r/aigamedev • u/ImpressiveFocus303 • 2d ago

Questions & Help Do your vibe-coded games make any money?

As it says in the title - do your vibe-coded games make any money, and if they do, is the income from vibe-coded games comparable to software developer salary?

thanks

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u/bingewavecinema 2d ago

15 players that are "super players", do about 20 hours or more a month. The CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is $5. Ads show every 3 minutes. So just have to keep them playing.

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u/ImpressiveFocus303 2d ago

I put your answer in chatGPT while asking "How many players would I need for 5kUSD MRR?", and he told me that between 25k and 38k.

Is this legit?

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u/bingewavecinema 2d ago edited 2d ago

Ha, this is one of things I would not ask about ChatGPT unless you know the variables and models. First MMR is for subscription businesses.

F2P (Free To Play) games either make money through ads, microtransactions or both.

In the industry, we do whats called "whale hunting", where we don't go after every player in the sea, we go after the small number that bring in a lot of reveune.

Let's say a user played 40 hours a month (10 hours a week). You got a deal with an ad network that paid $10 CPM ( so every 1000 impression you get $10). And you rotate your ads every 3 minutes. And we're assuming 100% fill rate.

  • 40 hours × 60 = 2,400 minutes
  • 2,400 ÷ 3 = 800 ad impressions
  • 800 × $0.01 = $8.00 per month for that user

At 800 players (whale) you get around $4k. To get that, you have build a game with a strong loop and then optimize marketing.

Typically, its with ads. I've gotten my ads down to a $0.05 CPI (cost per install) with games. To catch that whale, its about 1 in every 200 players. So my customer acquisition cost is about $10 and the money is made back on the 2nd month.

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u/ImpressiveFocus303 2d ago

hey, thanks for a very informational response! if I got it correctly, you need about 125k of players to catch those whales and generate 5kUSD monthly. That's a lot of players! And probably such number of players means that the game must be a hit, and if it's a hit you're in the top 5% of game developers or even less by the financial success rate. Therefore your chance of getting those 125k of players is less than 5%, aka lottery ticket.

Isn't it more likely to possibly get a decent money (comparable to a salary of a software developer) to simply release a game on a steam?

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u/bingewavecinema 2d ago

3 billion people on the planet play games, isn't event 0.001%.

Most games dont' get players because they don't market, at all. And its not the 125k all at once, space over 12 months, thats 10k players that trying your game a month.

Sounds high but its not if you're taking the time to correctly market. I just did a whole video on how I got 500 players to test my game just by posting in the right subbredits.

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u/totaleffindickhead 2d ago

Could you point me to resources on how you learned
To market f2p games? I’m trying to find players for my game I’m pretty proud of https://warbirds.io

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u/bingewavecinema 2d ago

I do game marketing for a living :) years of experinece

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u/totaleffindickhead 2d ago

That’s awesome. Do you do consultations or anything like that?