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Where have all the iOS games gone?

minotaurproject.co.uk

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Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#41

Post by eridius »

retromario wrote: post #24

Yeah it's a challenging market. Just to add another data point, we're small indie (games) developer, we spent over a year on our first title with very little marketing budget and these are our sales figures from our launch: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/YacineSalmi/20160519/273030/E... In short, decent sales but not enough to recoup our costs. Still, we never expected that we would hit gold on the first try. I think…

That game looks pretty neat. You just sold a copy :) But it's a game I've never heard of before, and I'm pretty good about checking the new games lists on the App Store each week. So I think the takeaway from this shouldn't be that premium games (is $2.99 really "premium"?) don't work, but rather that you can't rely on free marketing to sell your game. Once a game falls off the lists, it's pretty hard for people to stumble across it unless they're looking for it specifically.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#42

Post by eridius »

st3v3r wrote: post #38
quantumhobbit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This loss of trust amongst consumers is what caused the original video games crash in the 80's. Nintendo's seal of quality is what restored consumer trust. Apple may need to get more aggressive about the App Store.

Well, they had a category (maybe still do) called "Pay once games" or something like that. Basically highlighting games that you paid for once, up front, like normal games, and that didn't have a bunch of IAP.

They also show on every single app whether or not it has IAP (and you can see what the IAP is with a tap), so you can do your own filtering when looking at the new games list if that's an important criteria.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#43

Post by diziet »

Lerc wrote: post #28
fnayr wrote: post #14

I hear this myth perpetuated incessantly. (That there's no more middle ground in the app store, only the Clash of Clans and Candy Crushes and the rest with no downloads). People paint the picture that it's the top 0.1% and everyone else with an unsustainable business. The truth is there's plenty of us in the middle still. My two person iOS dev studio has pulled in 6 figures a year for the past 4 years. The problem is…

I can't help but note that the only game in the top 200 that is not "Free" is Minecraft.

NBA 2K16, Bloons TD 5, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Terraria, Geometry Dash, Trivia Crack, Heads Up!, Neo Monsters & Plague Inc. also made it into top 200 grossing games in Q1 in US on iPhone.

Worldwide wise, paid games are doing worse off overall -- so US is over-indexing on paid games compared to the rest of the world.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#44

Post by projectramo »

Wait a second:

" the first non-iOS game I did after spending two years on iOS, released on a Sony handheld that many describe as being “obscure”, generated literally thousands of times more income for us than two years and ten games on iOS with its potential billions of users."

What was the platform? I wonder if there is a strategy to be carved out making games for Windows 10, Linux mobile, etc.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#45

Post by the_hoser »

projectramo wrote: post #44

Wait a second: " the first non-iOS game I did after spending two years on iOS, released on a Sony handheld that many describe as being “obscure”, generated literally thousands of times more income for us than two years and ten games on iOS with its potential billions of users." What was the platform? I wonder if there is a strategy to be carved out making games for Windows 10, Linux mobile, etc.

The Vita. A "dying" console. It's actually the best handheld gaming device I've ever owned.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#46

Post by xenihn »

buserror wrote: post #30
zepto wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird - so you were uniquely position to capitalize on the growth period, but because you predicted that it would ebb a decade later, you decided not to take part?

Yes, because I'm an engineer, not a gambler or a marketer. In that time, I also saw OSX become more and more iOS like, with fisher-price grade APIs replacing old, working ones, etc. Quite frankly I still compile my old stuff now and then, but I have no regrets leaving it all for the hipsters to fight over.

I can definitely see where you're coming from, but I would have still gambled if I had been in your position :)

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#47

Post by KingMob »

diziet wrote: post #26
fnayr wrote: post #14

I hear this myth perpetuated incessantly. (That there's no more middle ground in the app store, only the Clash of Clans and Candy Crushes and the rest with no downloads). People paint the picture that it's the top 0.1% and everyone else with an unsustainable business. The truth is there's plenty of us in the middle still. My two person iOS dev studio has pulled in 6 figures a year for the past 4 years. The problem is…

The sentiment is totally right -- especially if you take other countries into account. The numbers you mentioned are pretty far off for US -- a typical rank 200 game in iPhone earns around $4000-6000 or so per day, but worldwide we can expect the top 100 app to earn around 100k / day on both platforms, and the top 200 app earns roughly half of that. This is wonderful because this kind of revenue can sustain a lot of…

"A lot of companies"? With 2+ million apps in each app store, the top 200 is still the top .01%. It does nothing to refute the idea that app store income follows a power law distribution.

Even if being in the top 5% was sustainable, that's still a far cry away from the rest of the computing field.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#48

Post by zelos »

projectramo wrote: post #44

Wait a second: " the first non-iOS game I did after spending two years on iOS, released on a Sony handheld that many describe as being “obscure”, generated literally thousands of times more income for us than two years and ten games on iOS with its potential billions of users." What was the platform? I wonder if there is a strategy to be carved out making games for Windows 10, Linux mobile, etc.

I've seen other indie game developers say that they made decent money on the Vita: Vita owners are a small market, but they're very active and prepared to spend money.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#49

Post by [deleted] »

the_hoser wrote: post #45
projectramo wrote: post #44

Wait a second: " the first non-iOS game I did after spending two years on iOS, released on a Sony handheld that many describe as being “obscure”, generated literally thousands of times more income for us than two years and ten games on iOS with its potential billions of users." What was the platform? I wonder if there is a strategy to be carved out making games for Windows 10, Linux mobile, etc.

The Vita. A "dying" console. It's actually the best handheld gaming device I've ever owned.

[deleted]

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#50

Post by sago »

fnayr wrote: post #14

I hear this myth perpetuated incessantly. (That there's no more middle ground in the app store, only the Clash of Clans and Candy Crushes and the rest with no downloads). People paint the picture that it's the top 0.1% and everyone else with an unsustainable business. The truth is there's plenty of us in the middle still. My two person iOS dev studio has pulled in 6 figures a year for the past 4 years. The problem is…

Which myth? Did we read the same article?

> That there's no more middle ground in the app store, only the Clash of Clans and Candy Crushes and the rest with no downloads

Did he say anything like that?

In the version I read he said that his games weren't making enough money to be viable, though he expected the market to be big enough to support their work. No mention of middles, Clash of Clans or anything.

FWIW: I also let my Apple dev license lapse, for similar reasons. Perhaps I could have gained that 'valuable knowledge' through years of experience, to get to a point of making a modest return. Perhaps. But, like Jeff, I found other platforms to be much more financially viable.

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