Speaker A
How much I earned from Yandex Games in 8 months, having made 2 games. Not so much to sunbathe in Miami now, but not so little to work 2 hours a day on an ad hoc basis.
Earnings and insights from making 2 Unity games for Yandex Games over 8 months, including income, player stats, and future plans.
Key Takeaways
- Modest earnings are possible with small-scale indie games on niche platforms like Yandex Games.
- Continuous game improvement and promotion can significantly boost income and player engagement.
- Narrow game genres limit audience size and revenue potential.
- Advertising costs and CPM fluctuations heavily impact net income.
- Long-term success requires experimentation, diversification, and persistence.
What the video covers
- The creator earned around $885 net from two Unity games on Yandex Games over 8 months.
- The first game was an original solitaire published in January, and the second a top-down survival game published in May.
- Initial daily income was low (~$0.5), but after game improvements and modest promotion spending (~$6/week), income rose to $7-10/day at peak.
- Solitaire had fewer players (300-500 daily) but higher engagement and income compared to survival (100-200 daily).
- Some players spent 60-80 hours on survival and up to 170 hours on solitaire.
- Income dropped in August due to lower CPM rates and reduced promotion effectiveness.
- Total gross earnings were $947 plus $35 from external monetization, minus $52 spent on ads and 6% self-employment tax.
- Games have unique ideas but belong to narrow genres limiting audience size.
- Plans include making a children’s game, continuing survival game development, experimenting with promotions, in-game purchases, and multi-platform publishing.
- The creator emphasizes persistence in game development and realistic expectations about earnings.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I finished the Unity game developer course a little over a year ago, and last December I decided to try to make something for Yandex Games. In a month, I made an original solitaire game, which I published at the end of January, and then in a couple of months I made a simple survival game
Speaker A
with a top-down view, which I published in the middle of May. At the start, the game showed a very small income in the neighborhood of 0.5$ per day, so I actively upgraded my games and experimented a little with the promotion function, which is provided by Yandex Games themselves. I did not invest a lot of money in advertising
Speaker A
so I threw in 6$ a week from time to time. Thanks to the improvement of the games in conjunction with the promotion, income increased and sometimes it was 7-10$ a day, but the number of players still remained quite small. Solitaire had 300-500 players a day,
Speaker A
and the survivalist 100-200. In total, survival attracted more players, but in Solitaire, people were much more addicted and came back more often, and in general it brought in times more income.
Speaker A
Some players played my survival game for 60-80 hours, and someone played solitaire for 170 hours. Sometime in August, everything went downhill and the total income dropped to about 3 dollars a day. Survival game I continued to improve, but promotion did not start. As you can see, the number of ad impressions is still not bad,
Speaker A
but the so-called CPM or cost per 1000 impressions of advertising falls lower, and it is already 10 times less than it was in the fat times of 2020-2023 years, which unfortunately I did not have time at all.
Speaker A
And of course, the most interesting thing at the end. For 8 months, I earned 947$ and one more time came payment for external monetization in the area of 35$.
Speaker A
During this time, on advertising, I spent somewhere around 52$, so that the net income of 937$, but minus 6% taxes on self-employment.
Speaker A
In the end, it turns out somewhere around 885$ for 8 months I earned thanks to these 2 games.
Speaker A
The games are certainly not masterpieces, but with quite unusual ideas and gameplay. The promotional materials are quite modest, but the problem is more that these are very narrow genres.
Speaker A
You could make a lot more money if you make good games for a wide audience.
Speaker A
So I'm going to make my third game a children's game for the sake of experimentation, but I'll continue to develop the survival game as well.
Speaker A
I also want to experiment with game promotion, in-game purchases, and publishing the game on many different platforms through a publisher. Game development is a long, thorny path, and all the most interesting things are still ahead, the main thing is not to give up at the first difficulties and do not wait for easy money.
Topics:Yandex GamesUnity game developmentindie game earningsgame promotionmobile game monetizationsolitaire gamesurvival gamegame development journeyad revenueself-employment tax
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