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So You Want to Make Games

szafranek.net

1–10 of 38 posts

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#2
Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows).

But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#3

Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

What evidence do you have that your game will make any more on the desktop than it would on the App Store ? (Given the same amount of word of mouth)

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#4

Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

What evidence do you have that your game will make any more on the desktop than it would on the App Store ? (Given the same amount of word of mouth)

Top paid app on the app-store show games that are of significant age (minecraft, plague inc) or with significant name recognition (monopoli, risk, etc) hinting at a stagnant market for independent, paid for games.

Now, evidence is a hard word, but I've the hunch that unless your game is an addictive style freemium incremental, all other genres are as of today more suited to desktop, because of user disinterest on paying a mobile game upfront.

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#5

Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

The general sentiment is that, for a regular guy, the app store is beyond hopeless and Steam is "just" extremely difficult and competitive.

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#6

Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

What evidence do you have that your game will make any more on the desktop than it would on the App Store ? (Given the same amount of word of mouth)

The price point of an average game that is sold tends to be about an order of magnitude higher on PC than on iPhone ($9.99 vs $0.99). PC gamers haven't been sold on the race to the bottom quite as much yet - there's more disdain for slot-machine type in-app-purchases, which as far as I can tell, is the only way to make any money in the mobile market.

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#7

Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

You can also make free games just for the challenge and fun and getting some hundreds of people to play it is easy for web-based games.

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#8
Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself, they are for dumb users (sorry I don't have other word for, and it's not even casual) making game like this is more commercial than a passion for gaming.

There's plenty exemple of sucessful game that have only few developper and are better than AAA.

I personnaly have started to make game because I like it to try other approach of programming and I want try to do things that other don't do more or don't focus. Like choice, cooperation, rewards on cooperation, etc.

Just focus on doing things that YOU would play, that make fun and people will talk about it, pay for it (I'm not even close to this but finish something always give reward.)

Re: So You Want to Make Games

#9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have that your game will make any more on the desktop than it would on the App Store ? (Given the same amount of word of mouth)

Top paid app on the app-store show games that are of significant age (minecraft, plague inc) or with significant name recognition (monopoli, risk, etc) hinting at a stagnant market for independent, paid for games. Now, evidence is a hard word, but I've the hunch that unless your game is an addictive style freemium incremental, all other genres are as of today more suited to desktop, because of user disinterest on pay…

Pretty much this.

It's far more difficult to gain recognition and get word of mouth going on the app store (due to volume), combined with the lower selling point as compared to desktop (for example $1 vs $15). People don't want to pay up front for games and the race to the bottom on prices have really hurt the little guy.

All graphs I've seen of sales on the app store show an inordinate amount of sales for the top sellers, whereas the tiers in the middle and below don't make anything significant at all.

Then go look at steamspy etc stats, even games 2/3rd's down the lists for a year's releases would have made a few thousand $ (as compared to app store where they might have been sitting on tens of $).

Either way, learning to code via writing a game is something I recommend for anyone, anywhere.

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