Interesting discussion here... The biggest thing to get a game noticed by reviewers is to have a very unique game, a never before game on the App Store - or a gap in the market. And these days in needs high end production values. Now what's interesting for me is that I'm going to put up 40k to produce one of those games. Stacking the odds plan: 1. I've already came up with a whole in the market game for the App Store - it had good success. 2. I've been through the process of the App Store. 3. I've already marketed such game and managed to get front page news. That is the past now, though, because I moved on and started a new company. So, I'm sitting here with my payout from the above and recently had a flash of inspiration and have come up with a unique game again - I've found a gap in the market. A plan has been formed, I contacted various people I know - all of us have worked in the industry for years, hell I've even worked on the Snes/Megadrive in the past. So have the people I will be working with. The plan is to build this unique game with production values that were needed on Snes/Megadrive games, add loads of features, and make it extremely polished. If this product fails then I would say there is no hope for Indie developers on the App Store. This will actually be a good test to see if it's still possible. Maybe after launch I might publish all details on what we did...
This is the way I see it. Every developer thinks his game or app is the best. But people like Hodapp job is to put only what he feels will catch on. If your game is good enough , he put it on the front page. Good games rarely go unoticed. Make a good game and the sales will come.
this is a strong misconception. I've seen a fairly steady flow of decent-to-good games which have had marginal recognition, if that. Again, they may have even had major website coverage/iTunes feature, and it still didn't translate to particularly notable sales. This has happened enough times that it's the rule rather than the exception. Developing a good app is simply not good enough. Marketing and promotion and all that entails must be in place to support it. There's way way too much competition. Ignore this truth and lose time and money. __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Puzzling has Evolved - Enter the 180 Hi-score Facebook contest! FreeAppTracker.com Win ANY app you want, daily!
When I first looked at the app store, it reminded me of all the bedroom coders in the good ol' 8 bit days. Mastertronic, Codemasters etc. Now it is virtually all about marketing. You may have the best game in the world, but nobody is going to run with it, unless you have the marketing savvy to promote it in a interesting way. So now we must be coders, artists and promoters, all rolled into one. As small time developers we have to introduce character into our games. Notice the word 'character' and not characters. Cutesy little monster things do nothing for me and I wanted to vomit after playing Angry Birds for half an hour. We cannot compete with the big boys in terms of graphics, but we can when it comes to putting heart and soul into our games. None of the big titles have that feeling. They cannot, because too many people are working on them as a 'job'. When we create something, it comes from the heart. From the joy of creating something from nothing. I get a huge kick out of seeing my ideas spring to life on the screen. How many workers at EA can say the same thing?
Out of interest can someone point me to some of these awesome games that fail? That have great graphics and great gameplay but failed to sell?
This might be too close to home for me to be a good judge, but my latest game Silverfish got excellent reviews: 8.5/10+Editors Choice on IGN, 5/5 on GamePro, 8/10 on Eurogamer & PocketGamer (plus a bunch more). It's also been on the TouchArcade front page no less than 4 times (thanks guys ), featured by Apple, featured on TUAW, and made PCWorld's "best 36 games" list. It currently has a 4.5 star rating in the US with 90+ reviews, but barely manages $20-$50 a day and isn't on any top 200 charts in the 8 major markets. I'll be the first to admit the game is a tad on hardcore-arcade side, but at this rate I'm not sure it'll break even - and I seriously low-balled my estimates to begin with.
There are plenty of attractive titles released each week that never get traction. There's just not enough room in the tub for everyone. Frank can take at least some small comfort in the recognition Silverfish got from Apple and gaming sites. But it's a little scary that that about of visibility wasn't enough to propel it onto top lists. Where/when did it peak? I consider myself lucky in that Pocket Boxing Legends made back its costs. It's an uber-faithful remake of the seminal pre-NES arcade versions of PunchOut & Super Punchout, albeit with original art and new opponents. It currently sells between 20 and 40 copies a day at $1.99. It didn't take off even to this modest level until I switched from pixel art to HD, rendered art. I'm more than a little nervous about my upcoming game, "Kung Fu Monk." There's been relatively little chatter in the upcoming games section, where I've leaked 3 teaser videos. It's my first "big budget" title, largely subsidized from Card Shark profits. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a success, nor would I be surprised if it was a flop. All I can do is make the best possible game I can, take into account pre-release feedback, and hope for the best.
Frank I think you're to be commended for not only a great game but being so err 'frank' (u2 Stroffolino ) This is a great thread with lots of people providing helpful hints to what is a very complex puzzle, but your very honest and self effacing post illustrates the commercial reality for the vast majority of iOS game developers very clearly. That said I'm willing to bet that you're just crazy/stubborn/passionate enough (as we all must be) to get right back in there and create the next next great app yeh? Hell you're probably already planning it None of us can help ourselves right? Now if everyone buys a copy of Silverfish Frank'll be set
I made what I think is a totally new and unique game on the App Store in the hope that this fact would help it get picked up and featured by Apple, TA + others but it hasn't happened. Like the Murphy's I'm not bitter though, as I think much of it is luck - there as just SO many games coming out all the time. Gems do get missed and having an awesome game doesn't guarantee instant success, but keep promoting it and eventually it surely will get noticed. So I'm working on a big update to my game and will promote it and mail TA again when that's out, and just hope that Apple, TA etc. actually feature it. If you believe in a game all you can do is keep improving it and promoting it in the hope sales do eventually take off.
That's what I'm pretty much doing as well. I've gotten a lot of great feedback from sites and fans and while I've already made my game budget back, I'm still not satisfied with the sales so far. I don't think I'll sell millions but I do have a hard number in my head that I want to reach to consider what I've done a success. So to reach that goal I'm going back through everything with a fine tooth comb, I'm enlisting an artist to go over my game and I'm making all kinds of changes based on feedback and experience as well as adding new content. That's really all you can do, IMO. Some of us get lucky and get the attention of big sites, Apple, etc but most of us have to take the long road and put in some time and dedication and hope that our work doesn't go unnoticed. Good luck with your update.
OK. But is there a point when you will stop the updates because the sales fail to justify the effort involved? I am considering this for Arkinvade, because although we have provided 3 major updates, the sales are just not coming in. I think we will continue to try and build a good reputation, but there surely must come a time when you just have to cut your losses. Don't you think?
Yeah there is. But I think it's different for every situation. If you get to the point where you can't justify putting anymore work into your current project then I believe it is time to cut your losses and use that experience to make your next project that much better.
I'm only going to give up with all the flogging when I know the horse is definitely dead. Loads of flies and that. I've learnt SO much making my debut iOS game - the next one will hopefully be twice as good and take half as long. Lather, rinse, repeat.
That's pretty much my plan. I still think Alien Swing is a great game, but I didn't put the time and energy into marketing that it needed; and it's not as immediately accessible as it needed to be. The best bits of the game are not rapidly apparent. Now I just need to find the time to produce another game
If the game is good, has had lots of good press, then keep doing updates... I wont mention the game I was involved in but after an update we got about 46,000 downloads in a month, and the next update we had around 36,000 downloads. Before the updates the game was starting to die. This game is constantly in the top 200 now. If we never did the updates then the game would of sunk.
But how did the people get to know that you had updated? Did you manage to get re-reviewed on sites? Or was it just by forum posting etc? The only way I get our game to jump to such high download figures is to make it free for a day or two.
We had frontpage news on all sites, promotions from Openfeint, and features by Apple all at the same time, and that was for both updates. I'm really curious to see if this is possible again, as I've moved on to form a new company doing games and other things. My experience of getting on the front pages of sites was pretty easy (maybe it was too easy to make me believe it's still possible) but the game was unique and fresh at the time and it did the talking to get the press that was needed to sell it. The updates just generated more press. When I look at most games on the App Store they are all copies of well known formats, copied lots of times by lots of the developers. I think the secret is finding a game that is unique and fills a hole in the App Store and all good things should follow. The hardest part is coming up with a game like this. I have a game in mind for my new company - it's unique and it's never been done before, and that includes all platforms. I think doing it again is repeatable but there's a small part that says the previous success was luck and everything just slotted into place based on this. Anyway, I guess I will find out in a few months down the line.
how successful was your openfeint promotion? I'm still waffling back and forth deciding whether or not to use it.
Updates are a great way to revive a game that's already in the hands of lots of users. But it's rare for any review site to cover an update to a game that they already passed over. The AppStore is crowded, people are busy, and first impressions will likely be your only impression. If you want to get eyes on an update of an obscure title that does not yet already have a big user base, you can use promo codes and a sale, in that order - promo codes to solicit folk to post impressions for the changed app, and the sale to get a burst of visibility/downloads through price-tracking sites. Go free for a day only as a last resort, and make sure you know the likely consequences.
Very successful - the game was an Openfeint Gold game and we beta tested a lot of features and were the first developers to use those features. Edit. The second update we added retina support and other things, which Apple put the game in their Retina game list that they were running at the time.
