Finances of a Game Designer, 2023 edition

In true New Years fashion, I’ve decided to start something new - this blog! Apologies to all my former suffering Tiny Letter subscribers (whom I’ve neglected for almost a year now), but with that platform closing it gave me the final push to try Substack.

I’m not going to promise any regular schedule of posts (especially with a baby imminently on the way), but I hope to make this the main place I write about game design, especially seeing as Twitter/X is slowly disintegrating.

With that out of the way, welcome!

Money Money Money

For the last few years I’ve started a habit to report on my income as a game designer, with the hope of (a) increasing transparency around royalites in the industry, (b) reflecting on my own year and (c) hopefully inspiring others to do the same. [Acually, just as I have been writing this, I saw fellow game designer Clarence Simpson report on his year’s income on Twitter here - do give it a read!]

I used to do this as a thread on Twitter, and you can find the previous years threads here:

2022

2021

For 2023, my top level income figure is €164,423, compared to €113,970 for 2022 and €44,244 for 2021. 2023 was the second year I worked full time as a game designer, although I wouldn’t ascribe the higher income in those years to having more time to work on game design; in reality the inverse is true in that knowing I was going to earn more from royalties gave me the confidence to take the plunge and go full time.

Looking at the breakdown by game, you see that my income is far from evenly distributed; almost 75% comes from only 5 games/series, while the remaining 22 games make up the rest (and of course, there are 20 or so games I have made previously that no longer earn me any royalties).

Both the Echoes and Adventure Games series continue to sell and contribute to my income in a substational way, much like they did in 2022. They are the closest to an evergreen seller that I have - games that sell well year after year. The difference with these is that they are a series of games, with regular new releases serving to boost sales - there are now 8 titles in each of the series. Of course, that makes them a bit more work that a typical evergreen in that you need to constantly design new content, and increasingly I find my a fair chunk of my working hours devoted to these series.

This is also the first year I took income from Postmark Games, the print at home publisher I founded with Rory Muldoon in 2021. So the figure you see here for 2023 is more like 2 years worth of income. Rory and I did a stream recently reflecting on 2023 for Postmark and looking forward to 2024 in which we cover some of the financial side of the business, which you might find interesting (we start chatting about finances specifically at 46:30):

There’s probably a lot more to write about in the future about the finances of running a print and play publisher, but suffice to say that even selling games for £4 at a time can be profitable if you don’t have to pay to manufacture and ship them!

One other game of note that isn’t in those top 5 games is Next Station London, which was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres this year. Normally you would expect to see a bump in sales due to the nomination, but as I only get my royalties for that series once a year in May, any effect due to that will only be seen in my 2024 payment (as well as sales of Next Station Tokyo which released in the second half of 2023). Fingers crossed!

You gotta spend money to make money

In previous years I haven’t touched on the expenses side of the equation, something I want to try and do better at talking about. I must admit I’m not as careful with tracking expenses specifically for game design, as they are mixed in with other business expenses, but I’ll try to give an estimate here.

In 2023 I went to 3 main events: the Spiel des Jahres ceremony in Berlin, PAX Australia, and a game design retreat, with the latter two being held in Victoria, a different state to where I live. Between flights, accomodation, food, etc, I would estimate costs for these events to total around €4000, although the SdJ trip was much more expensive than usual considering it involved a return flight from Australia to Europe, which is roughly €2000 by itself.

Other expenses include printing supplies, some postage, and I guess internet if you want to get really detailed, probably around €500 in total. And the last big chunk of expenses is income tax, which is roughly 30-35% in Australia.

So €164,423 is a really great income, but as always, it isn’t the whole story!

What do I have to show for myself?

2023 was a bit of a transition year for me in terms of new designs and pitching - I had just recently moved to Australia and a lot of time was taken up with setting up a new business and personal things like finding somewhere to live. Add to that I was trying to set up new collaborations, new playtesting groups (a new life!) meant that I probably got less ‘done’ in the year than I would have liked.

As I alluded to before, a lot of time in the year was spent on designing new scenarios for the 3 series that I now have in print: Echoes, the Adventure Games and Perspectives, the latter of which I probably find the most time consuming task I ever have to do! I also work on new maps and content for Postmark games.

There was also some continuing development work for games that are signed and will be released in 2024 and beyond - including a few games based on licences that I am looking forward to being able to talk about!

In terms of new designs, Rory and I started and finished the design of Waypoints entirely within 2023, which I am extremely proud of. Apart from this, there are a number of promising new collaborations, but nothing was really in a pitchable state by the end of 2023. I did several briefs for new designs in response to being contacted by publishers (usually 1-2 pages with an outline as to how the game could work), but with no success.

Postscript

I always like to end these reviews with a reminder that these numbers are a result of working as a game designer for 13 or so years , with my first game being published over 10 years ago now. For the first 10 years, my annual income was a tiny fraction of the income I saw this last 3 years - there is a long lag in terms of releases and subsequent royalties in tabletop game design, especially as you often only see income on a design 3-4 years after you first start working on it (for instance, it looks like in 2024 I will have a game published that I started working on in 2013, and even then I will only income from it in 2025…if everything stays on track!).

I also have had the benefit of a huge range of privileges throughout those years which allowed me to continue working on game design even though it wasn’t generating me any income - I had a very flexible job, I lived in a location which let me travel to a lot of conventions easily and cheaply, and I didn’t have many financial commitments or dependents beyond myself. I hope to be able to keep supporting and advocating for improvements in the industry that help designers to make a living wage without needing these significant privileges - something that is more and more needed when you look across all creative industries.