51–60 of 73 posts
I'm knee deep in the middle of that. It's almost as fun as programming. Screw the money, I'm doing it for the fun of it.
I released the paid version last November, for 99¢; so far I've had 8 sales. A month or two ago I released an ad-supported version; it's up to 123 downloads, and has earned 5¢ in ad revenue--most of it in the first day, which makes me think advertisers were experimenting to see if my users would click through.
I never expected vast success--it's a traditional Malagasy game, not a flashy video game--but it'd be nice to get enough to pay back my $25 Market membership. :-)
I have every wish for success of this and every other business, but in the spirit of helping other impressionable developers, making a business is hard enough without making video games. How do I love games and hate games businesses, let me count the ways. User expectations are pegged by AAA games, whose budgets you cannot possibly match. Those AAA products set a price point at $DIRT_CHEAP. (Angry Birds costs what ?)…
I can only vouch for the major mobile software marketplaces, but the App Store, the Android Marketplace, and Amazon's Appstore are festooned with indie/small shop (or even one-person) developed apps.
There are handfuls of developers whose works fans look out for. Mika Mobile is one. Never heard of them? They made Zombieville USA, a million+ selling app. They followed up with OMG Pirates!, another million seller. They now have Battleheart, which was top 5 in the app store and is still on the top 200 charts, even at $2.99 in the notoriously penny-pinching App store.
Need more? How about taptaptap, who have never made an app that wasn't a huge ($500,000+) seller. Or Backflip, Donut Games, and Nimblebit, who have all had monster sellers consistently.
There is room for not only hobbyist and/or one-hit blockbusters (Tiny Wings, Doodle Jump, Pocket God), but also consistent sellers (the aforementioned, Popcap games, and of course Rovio), along with AAA megacorp houses. Now, being an indie rock star competing against the Billboard and the millions of bar bands hoping to strike it Aerosmith-big, now _that_ is an undertaking. Ditto, filmmaking and acting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
agree on the games. In his case, he can narrow his target area and focus maybe on smaller target market. putting a game app out and placing it in that category and competing against big guns is like a suicide mission. You can bleed money on marketing but nothing will happen unless you have another Angry Bird like idea. I would recommend him trying different categories. Not all of them are so competitive. Also he shou…
That's scary, considering that "average" is skewed by the multi-million-dollar end. What's the _median_ iOS app annual revenue?
Couple of things from someone who has been in a similar situation: 1) You don't have to be a good marketer to set up a twitter account and tweet when you add new levels and new features. Retweet them from your personal twitter account and it will at least hit your followers. Don't feel ashamed of asking a few friends to also retweet to their followers. The effect might be small, but it's a minimal effort. 2) Focusing…
I've been in the android market for a year and have done over $100k in sales of my games, and you hit the nail on the head. Create lots of games, and not just for the money. You have to be having fun while creating or it becomes a miserable job. I'm falling into that rut myself, and because I've spent so much time working on my flagship game, I've gotten behind. Competition of that game has increased, sales have slow…
Don't foret that Angry Birds was Rovio's 40th game. Stickability counts. I think to succeed though you need to put out more than 1 per year. I also think there is likely to be a network effect, if someone likes one of your games they may try the rest... this is the equivalent of the McDonalds "you want fries with that?" - that is they know they only get a certain number of people through their door, so they need to e…
I have every wish for success of this and every other business, but in the spirit of helping other impressionable developers, making a business is hard enough without making video games. How do I love games and hate games businesses, let me count the ways. User expectations are pegged by AAA games, whose budgets you cannot possibly match. Those AAA products set a price point at $DIRT_CHEAP. (Angry Birds costs what ?)…
While most of your points are valid, they're nothing that can't be overcome with persistance and the willingness to learn, and I fear that you've painted too bleak of a picture of the industry. I think the biggest problem is that making fun, engaging games is really, really hard. A lot of people assume that because they can program, and they enjoy playing games, making them should be relatively straight forward. But…
But it's an industry where the winners win big and everyone else struggles, not unlike professional athletics. So when offering advice to outsiders jumping in, the advice should be measured. Among the hard-working success stories of those that made it, the stories of those that didn't get lost.
I really need to add sound to my Android game. [1] It's a board game, which means elaborate sound isn't a normal part of the experience; but it could at least click as you move the stones around. I suspect, as the author says, that most people would turn it off; but it'll contribute to the appearance of a polished game. I released the paid version last November, for 99¢; so far I've had 8 sales. A month or two ago I…
I have every wish for success of this and every other business, but in the spirit of helping other impressionable developers, making a business is hard enough without making video games. How do I love games and hate games businesses, let me count the ways. User expectations are pegged by AAA games, whose budgets you cannot possibly match. Those AAA products set a price point at $DIRT_CHEAP. (Angry Birds costs what ?)…
While most of your points are valid, they're nothing that can't be overcome with persistance and the willingness to learn, and I fear that you've painted too bleak of a picture of the industry. I think the biggest problem is that making fun, engaging games is really, really hard. A lot of people assume that because they can program, and they enjoy playing games, making them should be relatively straight forward. But…
It sure seems like fun gameplay is the limiting factor. It also seems like that should be a less scary problem to solve, but I'm not a game developer.
Is it considered hard to assess whether your games are fun? Or just hard to make fun games?
> I knew I had a marketing problem but instead I preferred to refractor my code Heh, I know this too well. I suck HUGE at marketing. I've got 4 games in the iPhone app store and made since October 2010 whooping $780 ... Actually I would be very happy if I got 20 sales a day :) I guess my adventure in indie gamedev will end by the end of this year when my funds are used up and I'll have to get an office coding job ble…
Background: we are following the HN community for good 4 years now and it inspired us even more to start our own business. We are loving it and it is a dream come true.
To the topic: yesterday we launched our first own product, iOS game Tap4Two. That made us very proud - we shipped! But what would make our day is - if it sold.
You can see the screenshots here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap4two/id424411131?mt=8
Landing page: http://www.tap4two.com/
We found a niche - there are very few games for 2 players to play on one device. Real gaming has always been about few friends coming over to play on a console/pc. And that's exactly what we were missing on the App Store. We made a game, in which two players compete simultaneously in a series of challenges - who will be first to spot the right solution. If you get it right - you get +1 point, if you tap your button when the wrong solution is shown - you lose 1 point.
We hired an art student to draw a nice logo for Tap4Two, but we have drawn and polished the graphics and the landing page ourselves. We are happy with them. When the first version was ready to ship - we launched the landing page, pitched it everywhere we could, made a gameplay video (homemade tripod for iPhone 4 - great fun, take a look: http://tumblr.com/x1a1pmizw9), submitted the app to review. Then it went a bit downhill: we set the availability date to 24th March, but the game has gone "Ready for Sale" on 21st. As it seems, this "feature" of App Store has not been changed, even though lots of people are saying otherwise - game has gone live on 24th with the release date of 21st, which made it debut on the new releases at 81st position in puzzle category. Not a very good start. As expected - it has not been found by almost anyone - it was bought by all of our friends and just a few real customers. It made 30. position on the Polish App Store (as it's our home country) - but Poles are not buying much. Actually the only review we've got comes from a real customer, and it's very heartlifting.
We've pitched the reviewers, posted on forums, facebook, twitter, everywhere - without luck so far.
Any suggestions guys? Do you think the graphics could be more polished? Any tips with marketing strategies?
Today: zero sales so far.
TL;DR: Made, pitched, shipped, did not sell all that well.
Here are some promo codes, if you would like to try it out: Y4YK743NXXNX YXH3X7FXARF4 4JYKM7AKWWHR APK74H36NETW YNYPAFJ66HXA