Another thing, don't spend a lot of money on your first game. Do not quit your day job. Work on it in your spare time. Collect on favors from talented people you know. Keep it simple. Keep it cheap. But don't make it look cheap. Not counting my own time, version 1.0 of my first game, TanZen, cost $0 to develop. It can be done.
That's been confusing me too, I got it when it first came out and was free; I then promptly deleted it and laughed at anyone who bought it. But its #7 in Top Paid? What the..
There HAS to be some sort of promotional companies behind that stuff. Does anyone know of any good ones and their cost? Sometimes I get emails from a few but I don't feel like I can trust companies that spam email. I've always wondered what promotional companies Doodle Jump and Pocket God uses. I know they are good apps but there's no chance they can stay up there so long without some sort of promotional scheme.
Ahhh...I bet you are right! I didn't realize it was free before. Even still, I don't get how it could be that popular now.
Yeah but lots of games have been up there and dropped out over time. Doodle Jump and Pocket God dropped over time to Top 25-50. Actually Doodle Jump only recently jumped back to Top 10 didn't it?
So many great responses from Devs in this thread I almost don't know where to begin. Couldn't agree more. While marketing and hype can yield great initial benefits, sustained sales require a good app and a spreading buzz. The word of mouth has to become at least semi-viral to get sustained sales. I also think something that's unique can be a huge benefit. If it's something that no one else has done yet (or at least no one has done WELL yet), it's got a better chance of getting noticed and generating some buzz. While getting featured can provide a huge boon to sales, it's not a guaranteed way to AppStore riches. There are plenty of apps who've found themselves featured but still never achieve true success. Absolutely agree. But you need to keep getting noticed. Getting noticed and a resultant flood of sales needs to be followed up with more getting noticed. If you've already been noticed by everyone who is interested in what you're offering, no amount of marketing is going to change it. Absolutely. More indie devs need to realize this. While polish will also not guarantee success, I think this gets overlooked a lot by indie devs. In the end polish and creating a game you "enjoy having our players enjoy" can help turn mediocre sales into something capable of supporting you.
I understand where OP is coming from with this question, but making apps/games on iTunes store is like any other business IMHO, you can equally succeed and fail, I guess at the same rate as every other startup, is it 85% failure rate? Nobody can say - no, you can't live from app store, because reality is that you can. What usually follows though is - "all you need is blah blah..". I think the best approach is as someone already mentioned here - don't think about it this way, simply enjoy making games and if you succeed - good for you!
In iBailout!!, it's possible to make an iPhone development out of a living!! Seriously, the title doesn't lie. And, after everyone picks up a copy, I'll tell you that yes, it is indeed possible to make a living out of iPhone development. iBailout!! http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibailout/id333196767?mt=8 iBailout!! Trailer of Great & Mysterious Powaaaaa of Unknown Reckoning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqhB77AZHGQ iBailout!! thread (earn a promo code today): http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=39027 It's clear that, though terribly unfair and pretty ruthless as is, the App Store isn't broken whatsoever (that would only be an accurate statement if the top sellers weren't raking in the dough) and I see it as my job simply to be one of those top sellers--of course, I do hope to see a better and more meritocratic App Store emerge soon. I hope you'll all give iBailout!! a shot and help out in this. It really is something special and you can visit our thread for more. Thanks and a hearty iBailout!! to you all. P.S. I know I've already thrown up a billion links here (or 3), but here's one more and your votes will be most appreciated: Nominate iBailout!! for the 2009 Best App Ever Awards, Best Arcade Game: http://bestappever.com/c/argm/333196767
This is possibly one of the best tactics i've heard of: most people try to make a hit out of their first game, forgetting how it's possible to make more of them, having therefore enough earning for living Hm...actually games that are selling 200 copies a day are usually in the top 50. So, that means that a) they need no further exposure, since they're already in the "gold chart" b) only 50 games for each category are enough to make a living alone. The solution are multiple, but the best advice is probably LWBstudios' one Read up there ^_^ I agree with your distinction: we have 2 kinds of developers here. But while the "multiple child" approach is good and less risky, i woud challenge the second assumption: the App Store is more and more flooded everyday. In its first days, not-so-good games (i.e. IShoot) were able to sell many copies, simply because there was less competition. Now there is more pressure, and the sentence could not be worth anymore in a couple months... Also, ravensword and rolando are both mande by self-funded two-men teams so it's possible ^_^ Another great suggestion-probably one of the best ones ^_^ Exactly what i thought-but i see that most of the devs here are capable of making polished games. So far i've recognized many "vip" devs as well as some less known devs, and heard a lot of great advice from both. I have to go now-when i come back i will make a couple questions i missed out ^_^ Thanks to everyone! This thread is really turning out useful for a lot of people fede
Hi fellow devs, interesting thread. We (and if I'm say "we" I mean basically "me" ) have nearly finished our debut title "Age of Tribes" - http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=40444 - and really no idea how the game will sell. I share Little White Bear Studios opinion not to put all your luck into a single game. So, as Age of Tribes is nearly ready to go, we started already the next game...regardless what income Age of Tribes will bring. The problem with this strategy is the costs. A quality title costs definitely money, I'm sure nobody is a genius in programming, arts, sound and music...so you have to hire artists for that. Without an income from the app store, especially for part time indie devs like most of us, its hard to finance a well polished game. But if you take a look at the current bestseller games, most of these titles look like the devs spent a good amount of money (respectively skills) into them. What I'm trying to say is: I believe part of the success is a polished game with top notch art in first line. Or in other words: you have to invest first. The second point - in my opinion - is to provide a game that people actually like to play. So some market analysis in the beginning is a must. Hopefully I'm not totally wrong and a "high budget title" (by my standards) pays off in the end. Axel
To the developers: GROUND EFFECT So, after doing this experience and coming to those conclusions, do you plan to keep on developing for the platform? Do you personally think your next title will be easier to do thanks to the GE-related assets already in place? And, most of all, do you think (your opinion obviously) that the fun from a personal project like yours can compensate the fact that you're less paid than a game studio artist? p.s. i read the paper on your website regarding terrain generation. That is genius half of IMANGI This is interesting. I always thought that going to conferences could give the opportunity to meet other industry people. How do you think this can help you making yourself a name in the non-dev scene? Very interested on this ^_^ thanks a lot if you'll take the time to answer Oh, and another thing: when harbour master came out, it was a great success. Did you market it actively or count simply on the word of mouth? STROFFOLINO So, you develop as a hobby, but you actually invest money in your games. Does that mean you're hiring other artists to make graphics/programming along with you, or simply that you pay yourself a wage? Do you also invest in marketing or not? BLUE SOLAR SOFTWARE All of your point are well explained and clearly you're right; but this is the thing that interested me the most: do you (and the other devs) think that hiring other professionals to do what you aren't able to do will help sales or just bring up development costs? TRENCHES (thunderGameWorks) Thanks a lot for your answers, it's an interesting point of view thanks for sharing, i am sure you'll accomplish your goals. Good luck! CHARMED Your game, charmed, is very well done, polished, brings in an interesting twist. Yet, the genre (heavvy puzzle) is not one of the most sold. Did you keep this in mind when developing Flight Deck? Your two games have a different approach: Charmed is new and original, but belongs to a non-topseller genre. Flight Deck on the other side takes the road of a well-tested game genre (harbour masters, flight control-it's basically the same concept), and doesn't bring anything new to the table. How did the customers react to those two? Did you sell more copies of Charmed, a new and original game with a small potential customer pool or of Flight Deck, wich is basically a copy of an existing topseller? Thanks for taking your time to answers-both games show a really good art and a great level of polishing, so congrats again for your great work! MIKAMOBILE Interesting. My question for you is: how did you create and mantain success for Zombieville? OMG pirates (BTW, i love the rum-propelled boss ^_^) is a follower of the Zombieville success-and got many hands on preview, attention in the forums, etc. etc. Zombieville on the other side came out from nowhere. I know it was some time ago-but how did you get attention/visibility? After it peaked out of the top 50, did you invest time/money on ads or forums to support it, or just count on word of mouth? Also, you recently released an update with new characters. Do you think that is useful to renovate the user base/bring in new customers, or do you think taking the in-app purchase road like minigore would be more useful to keep a steady income? Basically the question is: free updates to get new market, or premium DLC to take advantage of the existing one? I'd like to hear your take on this ^_^ Thanks a lot to everyone-for the attention and for the answers I'm trying to get an idea of the different approaches-once i'm done i'll summarize this long thread for everyone!!! In the meanwhile, everybody, throw in your two cents! The more experiences we hear, the better it is for everyone. Fede
I've done a mix of things to keep costs down. I do development, which eliminates the biggest cost. I'm no artist, though I've written plenty of image processing tools, i.e. tools to massage playing cards to ensure they look great on a small screen. Ignoring my time, Card Shark was the cheapest to produce. A former coworker created the splash screen for me at no charge, and I've reinvested some of its profits into licensing additional art assets for that game and to help with development of other games I licensed some sounds/music up front for Karate Fighter. I reinvested profits from Karate Fighter to hire a team of pixel artists who created an alternative set of high resolution sprites. The new art was introduced in the 2.0 update - people can choose between retro and modern mode. I sunk a significant amount of cash up front into getting art produced for Pocket Boxer. It's on track to make back its costs, but this is no sure thing, and I was aware up front of the risks. Several other Easy 8 Software games (Xiangqi, Hurdler, Bug Juice, Sniper vs. Pirates) were produced under agreements where I share percentages of proceeds with other folk. The upcoming "World to Conquer" is one such game - it's got some of the most stunning art I've ever seen in an iphone game, and it didn't cost me a penny up front. The lead artist is a friend of mine, and well aware of the risks. Most review sites are so overwhelmed these days, they're effectively black holes unless they know you personally or you represent a well-known company. I don't bother wasting promo codes on review sites these days except for the folk that reach out to me. I'm sure there are exceptions, but with the nature of the AppStore as it is, the only marketing I've seen that is has any legs is being featured by Apple. I've spoken with many people that have tried advertising via other means (including TA ad banners), and sadly they all felt that their ad campaign ended up being a loss or break even proposition at best. My opinion is that advertising is only worth doing if you think it can reaslistically inch your game into one of Apple's top lists where it'll pay off in spades - no easy feat!
To some extent it compensates but if I hadn't had the luxury of being able to just about afford to do it for a year (thanks to a lucrative contract with EA in 2008) or I had been in any sort of debt before, I couldn't have done it. Ground Effect (so far) has made just enough money to drag me out of debt and keep me going for another few months before I have a problem again. All I need is to be twice as fast (which isn't as hard as it sounds because of the huge proportion of learning and lib making in Ground Effect) and a little more successful with the next app and it will be a living. Of course, i'm hoping for a lot more successful...
We're still inthe midst of working onour first game but we've already released three apps. We are trying to build up a brand for oyrselvesby coming out with quality apps with solid artwork/interfaces. Of course we have a lot of great competition we are also trying to come out with unique, fun games. It is a long process, especially since there are only two if us and only one knows how to program. Still, we love what we are doing and want to makes living out of it. I think throughthat determination and motivation combined with a balanced portfolio of games and apps it's very possible. It just takes Time. It's fun reading about the rest of you and what you've accomplished. It's only a little bit of luck to hut it big, the rest is a great product and a means of telling others about it. How Am I Feeling? has been alonger success than i've anticipated. While it's not much a day it's always a few, and that's great. Halp! has been a lot flatter and that's due to straight comedy being a hard sell beach day, each forum, each app is a learning experience and I'm getting all I can out of it.
Interesting post by Noel @ Games from Within that should be referenced here. http://gamesfromwithin.com/making-a-living-barely-on-the-iphone-app-store He provides a detailed account of his experience.
I've never done much promotion for Zombieville, I think the most I've done was to post a trailer on these forums, which gave the game a nice first couple of weeks. No ad campaigns, press kits or anything, which makes me think traditional marketing is kinda pointless. It didn't really take off until a couple weeks after launch when it got featured by Apple in the new & noteworthy list, arguably the best list since it is front and center on both the device as well as iTunes. That, combined with a timely sale, update, some notable press and lite version all within the span of a couple weeks helped shoot it into the top 10 where it stayed for many weeks. There was some luck involved, and at the time there weren't a hundred Zombie/Survival games yet, so I think the time was just ripe for something like it. Plus, the graphics were pretty eye-catching at the time (maybe they still are in their own quirky way). As for its long term success, I can't really explain it. I haven't aggressively updated or promoted it (3 content additions in the span of a year) but each one gave it a slight boost in sales. I think its just simple and appealing enough that it continues primarily by word of mouth. It's certainly had an unusually stable sales curve, which was mostly flat through the majority of 2009. The recent free update was for two purposes - to reinvigorate Zombieville, and to give OMG Pirates some visibility to our existing fans who may not have known our new game was available. This was effective on both fronts, increasing sales of both apps substantially. So even though we didn't charge for those new features, we still made money from it while generating goodwill with our players who obviously like getting new things for free. That said, I think DLC could generate far more revenue (and for much longer) but without giving our players that warm fuzzy feeling so much. I think that's the trouble with DLC - even when you sell something that's reasonably and fairly priced, some players are still going to complain that you're nickle and diming them for new content. They may trash you in their reviews and may not be as receptive to checking out your next game. We may explore paid DLC in the future, because frankly we have a huge installed userbase and it could mean a lot of revenue. It's just very tricky to do that without seeming like an evil corporation out to suck your blood (just look at the controversy surrounding eliminate). We won't do it unless we're pretty sure we can offer something our players will see as an undeniably great value.
