Charmed was a game I made because I wanted to play it. We put a lot of time into making it polished. There is still more I would like to do, but it would be purely for my own satisfaction, as Charmed has not yet been very successful from a monetary standpoint. I've been told that Charmed is "too hard" by a few people, which I simply cannot figure out. It's been described by some players as "Bejeweled with rotatable gravity". Is gravity a hard concept to understand? When I play it I totally zone out the way I used to when playing Bejeweled on my old Palm Tungsten C. Flight Deck was released by BossMan Entertainment before I got involved with it. A Ukrainian developer was hired to do the coding, but was not willing or able to work on further updates. I took over the coding in December last year to implement two new levels and add some new features. Note that Flight Deck does bring one new mechanic to the table; user-controlled launching of planes. In the new update that I will submit this weekend, that is taken a bit further where you need to be careful that launching planes don't crash into other planes flying around. I've also added some weather effects and OpenFeint integration to improve the overall experience. From what I know of the sales of Flight Deck it has sold several times as many copies as Charmed and is currently outselling it by about 10 to 1. Interestingly, Flight Deck was in development before Flight Control was released. Who knows what would have happened had Flight deck been released first?
I've just seen this from Noel Llopis of Snappy Touch about his experience of selling Flower Garden on the App Store. He tried various methods to increase sales with some very interesting results. Here
that would have been us too if Ravensword had come out before Dungeon Hunter... instead it hit the same day as COD: Zombies, Star Wars Trench Run, and Harry Potter Spells. Timing of release has a lot to do with how well a game does initially.
it is possible if you made doodle jump. or if you take a very popular gaming franchise, take a minigame out of one of the games, take off a lot of the features, scale down the graphics then price it at 10 dollars (yeah im looking at you call of duty zombies.)
Hey, all. I just recently wrote up a piece on marketing tips for indies that's been published at Gamer Syndrome. Please check it out: Seven Marketing Habits of Highly Effective Indies http://gamersyndrome.com/2010/video-games/tips-for-developer-effective-marketing-habits-featuring-marroni-electronic-entertainement/
yes but I think Chillingo has as many apps as Gameloft. I'm just saying had we been the first 3d rpg and released at a better time (not the same time as some other big ones, which isn't typical) Shouldn't complain though, the game did really well.
So far only one of my games have been doing okay, but that's 5-15 sales at best. Ima always stay optimistic and keep going, and eventually it will pay out. I can also say I haven't lost money in making any of my games, they are 100% made by myself, and every game only gets better.
did you make it in your free time? did you enjoy making it? if the answer is yes to both, then your game was worth the time, no matter what happens. though the dev liscense does cost 100 dollars no?
Yeah, it was free time and I loved every second of making them, from those nights drinking tea coding at 2 am watching SNL to almost electricuting myself drooling on my mac keyboard asleep. Its so worth it. And also, alot of people are still proud of me for doing things I liked to do, music and games.
I suspect that in the current app store climate, there are a *lot* of developers struggling. Or maybe I just suck. When I started into this, I was expecting to manage the whole additive income thing that other people have mentioned here - no huge windfall from one app, but a few sales per app that add up to a decent income. After having my first game in the store since the beginning of November, I wonder how many developers have actually found success that way, because I sure haven't. Admittedly one game is a pretty small data point, but in my case sales levelled off to nothing in just a little over a month, and I certainly don't think my game is THAT bad. 99% of comments from people that actually played it were really positive, but without having cracked the top 100 charts it quickly sunk like a stone. It just felt like a real kick in the teeth. So for those who have managed the additive income approach, does it pick up as you release more titles? That's the only way I could see it being feasible - if having a number of titles increases sales and exposure of all titles. Otherwise I just don't see how it would work. Given my current sales numbers, I can make as much contracting to develop one app as I could in sales from nearly 7 games, and even a relatively simple game represents a ton more work.
It can add up, if you make sure to list them in all your games. However, if none of your games are selling, then there aren't going to be enough customers to convert over to the new one. The additive approach works best when you have some sort of main game for the others to revolve around. Finding that main game is the tricky part. It's the foot in the door, so to speak. Once you've got your foot in, start releasing more games to force the door open.
Hey, dawvee. You just got one more sale and I absolutely agree with your analysis of the additive income approach: It still boils down to getting a hit; whether it's a mega top #10 hit or just a mild top #100 hit, it's still a hit that's required to move anything. Hopefully that'll change sooner rather than later, but I'm sceptical of that since that's almost pretty much been the way the game industry has operated for its entire history (this principle is just way more extreme in effect on the App Store and, since so many of us are getting our start here, it all seems very new). I maintain my position that our jobs are crafting and delivering a hit (I know that's exponentially way easier typed than done, but it's true nonetheless). Right now on the App Store, it's mega hit or mega shit. The mega hit's absolutely possible, obtainable, and will happen for any devs determined enough to make it so. At least, that's what I think.
If you have a great game you need to get it known. This is as difficult as creating something really good. I have 2 games out and they are too different to what you expect a game to be... so putting money in marketing could be dangerous... when you have a product where you think that it will apeal to a lot of people, then you should invest into marketing... The appstore on its own is a black hole... I never use it to find games I like. I am totally dependent on websites like touchArcade for buying decissions.
I look at the iPhone market just like any other market I have entered (Windows Mobile, PC Games, Mac games, Blackberry, etc). It all depends on the quality of your work.
I looked at your website. The website design is nice, but that gameplay video is awful. For a start it's six minutes long and tells me barely anything more in the last five minutes than it did in the first minute. Secondly it doesn't tell me how to play your game, why playing your game is fun or why I should buy it. Also the music is laid back and unengaging. I'd cut it together with text explaining the features of the game, what you're doing to do it, and what more the game has to offer. Make a trailer that's a minute long or so. And find some more up tempo music for it.
You need to add boobs or farting to boost sales. It's what drives sales How about adding a chick that has huge boobs AND farts?
