Indie Game Developer Earns $250K in Two Months with iPhone Game

It might seem a little odd to some people, but mobile gaming is an extremely hot niche right now, and in some regards, it’s much more successful than typical PC/console gaming. Less money is generally made as well, since the games don’t sell as high as full-blown productions, but sometimes they can even make more, if the game is successful enough to push that much volume.

The good thing about mobile games is that it doesn’t take massive developer teams to create them. Some of the best are created by a single person, and if you are that single person, the potential to earn a good amount of cash fast is easy, as long as you can create a game people enjoy. In the case of Steve Demeter, creator of an iPhone game called “Trism”, sometimes the cash can roll in really fast.

This puzzle game took a few months to build, and even though it’s priced at a modest $5, it earned him $250,000 through the iPhone App Store in a mere two months. That’s the upside. The downside is that these results are not typical, and unless your game is near-perfect, it’s not going to sell as well as this. It’s made worse by the fact that the arena is becoming much more crowded, with many developers clamoring to the mobile segment… not surprisingly. Still, if you have a good idea, can code and don’t mind sinking your time into development, it might just pay off. Big time.

“A single one of these titles can be turned around for pennies by comparison in just weeks by a single hobbyist working in their off-hours,” said Scott Steinberg, publisher of DigitalTrends.com and author of “Get Rich Playing Games.” “The overhead and barriers to entry are so low that virtually anyone can afford to take a crack, if not several, at hitting a home run.”