Look at it this way: Yacht Club budgeted themselves at ~$600K for Shovel Knight (300 from kickstarter and 300 for the stretch goals themselves). Within a week they sold 75,000 copies, enough to give them almost $700K that they took home. That's assuming they take home 60% of the game's profit. So, for a relatively high budget indie like Shovel Knight, you needed about 50K lifetime. (Mind you, ideally they wanted about double their $600K budget so as to pay employees well enough, but that's neither here nor there.) So an average, one to four man indie game should ideally hit around 25-40K in sales (at $15 per sale before the 30-40% platform fees, adjust as you wish for different price points) if we want them to be paid properly.
You should check out my YouTube channel, The Golden Bolt! I review all types of video games, both classic and modern, and I also give short flyover reviews of the free games each month on PlayStation Plus to tell you if they're worth downloading. After all, the games may be free, but your time is valuable!
