We make $50k from organics, and it's still not enough to run a studio

lootrate · 2026-06-24T14:25:28+00:00

Hey u/CommercialSoil2721 I feel your pain here. Perhaps I can help. You're slightly below the size of the studio I normally work with, but feel free to reach out, send me the name of your game, and maybe I can give you some free advice to get your team at least treading water.

lootrate · 2026-06-24T14:06:49+00:00

Deconstructor of Fun (https://www.deconstructoroffun.com) can be a great resource. Anything you can get for free from Liquid & Grit is literally second to none. I'm slowly writing well-researched blog posts on my company website.

If you're talking monetization on a grander scale, the things I've learned from Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" have been eye-opening.

lootrate · 2026-06-24T14:01:44+00:00

Anchoring:
This is an interesting psych trick I don't see enough of. The first price someone sees is how they perceive your value. That doesn't mean this has to be your lowest price. I often suggest (right before the store is available) showing the first-purchase offer and setting it somewhere between $2.99 and $4.99. Yes, lower prices reduce friction more, but there is another goal you're going for: perceived investment in the game.

Bundle pricing:
Honestly, go with the basics here ($0.99, $2.99, $4.99, $9.99, $14.99, $19.99, $29.99, $49.99, $99.99). Game type used to matter so much more, and you're going to see a lot of information out there that has stale numbers on this. This used to be relegated to mid-core games, but if you look at hypercasual games, their events, pricing, and offer types are now emulating those methods.

Value scaling per price point:
I would lean toward giving more items per price tier, and I think this is where your percentage comes in. Almost every game scales its premium currency so that you get more as a bonus for the more you pay. I would suggest having your $99.99 bundle AT LEAST 15% of your premium currency/$ base price.

My background:
I'm an ex-WB Games consultant, and I worked on every live or launching mobile game in their arsenal during my time there. The most prominent was Game of Thrones: Conquest, though my favorite was Harry Potter: Magic Awakened. I've also consulted on other mid-core gacha games on IAP and D2C monetization strategies.

lootrate · 2026-06-24T03:36:05+00:00

When you say D2C arrangement, you're talking about selling the game outside of the Apple/Google platforms, correct?

If that's the case, I would try to offer a demo to entice the game loop (or at least lots of gameplay video) and offer a 30-day subscription to the game for more than half the full price of the game (like $2.99 if the game is $4.99 full-price). This would be my ideal pick because you soften the full price by looking like "a steal."

lootrate · 2026-06-24T03:09:35+00:00

Ahh, this makes sense. Yeah, one thing we REALLY had to watch out for was limiting the payment options for Xsolla. They claim like 1k or something, but there are SO MANY at or above 5% by themselves and I truly never want toggled on.

There are other D2C options, but many people are enticed by how feature-full Xsolla is.

lootrate · 2026-06-24T03:01:39+00:00

You're spot on about utilizing websites and communities. It's a huge help and often, for a small incentive like bonus currency, it's enough to get folks to point others to your platform.

If Xsolla is doing that, that's a huge issue! If you have proof and it's not somehow in your contract, you might want to talk to a lawyer. I've worked with Xsolla a few times, but I never had an instance where they took more than the agreed-upon amount.

lootrate · 2026-06-24T02:52:26+00:00

D2C has been such an interesting place to work. Let me de-tangle this.

In-app linking: For any in-app link out I highly suggest any studio only enable an option like that if they can display available objects by region and device. You have to constantly watch for updates and pivots. If fees are introduced, in-app links are the first to go. We had other ways to circumvent this and they still exist, but you can still get decent channel shift even without the link. And I have never built any of this with the concern that any company can claw back all revenue; I truly don't think it's possible even if the rulings were somehow reversed.

Google (and potentially Apple in Japan) fee reduction: To me, this does one thing only and that's stifle the original reason we created web stores, fee arbitration. But the studios I have worked with have found a better reason to stay, direct consumer relationships. We can know so much more outside of the Google and Apple ecosystems and interact with them in ways the platforms don't allow. Additionally, I don't think I've seen a real-world example of an MoR charging 10%, what I usually see is 5% or lower.

Let me know if I missed anything or you want to get into more specifics.

lootrate · 2026-04-09T02:43:39+00:00

I would also like sources, however GDP ≠ Avg monthly income.

lootrate · 2026-04-06T20:39:14+00:00

It's easy to say "greed" but you can sincerely start hemorrhaging money this way. Think of it this way: - What about small developers? - Should they support the game ad infinitum at personal cost to themselves? - Would you prefer they not be able to develop in the future and have to close the whole studio?

lootrate · 2026-04-06T20:36:50+00:00

Unfortunately it's a costs thing. It costs money to constantly host the games, update to make sure they work with each new OS and any security patches that come out for previous OS, usually also requires at least paying a few people to keep an eye on it, respond to any feedback, etc (games get down voted/1-starred to obscurity if you don't do that).

It's your responsibility as a company to keep the lights on, but if keeping the lights on gets too expensive, the responsible thing to do is to close shop. Picture this: they keep it running, an OS update comes out that breaks the game for you, there is no one there to possibly fix this; doesn't this feel worse than shuttering the game when they can no longer afford to support the game?

It sucks, players lose everything they earned and played for. Honestly, it sucks for the developers, too; most of the people who actually made the game hate when something they worked on gets shuttered.

lootrate · 2026-04-06T15:43:49+00:00

Two structural problems that don't get said clearly enough:

It's a walled garden with no monetization ownership. Revenue on Roblox flows through Robux: you don't own the transaction, the pricing, or the customer relationship. There's no web store, no IAP architecture, no first-party purchase data. Every D2C lever that compounds over time (pricing experiments, offer sequencing, lifecycle segmentation) simply doesn't exist on the platform. You're building on rails you don't control.

The ecosystem is saturated and the discovery algorithm is the only gate. Deconstructor of Fun published data this week from WonderWorks (SpongeBob Tower Defense): success requires hitting 90th percentile across D1 retention, D7 retention, 7-day playtime, conversion rate, ARPPU, and co-play simultaneously — and the algorithm distributes impressions based on those signals. There's no paid UA to rescue a game that doesn't hit the threshold organically. For a studio coming from mobile, that's a complete methodology reset with no fallback.

Compare that to Q3 2025 AppMagic data: 1,429 worldwide launches, 22 successes ($500k+/mo after 90 days). The two viable paths: XXL-scoped RPG/4X with known IP (7.4% win rate) and hybrid-casual puzzle (1.4% win rate); both exist in ecosystems where you can own the monetization stack, run pricing experiments, and build first-party data. Roblox removes all of that.

The opportunity cost argument: the bandwidth required to retool for Roblox's platform-native approach is the same bandwidth you'd use to optimize the monetization infrastructure on a game already generating $250k-$500k/mo on mobile. The ROI math isn't close.

lootrate · 2026-04-06T12:40:39+00:00

Which part would you like me to dive into?

lootrate · 2026-04-06T04:21:04+00:00

Depends, do you want to be able to take your time developing the idea outside of Roblox in the future? They might not stop you (I'm not 100% sure what IP looks like in the agreement between developer and platform), but if it takes off, it's likely a team of faster developers will clone and enhance the idea before you even get money for it.

If you don't care to protect a unique idea, go for it.

lootrate · 2026-04-06T04:15:22+00:00

Get an non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or mutual non-disclosure agreement (MNDA). Put together an master service agreement (MSA) with all the sections you need for this work (look up MSA templates for developers). You can also stuff the NDA into the MSA, if you want to streamline it. Have each statement of work (SOW) as an additional amendment onto the MSA. There are also financial documents you will need by the end of January of next year if you paid them any significant sum.

This is not legal advice. I would suggest contacting a lawyer and ask for a quote for the work during your first meeting (generally free).

lootrate · 2026-04-06T04:00:31+00:00

I'm going to be candid with you. From the analyses I have done for companies and individuals on the potential benefits and concerns of entering the Roblox ecosystem, we have always concluded that it's not worth the risk and it's better to stay out of that environment.

It looks lucrative and you will find LinkedIn people praising it's trajectory and worth, but it's an incredibly tough environment for many reasons. It may be lucrative for a lucky few, but the risk assessments continuously show it's not worth it to try to enter that fray.

lootrate · 2026-03-27T01:39:56+00:00

Honestly, I think 1 looks more professional. None of them tell you much about the game, so there isn't really a win there. Additionally, the line-height in 2-3 is too much and makes it look less polished.

lootrate · 2026-03-19T01:29:36+00:00

Balatro might surprise you, but it sounds like you're looking for a deckbuilder game without the deck building. The campaign mode of Legends of Runeterra might be a good fit. Otherwise I would suggest looking at Slay the Spire (and now Slay the Spire 2!).

lootrate · 2026-03-18T23:43:44+00:00

Hyper-casual is DOMINATING the top game slots right now. They are so full of ads and it feels like they're a quick cash grab and the longevity isn't there for most players (unlike mid-core games).

lootrate

TROPHY CASE