What is the best way to make money from your games?
A very difficult question. It depends on what kind of game you’re making. If it’s a free-to-play game then the usual avenue to go down is buying resources and etc with micro-transactions. Another way if you want to sell games and not free-to-play ones would be Steam Trading Cards. It doesn’t get much, but there are many people (myself included) who love buying the cards and building badges and there are some people who buy the games FOR the badges.
Beyond that I’ve no idea on how you’d find ways to make more money out of your games besides participating in bundles and such.
Though one word of advice, no one likes it when you release a full game and then later add micro-transactions since they’re existence is for free games, not full-priced retail launches.
Just my thoughts on the situation, there’s probably far more professional and experienced people out there to give you better advice.
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For those of us who are unfamiliar, can you tell us more about Steam Trading Cards and how they work?
I think they are something that you can unlock, but I’m not sure what they do.
It’s quite a long explaination but they are virtual trading cards supported by many games (including some old games as they’re easy to implement) and you get them by playing games, but you can’t get all of them, only a set number (half of what you need for a badge, rounded up. For example, 15 needed, you get 8 dropped) and have to trade/buy more to make the actual badge.
If you don’t care, you can just sell the cards and either way, Valve and the Devs of that said game make money, but not just on the cards, but the emotes and wallpapers that are created when crafting the badge. The percentages are:
Valve: 5%
Developers: 10%
The prices mean that developers get a small amount of cash, but it’s a almost constant stream due to people like me who buy lots of cards and enjoy crafting badges (especially for games I like where the devs deserve it) which might give you, as a dev, a small boost to your finances.
However, this has a negative effect as seen with recent events with the “developers” digital homicide who spammed steam with games less impressive than Number Wizard and made only with Assets, but were making money because the games would be sold as cheap as $1, and it impulse buyers, along with people who buy games ONLY for the cards, were keeping them in business. It was reported that from the cards only, on an average month they were making $7k for literally nothing.
So really there’s positives and negatives, some people seeing it as a kind of freemium game, but no matter your stance, this has allowed Valve to legally print money and devs get a nice extra boost to their finances too. It’s made people pick up old games too like companies who have picked up the BloodRayne franchise and added the cards recently, despite the game itself being on steam for several years so you don’t need to add the games at release.
There’s a whole FAQ here on Steam Trading cards, including stuff to do with levels and etc: http://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards
I keep many emotes because I love using them in conversations too 
and I like to have an impressive background too http://steamcommunity.com/id/overfiend_87/ .
Just to add in this from a gamers persepective is if you go free to play i suggest avoiding microstransactions that give advantages over the free players.
People are starting to hate the idea of microtransactions in general in my experience of gaming but they have to accept its a necessary thing for the game to make money somehow.
Mostly people have a problem with games that advertise as free to play but cap a limit on what you can achieve or give paying customers a significant advantage over other players. Items that cause players to level faster and cosmetic items are considered more acceptable in the gaming world as a happy medium.
Of course in doing this you can however offer some items on both in game currency and real money (they purchase credits that add to the account)
I know its not a great deal of indepth information but do your market reseach before you settle on a way of making money.
Take Lawbreakers for example its back in the development phase after its first and second closed alpha sessions (Not much of an NDA on it but i was accepted at the first phase). They started out thinking on a f2p model and microtransactions but dropped that idea in favour of a lower cost game but a pay to play model as a one cost.
Its all about what is out there and you are compeating against, Check out games of the type you are making, Learn their system on making money and then seem what the community reaction is to it over the forums (There is ALWAYS a post).
If you need any information welcome to pick my brains 
although i cant guarantee there is much left!
very good point, much of the gaming community has been getting irritated with microtransactions. Especially in fully-priced full games which keeps happening recently.