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Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

davesapien.com

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Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#51

Post by DaveSapien »

ido wrote: post #31
velcro wrote: post #12

Very nice work Dave - one thing thats probably a more interesting question - can you make a living on that? Making many small apps? Have also been toying with an idea to start doing apps for a while now and rather than do a major idea, instead do many small apps. Like for example if 1 app brings 100$ per month - then making 20 could make 2000$ and so on - but does 1 app make 100$ on average at all?

Don't take this the wrong way, but please don't contribute to the flood of low quality apps in the app store(s) that serves to drown even the better apps out there. I know of a person (via one of the local game dev groups I was part of in a previous city I lived in) that would just crap out a "new" app every couple of days by making a super simple game (like infinite runner) and then get some artist in Romania to res…

emm, have you even tried my apps/games? These are not "low quality apps", in fact some have been 5 star apps for months (now settling at 4 stars and above). The ones that have no rating simply have not got the exposure needed to be rated. I understand the reaction to shovelware, and totally agree with you, but I'd like to think my work isn't that.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#52

Post by pseudometa »

DaveSapien wrote: post #51
ido wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't take this the wrong way, but please don't contribute to the flood of low quality apps in the app store(s) that serves to drown even the better apps out there. I know of a person (via one of the local game dev groups I was part of in a previous city I lived in) that would just crap out a "new" app every couple of days by making a super simple game (like infinite runner) and then get some artist in Romania to res…

emm, have you even tried my apps/games? These are not "low quality apps", in fact some have been 5 star apps for months (now settling at 4 stars and above). The ones that have no rating simply have not got the exposure needed to be rated. I understand the reaction to shovelware, and totally agree with you, but I'd like to think my work isn't that.

Yes, they are "low quality apps"! Good luck ever getting featured by apple with one of these apps.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#53

Post by apalmer »

ido wrote: post #42
tsunamifury wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a kind of naïveté. Experimenting at scale to sell apps and find what might be a viable business is pretty much all the AppStore offers developers. The lack of custom storefronts or advertising/marketing options makes this the only viable way to try to make money. Just waiting til you've made the perfect app and only launching that would mean you were one of the most brilliant people in tech, having complete k…

The value of the blog is not the engine it's the text. If their text is a blatant rehashing of someone else's content with SEO on top then yes, I would tell them to not put up crap online & try to find something of value to do. I'm not saying don't try to release MVPs quicky to test the market, I'm saying don't log in to itunes, check out the top 10 games and then make cheap generic rip offs with different skins and…

Yeah but that is business. That is exactly how a good business man approaches business. Study the market, determine what is successful, emulate them but either more efficiently, to a new niche, or marketed better.

I mean the whole point of business is to maximize the return on your investment.

Now making absolute garbage may not be the right solution, and making incredible product that takes 5 years to develop is probably not the right solution either... finding the right mix is key

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#54

Post by DaveSapien »

nsxwolf wrote: post #50
DaveSapien wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word, no. All that these apps have been doing (finically) is to pay for over heads. The most important thing for me is getting back on my creative horse this year, You'd need to produce 3x that amount to bring in a small living unless one is some kind of hit. The more you do the more likely you'll have that hit, and thats really down to experience and your community knowing who you are. Thanks for taking a look!…

Curious what you define as overheads. App Store membership fee? Paying yourself a minimum wage? Depreciation on your development Mac? Thanks for your insights!

Studio rent, accountancy fees, tax, App Store membership's and some tech/software. Basically I dont take anything home with me.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#55

Post by DaveSapien »

ido wrote: post #49
DaveSapien wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small games would be your best bet, though I have a feeling that the indie bubble is bursting. In saying that, ultra niche is the sure way to go for small projects.

It's super competitive, and small games (that are financially viable) probably take longer to make than you realize (Super Hexagon took more than half a year to make, I was play testing early versions of it). Toto, we're not in 2008 anymore :)

Yeah totaly, I'm working on a game right now that has been in development for 8 over years! But again, some amazing stuff is built at game jams though most need at least a month or so of polishing.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#56

Post by joshowens »

DaveSapien wrote: post #19
velcro wrote: post #12

Very nice work Dave - one thing thats probably a more interesting question - can you make a living on that? Making many small apps? Have also been toying with an idea to start doing apps for a while now and rather than do a major idea, instead do many small apps. Like for example if 1 app brings 100$ per month - then making 20 could make 2000$ and so on - but does 1 app make 100$ on average at all?

In a word, no. All that these apps have been doing (finically) is to pay for over heads. The most important thing for me is getting back on my creative horse this year, You'd need to produce 3x that amount to bring in a small living unless one is some kind of hit. The more you do the more likely you'll have that hit, and thats really down to experience and your community knowing who you are. Thanks for taking a look!…

What kind of marketing efforts do you put into each app? I've been working on an iOS landing page generator and I would be curious to get your thoughts on it @DaveSapien: http://bit.ly/carp-hn.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#57

Post by JeremyMorgan »

tsunamifury wrote: post #40
ido wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't take this the wrong way, but please don't contribute to the flood of low quality apps in the app store(s) that serves to drown even the better apps out there. I know of a person (via one of the local game dev groups I was part of in a previous city I lived in) that would just crap out a "new" app every couple of days by making a super simple game (like infinite runner) and then get some artist in Romania to res…

This is a kind of naïveté. Experimenting at scale to sell apps and find what might be a viable business is pretty much all the AppStore offers developers. The lack of custom storefronts or advertising/marketing options makes this the only viable way to try to make money. Just waiting til you've made the perfect app and only launching that would mean you were one of the most brilliant people in tech, having complete k…

To me the advice sounded more like "don't spam the app store with useless crap" rather than "don't start small and experiment". Maybe it wasn't worded that great, but I agree with the sentiment.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#58

Post by fharper1961 »

Congrats you've been very productive this year.

Concerning making money, I think you need to explore other ways of revenue streams than just paid apps. For example freemium or ad based. I'm currently making $0.07/download, with 20,000 downloads/month on Android using an in app purchase freemium model. I'll be adding more IAPs, so revenue should be going up in 2014.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#59

Post by DaveSapien »

fharper1961 wrote: post #58

Congrats you've been very productive this year. Concerning making money, I think you need to explore other ways of revenue streams than just paid apps. For example freemium or ad based. I'm currently making $0.07/download, with 20,000 downloads/month on Android using an in app purchase freemium model. I'll be adding more IAPs, so revenue should be going up in 2014.

Thanks! Thats brilliant, I'm very wary of freemium myself and have tried it in the past. I just don't think its for me. Though I'm going to give it a go next year with one or two apps next year.

Re: Show HN: I made 22 apps and games this year mostly by myself – here they are

#60

Post by DaveSapien »

JeremyMorgan wrote: post #57
tsunamifury wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a kind of naïveté. Experimenting at scale to sell apps and find what might be a viable business is pretty much all the AppStore offers developers. The lack of custom storefronts or advertising/marketing options makes this the only viable way to try to make money. Just waiting til you've made the perfect app and only launching that would mean you were one of the most brilliant people in tech, having complete k…

To me the advice sounded more like "don't spam the app store with useless crap" rather than "don't start small and experiment". Maybe it wasn't worded that great, but I agree with the sentiment.

Yes indeed!
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