely uncover other steps you will need to take to be able to take the steps you want to take.  Make sure you have a good idea of what you need to do, and when.
• Record everything - Make sure to record and track everything you do.  When you are looking to make money from your activities, everything needs to be done methodically and recorded to ensure there is a paper trail should you need to worry about tax, business or legal considerations for your activities.
• Consider your revenue streams - Identify and research your possible revenue streams.  Consider where you want to start and how you might grow your activities from there.  Make sure that any tax or legal considerations are taken into account as you plan your growth.
• Keep moving - As you research how to get going, and as you start taking actions to make it a reality, keep moving forwards, keep reviewing the actions you need to make, and keep recording the progress you're making.
• If you get stuck, do more research and review your actions so far - If you get stuck, you might have missed something, or some step that you needed to take before trying to do what you got stuck on.  A system of constant review can help you identify where you might be going wrong, or even spot it before it becomes a problem.  There's normally a reason why you get stuck.
• Finally my plan, and my journey, will be different to yours, and yours will be different to everyone else's.  There is not really a good way to guarantee success, and if I make it, my approach might not be right for you.  Do your research, make you own plan and follow it, and you will figure it out.

While I hope to make it, I hope that you do too.  Good Luck!

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itch.io - https://crazyhoundgamedesign.itch.io

x.com - https://x.com/crazyhoundgames