I built a browser game as a side hustle — honest numbers and lessons after a few months
I work full-time and wanted a side project that could eventually make money without trading hours for dollars. I ended up building a free browser racing game (not linking it — not here to promote, just to share the process).
The realistic part first: revenue so far is basically $0. Games are a brutally slow side hustle. If you need extra income in the next 3-6 months, this is not it.
What it actually costs:
- My time: evenings and weekends for a few months
- Hosting/tools: under $30/month using an app-building platform instead of coding everything from scratch
- Marketing: $0 so far — just posting to relevant gaming communities
What I learned about the monetization side:
- Ads (AdSense etc.) need serious traffic before they pay anything meaningful — think thousands of daily players for even beer money
- Premium subscriptions/cosmetics only work once you have a loyal player base, so it's a "build audience first, monetize later" play
- Game portals (sites that host browser games) can bring traffic but most take a revenue share
What surprised me:
- Distribution is 10x harder than building. Making the game was the fun part; getting anyone to play it is the actual work
- Many communities ban self-promotion outright (fair enough), so growth is mostly SEO and word of mouth
- Multiplayer features doubled my dev time but are what make people bring friends
Would I recommend it? Only if you'd enjoy the building itself, because that might be all you get for the first year. Treat the income as a lottery ticket attached to a hobby.
Happy to answer questions about the process.
u/HitGameMaker — 28 days ago
