It will certainly be interesting to find out The factors involved are: 1. Gamers complain that they want games with content and lots of features. 2. They also complain about games above 99c price tag. All this effects the profit margins. So the way I see it is that I am going to offer point 1. but charge a higher price. The game I am working on is a 2D game, so I cannot charge a premium price and will probably sell at 2.99USD... In other words the game will have more features and content than a 99c game. The game is original and has never been done before, so that is a plus side. I'm not just thinking iOS but multi-platform so my market as a whole is larger. The interesting experiment is that we are giving gamers a fuller gaming experience, which is what they want, but like anything else that costs extra money. If they complain about the price then I would say the App Store is f*cked for developers - all it will offer is crappy 99c game ideas and premium games that are really graphics demos. And real games with content will not exist. And that type of market means no profit for most developers, barring the very few at the top. The market is stagnated at the moment... The top 10 has been mostly the same games for months and months. So I'm actually going to take a gamble to see what state the App Store is in and to see if a real quality product can co-exist in this environment. I really think someone should try this tact and I guess it looks like I'm willing to do it for better or worse. But like anything of this risk we are not putting our eggs in one basket - we have a few 99c game ideas that are been developed along side the main game. If all this fails then you can say I told you so! But if it manages to work out then I guess I was very lucky with my stacked odds Back to the original post. If the game idea seems exiting and interesting before any production has been made, then make a prototype, and if the prototype feels good and the focus testing results pan out then it gets green lighted.
Just to play devil's advocate a bit... That doesn't mean any of us have to cater to the unrealistic expectations of the vocal minority. Not saying you are, just making a statement about trying to appease people who can never be satisfied. An original idea doesn't necessarily equal success on the App Store. It'd be awesome if it were true though. Always a good thing, if you can afford to do it (regular cost and opportunity cost), and you manage not to water down the experience to fit all platforms. You sure that's what they want? A quick glance at the top 50 would suggest otherwise. One person's crappy $0.99 game is another person's daily quick fix addiction. Be careful what you define as a "real game" as the market you're trying to get into may have an entirely different definition than you do. A good deal of the stagnation has to do with those apps spending a great deal of money in well timed cross promotion to keep themselves in those positions. They're making tens of thousands per day, so they can afford to burn money to keep themselves there. In addition, the way the store is laid out, all new customers are led right to the top 50 list, which makes them very sticky. Yes, some apps pop in spontaneously, but eventually they do make an exit. The one's who stay there are playing the marketing game, and playing it well. What does "real quality product" mean to you? And do you think the majority of the smart phone customers are interested in it? Or just a specific subset of gamers? Always good to spread the risk. You never know which game will be a hit. The $5,000 game could make a million dollars just as easily as the $100,000 game. Most games on the store fail to make a profit, regardless of how much it cost to make them. Naw, I wouldn't do that. But you will need to sell a significant number of games to break even, where a single person outfit, with a low cost, focused feature set, will not. You felt that the lone developer won't exist a year from now. I disagree.
I said it a 100 times and I say it again. Luck has alot to do with it , and developers have to face that reality. Some developers say ok put more content and you can charge a little higher. No the appstore buyers have set the pricepoint and its 99 cents. Streetfighter4= 99 cent victim Ultimate Mortal Kombat= 99 cent victim GameLoft whole library= 99 cent victim EA= 99 cent victim Right now you look and casual games dominate the charts. I seen all the games from all the years and there is no pattern except 1 pattern. Its existed in almost all the million dollar games. Angry birds,tiny wings, cut the rope,etc. One button games rule the appstore. If you can think of a one button game that anyone can play at home or on the road is your only chance of winning.Good luck!!!
I still don't think luck has that much to do with it... Basically you've got those who have tasted some sort of success saying its not luck, and those who haven't saying its all about luck. I honestly think there are some devs using "luck" as a scapegoat as to why their game didn't succeed, instead of taking a hard, honest look at their game, their marketing/PR strategies, and everything in between. Ultimately its a lot easier to blame something that is out of your control, then to actually learn from your mistakes and correct them (which is definitely a very difficult thing to be able to figure out). But the truth is there are lots of indie devs who consistently put out at least semi-successful products. If luck had so much to do with it, every game would simply be a lottery, but there are clear trends that can be seen with many devs who have "figured it out". I will concede that there is more luck involved in being a MEGA success (ie in the top 25-50 with staying power)... but for those games hovering around the middle ground (from ranks 400-1000, which I would consider "moderately successful"), I really think it has little to do with luck, and a whole lot more about just putting out a good product. Well, thats just my opinion anyway
Luck plays a part, but it's not as big as you think in general. It is if you target the casual "one button" games as you say. No, the developers have set the 99c price point and educated buyers to expect that low prices. I think each time a dev sets their game's price at 0.99 "because that's what the market expects," disregarding the real value of their product, they're just making the problem worse. The same goes for the constant sales and free for a day promotions. Yeah, it may work, but in the long run it just devaluates your and everyone else's work. So what? You can easily make a similar list of successful games that have never been 99c. We've discussed this in another thread. Casual games do rule the charts, but there are loads and loads more that struggle to even make any kind of sales. Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Cut The Rope, etc. are the exception, not the rule. The worst thing you can do is try to emulate their success by making the same kind of games. By no means is that the only chance of having a profitable app. Yes, a good very casual game may have the potential to rule the App Store, but the chances of failing miserably are huge.
Personally I think even debating whether luck has anything to do with it is an almost pointless exercise. This is probably down to how I define luck though. To me luck is simply when something positive happens more often/frequently than statistically likely. So luck plays a part as far as I'm concerned, but as others have said "you make your own luck". The problem being of course that everyone is setting out to make their own luck. Some will be better at this than others and the people who are both good at this and make strong good looking products will probably be the luckiest of all. Now, I have not been able to lure luck over to my side in regards to the App Store. But, being born in a rich part of the world with good health I have very little really worth complaining about. Not that it is stopping me from complaining anyway though.
I agree with Foursaken_Media. App Store is not only about the top 10. Even a ranking around 200 brings in good returns if you can hold that rank. I think a triangle of appealing CONCEPT with solid EXECUTION and MARKETING is what makes "luck" magically appear. It's certainly harder to put all those things together as the resolutions rise and hardware gets faster. What looked good in 2008 is ancient relic in 2011. If you play Angry Birds Rio you'll notice it's more polished than Angry Birds and there's been plenty of ads for it. That's example of a big franchise keeping up with the times. They're upping the EXECUTION and MARKETING and it's definitely reaping rewards! On the negative side it also requires a bigger budget to do those improvements. The three things also depend on each other, for example: It's pretty hard to market something that looks boring or unappealing. As you get closer to top 5 things start to look more like a lottery, that's a ranking where the stars & moon have to be aligned right in addition to the aforementioned things... and replace SOLID with EXCELLENT! It's a fast moving market so what worked today doesn't necessarily work tomorrow. Just throwing in my two pesos
Stop dreaming. Luck is a bad word. Probability is better word in business (Even if it's the same). No one can predict how a product will behave on a market. You can reduce the probability of failure, but nothing else. Good product, good artwork, marketing and you have maybe something like 5% chance of having a success and maybe 0.01% chance of having a big success. Rovio have made 40 games before angry bird. And since angry bird no new successfull game. They have the experience, the budget and didn't succeed twice. You think you can do better ? You are smarter ? You can predict customer crowd behave ? You can predict reviewer behave ? Stop lying to yourself: you won't make a big hit. But can you make a profitable game ? That's better question. For that, you need to study the market, searching tendancy, finding ideas, testing idea. Making a prototype to test the core gameplay is very easy and fast.
Quick Summary 0. Always start with the best idea that has a chance of making a profit. !. Don't mortgage the house and kids. 2. Put your best effort out there. 3. Build to make a profit not to hit number #1 4. Don't forget the marketing side of this business 5. Treat app development as a business not a hobby. 6. Presentation, presentation, presentation 7. If you deserve the luck factor it will come (if you build it properly "it" will come) 8. Great name for the app
This deserves a whole other thread and I am sure there are plenty of them already. But what can you do as an indie other than write a good press release, make sure you have good screenshots and promo video, post on forums and email press? Because I tried all of this and I'm not sure it made the slightest bit of difference. Your ultimate goal is to get people to write about you so that there is a certain level of awareness about your game. But my experience suggests it would be easier getting blood out of a stone than to get the press to even acknowledge your existence. What is the secret (besides knowing them, paying them, being a big publisher or having a game that is successful without them that they later want a part of)?
100% agree! We need to seperate "profitable games" and "mega hits". It has been said before in this thread and I have to agree: a successful game does not means you have to hit the top 50 overall grossing. I'm sure a successful game is any game in the top 500 (or even lower) overall grossing. At least most of them. That said I'm sure the LUCK factor needs to be higher then 99.99% to secure a spot in the top-50 overall grossing for longer then a week. But you dont need that high luck factor for a profitable game. I think most of the games with a flawless execution and the right marketing will succeed. And "success" in this context simply means "profitable". The term "profitable" itself can not be generalized. For me - and only for me - profitable means: any game that brings more then 10k$ in a timespan of 12 months. Simply because I try to keep my costs for a single game below that value. (btw.: the most costly factor is the game's artwork) But if you run a company with a lot of employees the very same game may need to earn 100k$ or maybe even a million $$$ to become profitable. So the terms "success" and "profitable" are all relative. Another thing: I've read often "you need to create the game you love to play for a success". Well, if you define success with profitable, this sentence sounds very naive to me. It MAY work, e.g. if you love to play casual games, but what if you love to play tower defense games with a lot of zombies in it? Would you really green light Zombie-TD-game #188767? If you do game development for a living (like me) then you have to do a comprehensive market research in advance. I learned that the hard way! If you do it just for fun then go for your personal favourite game. However, I love to develop games - no matter what kind of game in the end. I do have some personal dream projects (e.g. remakes of Ultima Underworld or all of the old Westwood RPG's) - but I will have to wait until my not-so-personal projects earned me enough bucks so I can risk the development of these projects. Hopefully this day will come.
Agreed, marketing is one of the biggest challenges and if not done right it doesn't amount to a can o' beans. I've got a fair amount of experience as a marketer, and I've got a lot of other ideas I'm planning on using to market our game. I will be fully documenting it from start to finish (from raising funds as an indie developer to marketing the game on channels that most haven't used yet). Once I give it a good test drive, I should be able to make a pretty comprehensive timeline and checklist for marketing a game so that it can be replicated by anybody! Stay tuned!
a zappa song came to my mind reading this thread. it was something like "i figure the odds are 50/50". like some other people around here i firmly believe luck is secondary in making your game profitable. (nevertheless i'm absolutly aware of chance and sometimes i hear myself casting prayers to Fortuna ) with our game coming out soon we try to lure people into playing it with basically three things in mind: 1. give the player content. lots of content. good content. 2. make yourself and your game known and don't be afraid to spend some money (marketing stuff, i'm new to this one and many of my first assumptions of what would be good to do, turned out to be mere money wasters...but i'm learning) 3. know which players will play your game and what those players want. there are so many people out there and i know that concepts like turn-based strategy or other such niche games won't make you rich overnight, but if done right you will always find a good amount of people who will reward your work and stay true to other games of your making. @FancyFactory: "of the old Westwood RPG's" - i can't remember for sure, but didn't they do the battletech game way back "the crescent hawks revenge" or some such thing? god, how i loved this game...i still have the cheesy title music in my brain, after more than 20 years. please make a remake of it.
Even top 1000 overall is livable. Not getting rich, but enough to get by and make more games. It's extremely livable if you're based in a low-mid cost region. It's enough to start a company with an office, desks, and staff if you're based in Asia. Not to mention international sales which are often ignored when looking at charts. They can make up a non-trivial part of income (AUD/JPY regions especially). Another great point. A friend said to me last year, why are all your games about killing stuff and suggested that I soften the themes to appeal to a wider audience. (But I like killing stuff)
While putting your own personal preferences aside when deciding what theme / genre / market to develop for can make your game more sellable, for for indie devs around here it makes sense to make something that you'd want to play yourself because it helps maintain motivation. The drive to follow through and finish a game is often where the hobbyist and basement developers fall short and anything that can help boost that is paramount. A finished game in a small niche is worth much more than a half done game for a huge market.
Imo devs should really be looking to mix the two ideals... take a basic idea that you think will sell well (based on research, profitability, filling a gap, or whatever), and then turn that into something that YOU want to play... its all about finding the happy medium between just having fun and being passionate about what you're making, vs. what will make you some $$. I know for me personally, if someone said "you have to make a game using x genre", I would probably be able to create something that I would really enjoy playing, no matter what that genre was. Heck, that can be a ton of fun in its own right! Take a concept you might not ordinarily like, and finally turn it into something even you can enjoy
I agree with Foursaken_Media very much. One thing is your wish "I want to play such game", the other thing is what people want to play... My personal experience show, that in my case many iteration was needed to find this medium ground -- the game I enjoy and the game people might also enjoy (based on preliminary testing and show offs). Funny thing, but what I have learned, that the first concept I created (more than a year ago!) for my upcoming diving game was simply a bad design, just copying one popular genre's mechanics, and the until I did not think very thoroughly what my game world, what my game's inside logic demands from me I was not able to come up with the right design. This process was helped a lot by playing games I like (or are successful) and trying to look behind how they implemented their own rules. We made the first prototype, I was bored Then I redesigned (new proto), then again, again and a year passed, but now I have the fine tuned design I enjoy very much and the audience enjoys very much as well. The 12th version (iteration) of the original idea still retains the core elements of the game: it has divers, fishes and it is played underwater. But that is all. You would not recognize the original idea... So in a way I designed 11 bad games, so end up with a hopefully good game That costed a lot of money (protos, prototype art and time -- but I consider it as my tuition fee at this university), but I think a game designer must be able to release a kind idea if that idea proves to be wrong... A great journey anyway. I will be happy if it becomes financially OK, but first and foremost I will be happy, that I did it... When it is released, I plan to publish all the game design documents I have created so far (in some cases 80 A/4 pages documents, with tables, rules, etc.)
