Great Article On AppStore Economy For Indie Developers

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#21

That is, indeed a lot of great advice; a harsh reality that anyone developing should consider. I am in nosheet’s boat, except I’m on my second week and I will likely not be graced with a New and Noteworthy and my sales will likely continue to decrease until I get nothing. This is fine, as this is what I have come to expect. This is my first game and I have learned so much from it… More importantly what I learned is that I need to treat game development as a hobby initially and expect nothing in return. Thinking you will make a good living off of your first few games is unreasonable.

Here are some things that I have learned from my journey that someone might relate to: (please be warned these are my reactions to my first game being published and what I observed and might not reflect general opinion or reality)

  1. The initial release is the most important part, like everyone says… If you flub that, forget about it. It is incredibly difficult to regain the traction and make your way back up the rankings to make any impression. Like everyone else said previously you’d have to hit the lottery. Personally I have invested about $1,000 in various ads, time into trying to get reviews, getting my game into the community through forums and after day 3 I dropped down to 900 (ranking) in both of my categories and have fluctuated between 1000 and 400 ever since. People say that your placement doesn’t matter but it does, how many times have you gone through 1000 apps in a single category to see if there was anything interesting to download… Only when you are really bored… How many times have you opened the app store and browsed the first few pages? Exactly.

1.5) *added in* - People say “just give it time, people don’t know about it, they’ll find it and word will spread”… Unless you have a social game, word spreads slowly if not at all. And the lower you are in the app store the less exposure you will have. You can get reviews from a million sites but who are the people going to those sites? Are they general audience? Probably not. So your game has to be remarkable in order for a person of general public (and face it, that’s where the successes come from) to share your game with other members of the general public. For instance look at “draw something” you think that game is successful because it is developed well? Hell no, that game has so many bugs it isn’t funny. What it DOES do is allow you to connect the general audience and force them to want to share the game with other members of the general audience. Game blogs attract gamers, if that is who you are after then that is your audience but real success comes from the general audience.

  1. Everyone says “you have to invest in pre-release hype” but you just simply can’t do that with every game. If you are Rockstar releasing Max Payne, yes. If you are Mr. Indie developer releasing the 1,323,223rd angry animal game, then you probably won’t get much out of it. And also, unless you have an already established brand to back the game up with a history of another successful game, you will not have the cache to be noticed or respected unless the game is very different or revolutionary in some way.

  2. The price debate… I priced my game initially at $1.99. I felt like I invested more into polishing than most games on the market and that it deserved $1.99; I had cinematics, professional voice over, high quality music and sound effects, the whole shebang. The fact that I priced myself there probably screwed me on my initial launch and possibly the overall success of my game, mainly because I was a no-name with no history. People didn’t have a reputation or reviews of my game to justify buying it… .99 cents is an impulse buy price, $1.99 people need to justify it and you have to appeal to that person in some special way to get them to instantly want to buy your game at that price point. Games with more cache developed by the Goliath are more likely to be able to demand higher prices. Then there is the issue with pricing at .99 cents. At that point your game just blends in with the rest of them and you have contributed to the problem that in the app store and that is to feed the irrational need that people have to buy only .99 cent games because they can get any quality of game for that price.

  3. Changing your price… I dropped my price to .99 thinking that what “happened” to everyone else would happen with mine… That it would create this big boost of sales which would bring me up in the rankings and hopefully be seen by everyone and then gain some traction. That didn’t happen. I got a small boost of sales (like 10) and that’s about it. It didn’t increase my rankings in the store.

  4. The description is important. Brevity is key but make sure to give them all they need. I separated my description into categories 1) devices, 2) praise and reviews, 3) features, 4) story, 5) info on how to contact me. Along the way I had several people tell me that I they wanted this information or that information in order to justify the purchase but what it came down to was “how do I play your game, why should I buy your game, why is it special”

  5. There are many games in the app store but only a few TYPES of games, if you do not fall within these TYPES of games it will be harder to gain traction because people categorize your game instantly, if it falls into the categories that match up with their expectations then they are likely to buy it… By types I mean, angry games, versus games, ninja games, zombie games, shooter games, etc.

  6. Basically if your game is more complicated then tap, swipe or think on a small level, it will be harder for you to gain traction. Look at the top 10 games in the app store… You either slide, swipe, or tap in order to play them, that’s all you really need. And most of them have some sort of puzzle element to them. If your game is like those, then you have a better chance at winning the lottery. That’s not to say the more complex games aren’t great and highly regarded, but you narrow your audience with those games and in turn lower your expectation for Angry Bird success.

  7. The “I got 3,500 downloads in 3 days!” effect. Yeah, I’ve heard it a million times too and dollar signs always appear above people’s heads. What they don’t realize is it is for a FREE game and they are likely to make NOTHING off of those 3,500 people. Why is it remarkable that you have 3,500 downloads in a few days on a free game? Sure, thousands of people are playing your game and if that is why you are in it then you are justified but for those who want to make a career out of it, that is pointless knowledge and not remarkable. (I realize this may make me look like a jerk because the main goal should always be for many people to play your game but lets face it, people want to make money off of their game and make a career out of it and when we see that a person is remarking about how they have a ton of downloads on a free game, secretly we hate it)

What I’m trying to get to with all of this is that you can’t take the stories that people put out there from experience as scripture, not even mine. I must have spent days reading what people did, how they failed, how to do this to do better and to be honest nothing worked and there is no systematic way to win the app store. The App Store is an organic beast and no two experiences will be the same. My game will probably not see 500 downloads a day like nosheets. I feel like it deserves that, but it won’t. Sure I could dump $10,000 into tv commercials geared toward kids and quit my day job to promote it and it might be a small success but I can’t do that. At the end of the day we are fighting against giants and what everyone says is right, if you are in it to make money chalk it off as a hobby and forget about it if it comes good for you, if it doesn’t you won’t be disappointment. I did what nosheets said not to… I spent the first week refreshing my stats page in applyzer.com… I searched google and twitter to see if a buzz was building (and it was, mostly by hackers trying to give away my game)… I woke up every morning to look at iTunes Connect to see if I had sold 500 games that day and every day I have been disappointed.

I know that what I have said or suggested might not be precise to a lot of the expectations people have had or will have, but they are my experiences thus-far and for what it is worth, hopefully someone will take something from it.

So please no hate posts against me :slight_smile: [import]uid: 63800 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 101314[/import]

#22

Loved reading everyones comments on this. I’m fortunate in that I’m only doing this as a hobby. I initially started my game as a challenge from a couple of work colleagues to write a game in just 5 days. I did that, but have then spent the past four months polishing it and making it nicer on the eyes and ears. My philosophy is that if I make enough money from sales of it in one year to cover the cost of my corona subscription then I’ll be happy in the knowledge that I wrote and published a game myself and that a few people bought it. If the totally unthinkable happens and it goes mega, then hell yeah!

I only really get to spend a few hours a week coding, and it’s a real learning experience that I am loving. I look back at some of the code I did a few months back and think “What the hell was I thinking??”. It’s a real suprise to see just how much I’ve learned in such a short space of time.

Of course non of it would have been possible without the help and support of everyone here. [import]uid: 7841 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 101345[/import]

#23

That’s the way to do it… I’m a doof though because I’ve worked in many creative fields (games, animation, visualization, web development, advertising) and to be honest, like most people who just want to do what they love doing, I didn’t want it to be for someone else to profit… I wanted MY creation, MY story, and MY hard work to be recognized. I’m sure I share this with a lot of people here. We just want to do something for a living that we love and to get paid for it. When you put a year into something, your heart, your story, your time, and your wife’s constant finger wagging [err… support] :wink: you want something great to come out of it, and the reward SHOULD be many people playing it and enjoying it, but somewhere in there we want the reward of getting to do it for a living. Sharing stories and making games without worrying about bills or our full time job. I know there are hard-core people out there who say “if you don’t do it for the love of it, then you shouldn’t do it” but you can’t say that, forget those guys! Everything you do in life is for notoriety, purpose, sex and money. If games can get you there and you can have fun doing it, then why not! [import]uid: 63800 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 101351[/import]

#24

by the way, congratulations on making APP OF THE WEEK! :slight_smile: [import]uid: 80100 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 101562[/import]

#25

Great conversation, i’m with you with almost all the points, mike, except that I would say that initial release is not so important to game’s success as it’s usually thought of (and these “release to win of fail” opinions date back from 2009 era where it was true as almost every new app among the few that were showing up was news to the media).
also to get into news&noteworthy your app doesn’t have to be new ( mine has gone up there not when released but after an update ). also, when it comes to MEDIA (websites or paper media), as far as NEW app go, they will always be biased towards what makes a good news story, and not necessarily a great game - so you have a good chance if you are an established studio, or a hollywood actor turned game designer, a 3-year toddler coding in C++, or prisoner on a death row sentence making edutainment apps. if you are a humble indie developer among thousands, chances are you are no news, but this doesn’t mean that eventually your app will not make its way to Reviews section. Paper-based media work on even slower cycle, so what I want to say that there is always a chance for a media break-through, and the game release itself is not the only opportunity. I would say that importance of paper media is still much greater than any website.

Also, agree that app will NEVER get a traction unless it is specifically designed to do so.
While there still are occasional accidental hits in app store, the most successful games are completely designed around sales and marketing model. This includes at least the following:

  • viral marketing included at the core of the gameplay, where increased social interaction between players bring more rewards than a single player mode.
  • game is based around combining well established elements without being too demanding on player in terms of exposing him to unnecessarily original content that needs to be absorbed: yes, any combination of cute colorful graphics, ninjas, zombies, fruits, warfare conflict will do the trick.
  • gameplay and interaction is based around lowest common denominator. anything more than a simple tap and swipe will mean you put yourself in a niche.
  • you need to skate towards where the puck is going, not where it is at the moment. this means that zombies and vampires are all the rage but by the time you finish your game, everybody might forget them in favor of another alien invasion. games are part of popular culture and business heads go long way to coordinate the “topics of the year” to be delivered through films, series and video games.

This all above means that in order to success you have to go the beaten path and sacrifice any itch for originality. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is just exactly the same Hollywood model that game industry has adopted.
Just talk to any independent movie director and they will tell you the same thing as any indie game developer.

So how does independent cinema still gets made (so hopefully we get a couple of good films a year between thousands of intelligence-insulting crap coming from Hollywood) ?
They usually never sell enough to cover expenses.
They depend on government grants and similar non-profit sources of financing that see the cinema as integral parts of culture and arts, the one that deserves investment.

Video games, unfortunately, have started off as a highly commercially exploited medium (think Pong), and never had a chance to be accepted as a potential art-form. Things are changing lately in some more liberal countries such as Denmark and possibly Netherlands, where government programs include support for game development.

What I want to say is that, as with many other disciplines, if we want to use game design as a medium for artistic expression, we need to abandon the commercial model. Especially when this model is accompanied by a strict censorship like the one of Apple, where nothing that could potentially raise any polemics (and in a long run provoke actual CRITICAL THINKING against consumer obedience) is not allowed to get through.

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#26

Marketing is always more important than the product, whether an app, car, book, etc
It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to make money with it’s all about marketing and 99% of developers don’t know how to market so need to rely on luck.

Give stuff away for free as long as it takes to build your brand and then charge for something after you’ve already over delivered.

Throwing spaghetti at the wall waiting for something to stick is counterproductive.

Do something really good and market it even better.

There’s app millionaires that haven’t even started yet.
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#27

There is a lot of great information presented here!

Let me just tell you a little something, and it’s not anything specific it’s “more about me” but has a place with conversation.

I’m 36 I work a real job, I live close to work, I’m married and have an 8 month old son. I turned down a opportunity to make nearly 2x as much, but I chose not to (the actual % was 41.7 hehe). I was contending with a number of factors

**15 minute commute, vs a 45 to 1 hour and 15 minute commute.
**3 Weeks LESS vacation
**30% travel (I’m in Los Angeles, but they were talking about traveling to Mexico, Japan, England…India)

The only thing that was good about it was the knowledge I would gain and the pay.

I decided to instead fulfill a thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid - make games. I decided to keep my job, which I love and do things at night on the side. It’s a hobby thing to me, I am a all in one shop, I have a background in sound engineering and have worked in a variety of recording studios. I’ve also been in IT for a long while as well, in addition I am a studio musician (I don’t do gigs anymore though).

I figured those talents would play into making games, games need sounds and soundtracks.

How does all this tie into this conversation? For me, this is a hobby, I have the attitude right now if I am not having fun doing it, I just stop. I don’t treat it like a job. If it’s late at night and I’m just mad at some code not working, I’ll go watch a youtube of cats playing a piano or something (damn those cat videos, perpetual waster of time! lol.

If you are a studio who’s bread and butter is to make games and make money that is one thing. If you are like me and are a “one man band” it’s hard to expect to juggle real life commitments and do this and expect crazy success. I realize that and that keeps me grounded.

I’m getting a chance to do games which I always wanted to play, but was always mad at games. An example is First person shooters. FOR YEARS - i’ve been saying “WHERE ARE THE FEET” why is it you look down you don’t see legs or feet? WHY? For me that took away the whole “immersive” experience. That is the kind of things I’m after, I’m out to change that experience people get - on my own dime, on my own terms etc.

If I FAIL, I don’t give a damn. The process itself will lend itself to other areas. I design call centers, I design stuff that goes into data centers. Game design to me is common ground to that, you plan something, you prototype stuff you build it. If you fail, you learn not make the same mistake or do something different etc etc. I think the process itself is rewarding, fail or not.

Define your expectations, and don’t get caught up in the angry bird dream world. Do what makes you happy! :slight_smile:
Phew, ok done now. Wow long write up, but whatever I’m leaving it alone :slight_smile:

ng
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#28

Great thread!
I am surprised to know being on the front page of app store only brings in 400-500 paid downloads a day.
When my game Sky Settles gets in iPad games new&noteworthy it brings about 3000~4000 free downloads, not as much as I have expected. A paid app switch to free app gets 4~5k daily download for afew days with no marketing at all.

Anyway latest numbers to get into to 25 category is in, something I am always curious about.
http://www.distimo.com/blog/2012_05_quora-answering-series-download-volume-needed-to-hit-top-25-per-category/ [import]uid: 49513 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 107299[/import]

#29

@NobStudios - That’s awesome! Free games will always get more downloads. According to a recent study that I can’t find roughly 70% of gamers using mobile devices will spend $0 in the app store. and of the 30% remaining, something like 10% are the people who actually pay $50 or more in the app store a month. I’m interested to know, based on your numbers, beings that they were for a free game, how many IAP conversions you had. I’m under the impression that even when you have high downloads for Free games that only a very small percentage of those people will actually pay for IAP.

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#30

@NobStudio - I believe that iTunes front page Note&Noteworthy can bring in more than 400-500 paid downloads a day, if the app/game appeal to general public AND is iPhone+iPad app. My game was a niche pixel art arcade (although it’s by far the most mainstream game I will ever made, I think) and didn’t fit particular genre that would provoke more impulsive purchase. Plus it’s iPad only.
Some data, like for Retro Racing, imply more in a range of 1000-1500 paid apps a day.

Looking forward for some iAP conversion data, too :slight_smile:
Cheers
N [import]uid: 80100 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 107308[/import]

#31

Great thread. Don’t forget the piracy factor. Corona should implement an anti-piracy system. Something like AntiCrack ( http://www.cocoanetics.com/anticrack/)
I have been using it in my apps with success.
Now I have developed my first game with Corona and while I’m waiting for App Store approval, I’m afraid it will be cracked at any time.
@nosheet, I would add another point in your Decalogue:
* DO NOT search for your game in cracked-apps webs.

btw, I’m from Spain too.

Regards.
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#32

@nosheet @Shizapp sorry I didnt have the time to calculate the conversion rate earlier.
My game has very poor conversion rate at 0.845% (units of iap sold/units downloaded)

iap ranged from 0.99 to 23.99, all earns about the same amount of money.

I notice that updates doesn’t affect your ranking at all, so the only way to “revive” a dying free app from the bottom of chart is to set it to paid, and then set to free again when your next update is ready for sale.

Other wise don’t bother to update the app, just launch as new app. [import]uid: 49513 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 108555[/import]

#33

IMHO this is the best thread for newbie like me. I’ve been doing all stupid things you’ve mentioned, like constantly search my game at google. It’s a good feeling to know that you’re not alone. Thanks a lot :)) [import]uid: 137144 topic_id: 24394 reply_id: 110416[/import]