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And how do they make it?

Also, are there any examples of a simpler browser game making a few hundred a month?

Enquiring wallets want to know

I don't have any figures other than Dark Orbit. They make millions a month. They also have hundreds of servers.

Smaller browser games can easily make a small profit using the right pricing framework for the game. People will pay a few bucks a month for a game they like. Donations I hear work pretty good too.

I read an article a while back about the author of Torn City (who is about 23 or so and worked on it alone) makes about $50,000 a month off his game and is a millionaire. Of course it didn't say what his expenses are, or anything else.

However, don't get into the thinking of "If I build it, they will come", or you will likely end up being disappointed. There are plenty of very complex, well-made browser games that only have 3 or 4 people on at a time and are likely paying for their hosting fees out of their pocket. A lot of the games that have thousands or millions of players have basically hit the lottery, and a chain reaction of events led to a mass of people joining at once.

The bottom line is that you need to try to be happy if even a handful of people join your game and are happy playing it. If you are building it in the hopes of striking it rich, there is probably disappointment on the other side because there are countless PBBGs and most make basically nothing.

nice post Jack. That about sums it up perfectly.

Just for stats: blackswordrpg was making at its best 70$/month, but it was never advertised and we didn't really invest much time on it.

I heard anyway people that can earn about 100$/day with a decent pbbg; I would be very happy to reach that target, considering it is an hobby.

amen, $100 a day would be nice.

Would the income be largely based on subscription/donations, or are ads (mainly google ads I guess) a reasonable income source too? I've tried to put together some numbers, but so far I've not seen any formula that would generate those kinds of sums. I hope to grow a playerbase as high as 10 000 active players over time, but I'd be struggling to hit even 1000 I think.

So if I manage to get 1000 players visit my pages on a daily basis, any of you got a rough number of what I could expect in ads income? And trying to turn those players to subscribers, what percentage would you think realistic?

well if you could get 1000 active players, you could at least get 15%-20% paying players with a free to play , pay for extras model. That is if you price it right. Lets say you get 15% paying players thats 150. At $4 a month that $600 a month income. Doesn't equal 100 a day but still does pretty good.

I suspect the key element is how much social networking is supported moreso than gameplay. People become attached and stick to games where the other people they socialise with are attached too.

Jackolantern wrote:I read an article a while back about the author of Torn City (who is about 23 or so and worked on it alone) makes about $50,000 a month off his game and is a millionaire. Of course it didn't say what his expenses are, or anything else.

However, don't get into the thinking of "If I build it, they will come", or you will likely end up being disappointed. There are plenty of very complex, well-made browser games that only have 3 or 4 people on at a time and are likely paying for their hosting fees out of their pocket. A lot of the games that have thousands or millions of players have basically hit the lottery, and a chain reaction of events led to a mass of people joining at once.

The bottom line is that you need to try to be happy if even a handful of people join your game and are happy playing it. If you are building it in the hopes of striking it rich, there is probably disappointment on the other side because there are countless PBBGs and most make basically nothing.

I think I'd like to have it that for each hour I put in, I get a wage of $15 or more (eventually paying off hours spent developing as well). Given twgi's example with blacksword, that sounds like it self runs mostly, so if it only took a couple of hours of work* a month to keep it ticking over and brought in $70, that's paying off the hours and some of the development hours.

* Some time with a game might involve basically playing on it or socialising on it. But these are fun in themselves - I'm talking about work which isn't fun in itself, being paid work.