Well if it's of any use to any one, my sales for yesterday (the game was free for that day), it was downloaded about 5000 times +/- 100 or so. That's going from the daily iTunes report and it got to no#5 in the UK for the card game section and number 8 in the US (Card Game section again) and if I remember correctly I think the US downloaded it 3500+, followed by the UK 500+ and then it trails off with a couple of 100 here and there. As of today, APPlyer is showing me at 36 in the UK and 93 in the USA for the Card game section. Now I don't know if it's because I stuck the price back to $1 again, it rest my position back to the bottom or there was just a sudden stop to people downloading the game when they saw it was no longer free, but in the morning when I checked, the game was down in the 200+ range (so I'm guessing the price change must rest the ranking of your game). Uno must making a small fortune =) For me I think it was all down to getting a review on Touch Arcade (there were other sites which also mention what I was doing of course I thank them). After advertising on here, I've seen the amount of traffic the front page gets and your can just keep hitting the refresh button on your browser and it's constantly going up (the number of views on the page). If you can get a review or preview on here, it really stands you in good stead. I'm hoping our other games we have planned may get more attention now, but I really don't know which way to go now. We have a couple of quick little games we could make and then we have a couple of 3-4 months games we want to do, but is it worth our time / can we afford to do the longer development games? The business part of this is much harder then making the games Any way I hope this is of some use to you guys. Thanks, Mike Moore. App Store Link: Solitaire Siege Game Page Follow me on Twitter
Thanks for the info Mike. My first game was testing the market to see how things flow. I'm about half way through (guessing) on my second game. I'm going to try out some different things and see the results. I would think the best way is to try out different things to see what kind of result you get and keep doing it. You'll get a better metric for different combination of things you try. After a lot of tries you'll get a better idea of what to do for the future game titles. Then again the App Store is still new and we are on a new frontier.
Not an indie developer here but I sure would like to hook up with one to create some games. I used to work in the biz as lead on a few mobile games ( back before the iphone came out ) and I have about 10 years experience with pixel art and computer aided illustration. I used to also flesh out game concept documents and work in marketing. Anyway, if any devs out there are looking for someone who can pretty much do everything except for programming, feel me out, let me know what your idea is and where I could fit in. I'd love to work on something. These days all I do is review games, I've been thinking I want to help devs market their games better with youtube "commercials", proper banner ads, etc.. We'll see
I'm not a dev, but boy do I want to be!!! I'm a Beta Tester, and I'm good at thinking of ideas for apps and updates. So if anybody needs ideas for free, or someone to Beta, just PM me.
Have you guys tried looking at Game Salad? It might be worth a couple of nights of playing around with it and see if you take to it, and it doesn't cost anything (I think) so the only thing your going to lose is your own time. Even if it's only to get rough prototypes / ideas down to see if they are actually fun, it could be worth while and attract other people to your idea? Right it's Friday night and I'm off to draw some grass for the new game! My life is exciting Have a good weekend guys. Thanks, Mike Moore. App Store Link: Solitaire Siege Game Page Follow me on Twitter
LOL have fun with the grass making. I've been sleeping at 4am in the morning programming and building 3D assets. I'm trying to get my regular schedule back to normal. I'm relying on iPhone games and web development from home to pay the bills.
I'm glad I don't have to rely on the money coming from Solitaire Siege to live on or I would be out on the streets by now I've got the next 3 days off, so I want to get enough of the gf/x done for a prototype for the next game while Isaac finishes off the update for Solitaire Siege. Biggest hassle for us is the engine (iTGB really sucks), but there's so many games ideas which will work in it as long as the memory leak can get sorted out and for all my other ideas I'm going to use Unity. If I'm to stand any chance of moving to Canada I really need to be able to make a living from doing iPhone games and to make it worse my wife loses here job in a month. Life wouldn't be any fun if it was easy I guess Can you e-mail or DM me when you get a chance please. Thanks, Mike Moore. App Store Link: Solitaire Siege Game Page Follow me on Twitter
Early reviews are crucial Just thought I'd add some comments from my experience with my puzzle game Connected. I found that having reviews on the App Store as soon as possible after launch is crucial. In the UK, where I'm from, I got reviews early from friends which made a real difference. (I asked for honest reviews only of course, but friends are much more likely to take the time to actually leave a review, so I guess there is a little bias in there). Anyway sales in the UK really took off and we eventually peaked at number 4 in board games, 12 in puzzles. In other countries where the reviews came in later they didn't have as much effect and we didn't do nearly as well anywhere else. I think this is where some pre-release promotion on places like touch arcade can really help. Not so much to generate raw sales but to hopefully increase the chances of getting reviews up early. I think people really don't like buying an unreviewed app. I'd also be interested in peoples opinions of what else makes a good first impression on the App store. If anyone fancies taking a look at my page and letting me know what they think .. Connected App Store Link it would be interesting to know what people thought. Apple don't give you any stats about how many people visit your app store page so it's really hard to know if your description / images are doing a good job of selling your app.
Yeah, it sucks. Been married for just over two years now (wife lives in Canada) and only been together for 5 weeks out of all that time and then I spent a week of that time in hospital followed by having to go back into hospital every 8 hours for injections for the next two weeks. Trust me this kind of long distance relationship sucks big time Bought all my development kit (hardware, engines, software upgrade, iPod and iPhone, web advertising) on visa card and trust me this all adds up to well over $6,000 and I think I've made about $250 back so far and Solitaire Siege is the top 50 of the card game section in most places (top 25 in a few places). Keep in mind that what ever is made is also split between the team as well. Also keep in mind that I only ever pay the minimum off my Visa each time (yeah, I know I'm an idiot) so I'll be paying this off for a long time unless I get a lump sum in from the iPhone games. Just because you hear stories of games making $100,000's, the vast majority won't break even, it's not possible simply due to the huge amount of apps that get released and the low prices of games. So the next time you hear people complain about a game been $2-$3 to buy, just think about how much they had to spend to make that game in the first place (not to mention all the time involved). The thing is, after reading all the above, you get such a good buzz knowing that people from all over the world are actually playing your game. IS it worth $6000, probably not but if money is your only concern when making a game, your never going to make a fun game, you have to do it because you have fun doing it. Sorry for the rant, on a bit of a sugar rush at the moment Thanks, Mike Moore. App Store Link: Solitaire Siege Game Page Follow me on Twitter
DUH!!!! To be honest, I thought it was from an old mate I use to work with (I was talking to last night) who always took the mickey out of me about me hammering my visa, buying crap that I didnt need. It was actually just a bit of banter aimed at him. Sorry if you are not Chris , I wasnt having a go at you, it was aimed at a mate. No hard feels?? Thanks,
Hey Mike, if you think a bit differently about your $6k as more of a long-term investment it might make it easier to swallow. You don't need to claim back all that $6k on your first app, because you now won't need to make any further major investments into future titles, you can just whack them out and hopefully get that $6k over time, and hopefully after one of your apps becomes a hit!
To be honest, the way I'm looking at it is that I would of gone out to the pub a lot more if I wasn't doing this, which would of cost me a fair bit any way (and destroyed what little is left of my brain), so at least I've got something to show from it and when all is said and done, I've really enjoyed it, even when I've been stuck and couldn't get things to work. The end results where worth it I think Thanks, Mike.
I would say I'm an Indie developer even though I've been working in games for 22 years. I've been focused on this project for almost a year and the work is 90%+ mine. I'm going to be releasing it under my own name. Most of that other 10% was done by my own kids (aged 12 and 14) who provided some of the levels, graphics and testing. Maybe I've taken a crazy risk but it's been a long time since I've been able to work on a game that's truly mine and it's been a lot of hard work but also a lot of fun. It's been very exciting to be handling all sides of the game again after all those years on teams. I have learned a lot from people I've met online. for anyone interested, there's a thread on this site about my project: Ground Effect Thread Coming very soon: -=< Ground Effect >=- -=<Twitter>=
HI Glenn, Your game looks good mate from the video. Seems like you have the control system and speed sorted out already. I hope you are going to add a couple of particle effects for the dust clouds and water spray for when you get near to the ground. I'm sure it will do well for you. I'll be buying it at least. Cheers, Mike.
Thanks Mike. That video is very old. There are particles for the trails and sparks when the craft hits the landscape. I wasn't going to take them much further because they are always off the screen in a few frames but since I added the replay cameras, I'm seriously thinking adding more. Feature creep... Coming very soon: -=< Ground Effect >=- -=<Twitter>=
