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2024 September + Third Year Report

A topic by ashtorak created 42 days ago Views: 88
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Did a lot of multiplayer sessions at beginning of September, which are always great fun! But that slowed down in the second half when focusing on getting the first bigger update done, which will be released on Epic Games Store with a first version of Massey's and ship static firing.

There was one new builder this month via the new way with Ko-Fi commissions, but they didn't give me a name.

Total contributions for September are 386 bucks. This includes the first 1.5 days of Epic Games Store Revenue at end of August, which totaled to €142.44. So for EGS, I count the values from the month before the reporting one, as it looks like I get the final amount paid out at the end of the next month always. Then it's easier for me to use this value. I'll share more about the store next in the next report when the results for the first full month are in.

Thank you all for your contributions!

Now let's have a quick look back at the third year of StarbaseSim development:

  • Almost the full first half of the third year was spent on implementing flying in multiplayer with new controllers.
  • You can fly as many rockets as you want now with a pretty decent attitude and position controller.
  • Overhauled the booster and ship with awesome highly detailed models by @ChameleonCir.
  • Put the game on Epic Games Store, making it much easier to use multiplayer and keeping it updated.
  • Did the first Unreal Engine update from 5.2 to 5.4. Probably won't make these updates too often...

In numbers:

  • hit 1800 followers on X @StarbaseSim
  • 884 subs on Youtube @ashtorak
  • 33 paying members on Patron (110 total),  €172 per month
  • still just around $30 per month on ko-fi, but a first commission in September brought it to $56 this month at least

The following Itch numbers are totals for all three years:

  • views: 47.5k
  • downloads: 16.1k
  • payments: 106
  • gross revenue: $1035

Itch numbers may be falling off a bit now since a lot of payments go via other channels, especially now with Epic Games Store. Also, there weren't much updates of the Itch version due to slow development overall with the controller stuff and everything.

In general, in the third year growth was much lower overall. Of course, there haven't been released a whole lot of fancy updates and there is still missing half of the launch site. So, it's not too surprising. I am surprised though how slow everything went with the development in Unreal Engine. Not just because the multiplayer things. Even overhauling the booster and ship models took very long. Hard to imagine that in last year's report I was fabulating  about going to the Moon maybe. Couldn't be further from it now!

Also since I'm broke again. Last year I wrote that I was applying for social welfare and I finally got it in November. But the whole process was super annoying and so I didn't continue with it. Instead, I am looking into getting into a normal engineering day job again now. Also to be able to work on some hardware again and not sit on the PC working on the game the whole day, every day, to the point that I didn't even get to see much of what was going on at Starbase anymore apart from the weekly RGV stream and some stuff that was shared on Discord.

Putting the game on the Epic Games Store was partially also in the hope that maybe it would do very well, so I could continue working full time on it, but with spending a bit less time. That didn't turn out to be the case. Looking at whole of September, it will be something like €600 revenue on EGS and if you add on top the other contributions, maybe it would barely be enough to survive. But keeping the revenue up like this after the EGS launch, would require to continue working 24/7, producing updates and promoting the game. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to play around more with the fun things again, and I can do that in my free time after the day job is done.

So, going forward, we will have less frequent updates and less content in them. But maybe they are going to be more fun, at least for me.

Also, I should mention that another reason why development was slow at the end of the third year was because I got a little bit of social life suddenly in June...the kind that will also require a bit more of a stable income now ;)

So, overall the year was as busy as expected. I guess, the next one will be the same. It will just be a bit easier on the mind for me, when I'm not poor anymore :D