21–30 of 52 posts
Mojang is on the list and they were an Indie developer and they don't do advertising.
IMO it's quite possible to do well on the app store. Sometimes someone builds a great app, and it does marginally well, but Google or Apple notices it. They recognize that it's an interesting product and will likely at least call you about a job. Which in my book, would be somewhat of a success.
Shorter indie devs: "What's the music industry? Surely we aren't anything like that..."
If by "win" you mean "be in the top 5 grossing", there may be some meat here. But it would be surprising for an independent anything to break into the top 5 grossing in any market, software or otherwise, in a few years. But if by "win" you mean "earn a comfortable living and possibly modest riches" then I doubt this thesis has any legs at all.
I hate the king.com people. Their mobile app ads are almost malware. They do scammy App Store redirects when you're on certain websites. No, I don't give a shit about candy crush.
Yeah, King.Com is pretty aggressive. The funny thing with Candy Crush is that it's a free app. The only thing that costs money is if you want to "cheat" to get extra turns and goodies to help you get past levels. Totally defeats the purpose of playing a puzzle game, as far as I'm concerned, but they make tons of money off those who are fine with dishing out cash to see that next level sooner.
If by "win" you mean "be in the top 5 grossing", there may be some meat here. But it would be surprising for an independent anything to break into the top 5 grossing in any market, software or otherwise, in a few years. But if by "win" you mean "earn a comfortable living and possibly modest riches" then I doubt this thesis has any legs at all.
The irony that the top developers started as indie developers for the most part, and simply grew their business with successful products seems to be lost on the author.
Let's look at the numbers from a different direction: Apple reports that the App Store has 1.25 million apps earning $5bn in revenue last year. But 25 companies take half of the App Store revenue, leaving only $2.5bn for everyone else. That means that if you knocked out all 25 of the biggest earners on the App Store, the other 1.25 million apps would see their average annual revenue double to. . . about $4,000 annually. Hot damn! Call home, tell the spouse to put the Hamburger Helper back in the pantry, the kids are eating at Chucky Cheese tonight!
Everyone wants to be a game developer. . . but just like every other job that everyone wants to have, it ends up being a cutthroat business. The big players - the Apples, the movie studios, the recording studios - certainly don't do anything to make it better. But even without them it'd still be wretched place to try to make a living, simply because of sheer volume of competition. There's something to be said for having a day job to survive on while you're trying to make it.
As developers we should count our blessings in that department: unlike for so many other high demand careers, chasing our dreams requires developing skills that are also highly demanded for less glamorous work. We're fortunate to be able to practically default into fantastically lucrative day jobs that still offer reasonably enjoyable work.
By which I mean boring corporate jobs. Working long hours for low pay to go chase somebody else's dream at XYZ startup is probably the wrong choice here. Get the boring 40hr/wk corporate job. You'll make enough money to finance the stuff you really want to do, and better yet you'll have enough free time to actually do the stuff you really want to do.
1) They rely on the AppStore to do their marketing for them because you could get away with that in the early days (or if you make the front-page consistently). With 1million apps, that's not going to work. Turns out, you have to do the traditional thing and go and pound the pavement, and market your games yourself.
2) The price-points are crap. Selling software for $1 is crap-business, and not every game is compatible with the freemium or subscription model. You really need the price-point in the $20-40 range to be sustainable. You sell 1million games, and you get $700k?! Moving that many units is a massive success and yet all it does it maybe cover your development costs and rent.
3) There's a lot of shovel-ware out there, and it's just too hard to punch through all that noise.
If by "win" you mean "be in the top 5 grossing", there may be some meat here. But it would be surprising for an independent anything to break into the top 5 grossing in any market, software or otherwise, in a few years. But if by "win" you mean "earn a comfortable living and possibly modest riches" then I doubt this thesis has any legs at all.
I think by "win" they mean, "you broke even + $1".
Mojang is on the list and they were an Indie developer and they don't do advertising.
Graphics don't matter as long as you have a coherent style. Pre-written "story" is not critical to games, and enabling player creativity is something that will be eagerly received. One person really can make a great game all by themselves in a reasonable amount of time.
Amusingly, the only lesson learned by most developers is that people really want block-based worlds. Nah. If you look at Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress as just the beginning of what enabling player creativity in a simulated world can look like, that way lies the future.
The indie road to success is the path not taken by AAA games. There's so much potential for what games can be that hasn't been explored by mainstream publishers, and Minecraft is a superb example of that.