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Yep. If you’d have just made it in UIKit you’d be raking in the dough right now.
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What value do you provide to the customer?
ie: why would they not just buy Poker by Zynga as opposed to your game?
You cannot expect to be profitable without providing value to the customer :X
Maybe they win special decks with different art on them. maybe a nudie deck too.
How is it a myth that indies make money with Unity when you’re the one who was putting out a $5 poker game on iOS? Poker games are a dime a dozen on iOS and for $1 or $2 more than that I could have bought Infinity Blade 1 or 2, respectively? Even with the price drop, it’s just a poker game and you’re trying to compete in a super-saturated part of the market.
I’m saying that you entered the market at the same price as a AAA mobile title, which is kiiinda like releasing an Xbox poker game for $60 and putting it on the shelf next to Call of Duty, which costs $65. You can say all you want about your advanced poker AI but, uh… the consumer doesn’t really care, especially the average consumer. The average consumer wants something they can see and feel right away. They want an immediate hook because first impressions last a lifetime.
The $1.99 business model is the iOS business model, period. There are many $0.99 and $1.99 games on the app store not because it sends a message, but because that’s typically the upper limit of what people are willing to pay for a game unless it really “wows” them. The only message you send by charging more than that when your key selling point is “advanced AI” is "I probably didn’t think this all the way through.
That’s way too much for a poker game, go for 1$ or at best a cash shop.
I’ve never played any single-player mobile poker games, but I don’t think price is the most important issue here. As a former avid online poker player, I’m totally put off this game by its presentation (at least the web demo’s one). Weird camera angles, camera jumps too much and distracts from action, i only see either my hand or flop, colors are too bright, 4-max table. For example, here is Full Tilt (R.I.P) mobile multiplayer client from when they weren’t killed off by government:
On the same view you can see your cards, flop, pot, everyone’s actions, everyone’s stack. Simple interface, soft colors, 6-max table and no distractions from actual gameplay.
I like the AI and idea of private games, but emulating real-life casino view is very distracting. I’d like to play some easily organized private games, but not if it looks like that. For attracting casual players, I’d also suggest stating explicitly what combination player is holding at each action.
TL;DR: Too confusing for casuals, too limited for pros.
Is it going to look like your web demo? Because that web demo was very unpolished.
You’re coming off as someone trying to guilt the community into giving you money. “If you don’t pay me, I’ll leave and your engine is to blame.” That’s not the best approach.
I checked out your game, and its far from being ready for a commercial release. Maybe it functions the way you’d like, but the appearance and interface needs some serious polish.
Add to this that, as mentioned, you’ve entered into a saturated market with hundreds of well polished titles, its going to be tough to pull in a profit with even a great looking game.
As to your broad statement of indies not making a profit with Unity, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Tons of indie developers are making their living from Unity (myself included). I’m sorry that your game isn’t selling, but instead of blaming Unity and getting angry at us, try to figure out what you’re doing wrong, then try again.
And don’t try to convince us (or your customers) as to why they’re wrong, and that they should like your game anyway (for X reason or Y reason). In the end, they don’t like it, no matter how much you tell them they should. Ask them for feedback and work with them.
It sounds like you have a good handle on AI programming, which is a strong skill to have. Good luck with your future projects.
Your graphics aren’t high end, that’s true. They’re also not medium end. They are very, very low end. From a graphics standpoint I could probably teach myself how to use a 3D program to make the assets and make better menus in less than a month.
Calm down. First, no one said they could do better or make the game faster. We’re offering advice.
You need to understand that the customers won’t care how much (or little) time you put into this. And, if you only put a month into making this game, then kudos to you. Now take another month to fine tune it, test the interface with different users and replace those buttons with something a bit more suited to the game.
There are loads of middleware GUI engines with mobile compatibility that require a very low investment cost, such as NGUI. The engine also gives you the option of making your own GUI rather than using the built in one.
You can make a game in an afternoon with Unity, depending on its complexity. And speed has nothing to do with the quality of your end product, effort does. Effort, attention to detail, polish, selling the product, all those things. It doesn’t matter if your game took a week or a year if the game itself doesn’t present itself well.
No it doesn’t, and I’m not the only one saying that. Your entire UI is clunky and looks like it belongs in a prototype version of the game, not the release.
I’m looking at the Google Play version and your web demo, which is full of semi-transparent grey buttons with no personality and poor alignment. You talk about all the polish you put into the game but I guess I’ll just have to ask you: Where was this polish applied? Because it doesn’t appear to be the presentation.
There are some really awkward problems…
First, community cards are shown for literally a quarter of a second. It takes real effort to memorize the community cards before they’re offscreen.
Second, I had a great hand and had caused your AI to bet up considerably, so I went “All In” except it told me I couldn’t, and then auto-folded. I understand house rules that you can’t go all in or whatever; i’ve played like that before, but auto-folding? D:
Third, you keep saying you spent time on the GUI but that’s default GUI right there. I’m not sure how you could have possibly “struggled” to make it work.
So one of your main selling points is your advanced AI, an AI that is so advanced that it’s confused by someone going all in for more than $350… and you fixed it by not allowing a player to go all in.
Yup it’s definitely Unity that is broken here rolls eyes
I’m not complaining about not being able to go all-in. That’s fine. Plenty of real poker games prevent huge bets and all-in tomfoolery. The problem was that it AUTO-FOLDS you in response. It doesn’t say “hey player, you’re trying to break the rules, please reconsider your bet.” It straight up folds your hand for you! That’s clearly NOT the intention of the player. The better thing would be to set it to the highest bet possible. This is what many online poker places do.
…first you complain about the engine being too slow, then you say you would have written a whole engine yourself. That would have taken forever…besides, Unity actually IS the fastest, most intuitive, indie-friendly game engine out there from what I’ve experienced. Don’t take out your frustration on the community please…you honestly sound like you’re trying to make us all feel guilty because your game’s not a great success. Also, no, the GUI does not look fine. You didn’t even bother buying/creating a better GUI skin than the standard Unity built-in one…? Why?? It doesn’t look good or professional, what you need is a GUI that wasn’t made by Unity themselves (no offense UT 
).