It was never meant for the average person - I know my niche, and I know it exists, I just can't seem to get through to them (well, the 10K Game Center scores suggest I am getting through, with cracked IPAs at least). The fact that big traditional gaming sites rank Silverfish higher than most iOS sites suggest I targeted the wrong platform entirely. The controls are dead simple yet I realize they are the biggest obstacle. They get praised as much as they get lambasted however, but most people give more credence to negative comments. My problems aside, you still missed the whole point of my last post. You can try as hard as you like to get coverage on TouchArcade, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. Even if it does happen, it doesn't mean your job is done and you'll be rolling in cash. Targeting "mass appeal" and using the same rehashed mechanics and control schemes are fine tactics - just not appealing to me personally.
1. Polish is nice, but is absolutely not required. There are thousands of polished games selling nothing. 2. Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump, Canabalt and many others have no levels, but still successful. 3. Games without levels can have infinite replayability. Also, I would rather have 20 well-designed levels than "pack on the levels" with poor quality. 4. Doodle Jump, Stick Stunt Biker, The Moron Test, Uno, Bloons TD 4 would be counter-examples. So none of the things you mention are required to have a hit game.
I see the problem now very clearly from the developers. You throw canabalt,doodle jump,bloonsTD,etc. Now you say oh well if those games made it then my game can make it. No 1st igor openly said he has friends in apple and canabalt was a popular flash game. I was under the assumtion that you wanted to know how to get noticed on TA and sell games. I find myself corrected as what you want is to make any game you want and get lucky. If so dont follow my advice and keep doing what your doing.Despite what any writer here might tell you if anyone comes with an infinity blade or dead space or anything high level that will get covered 1st. See Iam talking from the standpoint of not getting lucky. Do you think Gameloft gets lucky?? Or game evil?? No they dont get lucky they know what people want and deliver it. 90% of all thier games will be on the front page of TA. Well since you guys think Iam wrong I leave on that note. Instead of wanting to get on TA front cover , it really look like developers here want consolation. Bye!
Your correct and most things, but Gameloft and Gamevil are popular companies. And they will make 10x the amount an indie developer makes even if its was featured on TA, AppAdvice, AppSpy, SlideToPlay, TouchGen etc. So thats why GOOD indie developers who make GOOD apps deserved to be featured on TA and other app review websites.
bug heros Look at what forsaken media has done. No excuse or wondering they made solid type games that are gaurenteed to sell. They wont become millionares overnight , but they will sooner than later. Why?? Because of the quality that they come out with. See here most developers sound like they want to be coddled and told oh you deserved the front page. No you earn it by putting a solid type game out!!!
Excuse me Iam just answering thier question with honesty. Forsaken media are indie developers , Iam giving props to them. Now if you dont have any actual opinion , makes no sense to add curse words to the conversation.
Sorry but I don't think insulting a lot of people here saying they need coddled adds much to the conversation either. You are right on one account though... don't count on luck. Just make the best game you possibly can and hope the world gets to play it. If it doesn't work out, try again. If touch arcade, slide to play, and the rest aren't interested in covering it, find out why and try again. Find your niche and have at it.
Nobody is looking for consolation. It's just that your guesses as to how you think the app store works are wrong.
There is no guessing , thats the whole problem with your thinking. Look at the companies who sell 10-15 games and have good sales. They dont get lucky , they get it right. You think they where guessing when they made infinity blade or any of those rehashes that gameloft makes. There isn't anything to figure out is what my point is. Its just some developers want to make any game they like , and get upset when TA doesnt pick it up. Its very simple.
Unfortunately Bug Heroes hasn't made it onto the the top paid charts and doesn't have anywhere as many downloads as it deserves. It has tons of content, promotions on Facebook, twitter and youtube, great reviews by nearly every review site, and was only the only decent game released for nearly two weeks. But sometimes it's just not possible to succeed.
Rank as high as 38 they must have sold alot of copies , maybe not what they wanted but nothing shabby. Plus once they release a lite they will be back up into the top 25.
Well... You need lots of money, women and guns. It also helps if you bring your own drinks this time. no mooching off the other guys! ..yeah that's it....that should get u an ad right on the front page even! *backs out of topic slowly and closes door*
Only for adventure. They were still 238 apps away from top ten overall And a few thousand sales isn't enough for four guys working full time on an app for months.
You're picking successful games/companies out of the air and saying "see, they got it right!". Of course they did - that doesn't mean there aren't a hundred other games or companies that did the exact same thing (or better) and somehow "got it wrong". Picking winners after the fact is easy - reproducing winning conditions is really frigg'n hard. If you personally had a successful app I'd be inclined to listen. If you had two or more successful apps I'd listen harder. But AFAICT you're pulling advice out of your ass.
Stacking the odds for success: 1. Have a unique addictive game with controls that a granny can use. 2. Be prepared to spend money on production. 3. Work with very experienced people - an ideal team is industry veterans because the money you spend on production is probably worth x3 because of the experience. 4. Think about marketing right from the start (I'm actually doing it now by talking about my next game and the budget in a low key way because people will be curious if you make the statements I have been making). 5. Ideally you should study the App Store and find a gap in the market because been first with a game idea with the above points is worth gold dust. 6. Do not ignore online features because people expect them now. Do you go for 3D or 2D for your first game? This all depends on experience of the team. We can do both but we opted for 2D for these reasons. 1. The game suits the 2D medium. 2. For a first game to go 3D would be stupid because the production values are risky with all the recent 3D releases that seem to be doing well. 3. With good budget a 2D game can look very polished and can jump ahead of whats on offer in the 99c price region. Also, you need to be prepared for a marketing budget. We are considering to release some free games with iAds and adMob enabled so if anyone of them charts then that money goes towards the marketing budget we have set aside for our main game. These games could be considered 99c games but we are thinking of a bigger picture. The bigger picture - the future is multi-platforms. These are the markets we are going down. 1. iOS. 2. Android. 3. Nokia (ovi store). 4. Facebook. If the game is unique and good then each one of those markets will generate more press and will feed off each other. If you don't do any of the above then the odds are just against you now. Just going through this check list makes you realize that this is getting beyond the individual now. Some individuals will still get lucky but those people are getting far and few now. As I said before if it's a hobby then you have nothing to lose. My advice is if you decide to do this for money you need to spend a lot up front now. So think long and hard whether you want to go through a lot of pain and risk or maybe consider using those skills to work for a company. If it's a hobby, then fair enough you have nothing to lose.
Ok since you claim other companies have done equal to better than the companies that I named , name 1. Ok tell me what indie does equal to or just a little less than gameloft. The only one possible is forsaken media because for 4 guys to do a 3D that deep and rich I give it to them. They should be millionares and if they ever decide to team with chillingo they will be. Thats the only group I seem do better a way better game than gameloft but not recieve the same money benefit. As far as picking winners lets talk infinity blade. Thats a completely new game , yet the moment everyone saw it they knew it was a winner. Thats the feeling your game has to give to the people. The moment they see it their going to buy it. Iam talking common sense but it seems like you just want to here want you want to hear.
Read an interresting article that i think ties in nicely with the original topic and also what hodapp said. Its says 26% of apps are only played once after being downloaded on average. For free apps the effects of this are more obvious, as in less income from ads, but for paid apps the problem is that 26% of your customers will likely never tell anybody about this app, which is a big problem because i think word of mouth is the biggest way to promote your app as an indie dev. This also means if its a reviewer it won't even get considered for review. I know there is a lot of other factors as well, but this just goes to show how important first impressions are on the app store.
Big boys like Gameloft or Epic/Chair are not in the same league as indies so comparing them is a waste of time. There's always stuff that "looks like a winner" from the get go - even indie stuff (e.g. Aralon) but if you look at a lot of successful "doodle" or "cartoon" games or "talking" apps or hell even fart apps you can't possibly tell me there haven't been apps with better production values and better gameplay that have been far less successful. Games like Spirit or Linkoidz or 180 for example. Look, there simply isn't a magic formula for success. I shared my story so people could glean some insights from my experiences and mistakes. I wasn't asking for advice, and I'm not in a position to give advice. So go off and make your million dollar game and point and laugh and criticize me all you want. If you don't mind, I gotta get back to my next moderate success and/or flop...
Of course they're not lucky, I would claim that they are a bit cynical though, more or less letting any popular title "inspire" their next game. But Gameloft is a huge company with several thousand employees developing for more or less any platform out there. It is fairly pointless bringing them into a discussion of how indies will land that T.A. review. If U2 relase an album it will be reviewed because they are U2. If Joe, Bill & Bob's Garageband release an album it won't even if it has ten times the quality of U2's release... I think on a whole T.A. balances this quite well but they are of course only human. For obvious reason big companies are able to atract more attention than anyone participating in this discussion...
