The point of this thread is to pretend we are in the future, and my game has been released(it hasn’t been released but that’s why we’re playing pretend here).
So let’s pretend: My game was released February 14th for android. The game uses interstitial ads and the IAP’s resemble dlc for console games. I have also asked some websites to review my game
My expectations were high. I was expecting at least $300 a day. So assuming we’re still pretending, why did/didn’t I meet my expectations?
Note: There is NO way to predict how successful an app will be; Furthermore we don’t have any download per day data or even know what the game is! That is why I want to DISCUSS why ads and IAP’s will/won’t make money
Why it didn’t: The market for new games on February the 14th was squarely captured by valentines day games. These games take over hot new games list on every app store. By the time the valentines rush is over your game is no longer new enough to make the hot new games list. As such you never make it into the eyes of many potential players.
Since we are playing pretend your reviewers are also all on dates on launch day, so it never gets reviewed.
Why it did: You happen to be the only developer with his feet planted firmly in reality who realises its valentines day. You game is a mushy two player couples game. The games not very good, but its the only thing out that hits this market. You make 100,000 dollars in the first 48 hours (Allowing for time zones). Then your game disappears and is never heard of again.
Why it didn’t: many reasons from 200 other games being released on the same market the same day burying yours to one of those other 200 being as good as your game or better and getting all of the attention leaving your game to the same fate as the other 199. Vindictive developers quickly leave ratings of how your game contains viruses that nearly wiped out their phone / computer. And other nearly countless reasons.
Why it did: you made a solid game with awesome graphics featuring enough common play mechanics combined with enough originality to be “something new” and you have a youtube channel following development of your game that had tens of thousands of subscribers and you had a twitter with thousands of followers and you had a FB page with thousands of followers and you had press releases out right before and leading up to your games release and you had major Indy sites previewing the game and all of them described it favorably and you had a solid base of players from your previous half a dozen games and you have paid ads appearing all over the Internet on major gaming sites and you even have an ad in Game Informer and so forth. You make your $300 per day average the first week. If this keeps up you can make back all of your initial marketing expense within a month and make a profit.
It’s more than that. Your game could have been completely tied in to Valentines Day and it may still be buried beneath the mass of other games. Your game could have been the very best game released on that day and it still may fail. It may fail due to quickly being buried and rarely found. It may fail because an inferior game had superior marketing and got all of the attention. Even if that turned out negative for them it still means no eyes were on your game. There is this myth going around that it comes down to quality. Make an awesome game and you win. That is not the case. History is filled with cases of the best products losing out to inferior products that had superior marketing.
Rub some pink, white, read, and hearts on it. Add a glaze of a love theme. Make sure the graphics style is very shoujou. Profit, maybe (see others’ points.)
Dang, it seems like the “only” way to succeed in this business is to have a lucky irish man kiss your game before publishing; And that is not just based on what you said. It seems like every thread like this has indie devs working for pennies from advertising.
But I will probably keep making games. It’s something to look forward to I guess
Not so true. If you want a reliable, steady income from making games you are better off finding an established AAA studio or a successful indie and working for them. They’ve already learned the tricks of the trade. They also have all of those other things that @GarBenjamin mentioned. You can also get a studio to publish your game, and tap into their marketing potential. Expecting the first game you have made, published and marketed on your own to succeed is bordering insanity.
Notice the trend here? However, I can tell you this, and this goes way back to the commodore 64 days… If all you guys are so worried about if your game is going to make it or not, don’t bother worrying about MAKING a good game, make a PORN game, sex ALWAYS has, and ALWAYS will sell. Hence C-64 FARMERS DAUGHTER text adventure? LOL
after your first game that you DIDNT want to write, but will support your income, then go write the game you actually want to? Now I’m kind of being a jerk (cause im pissed about how LAME, and brain washed the game industry has become), but I believe there is also some truth to what I said. For those of you who don’t or WONT agree, I get that may not be right for you, but the adult industry is NOT a niche market and your game will ALWAYS get noticed as I think for the very least, anyone “browsing” that kind of stuff, may increase your odds of your game at least being noticed without tons of advertising? (Hope I didn’t go to far on this post?)
You are very much right in your thinking. I learned this in my time in Internet marketing. As nice as it is to build things you WANT to… you NEED to build the things that people want that are not so over saturated the cost of entry is just too high. Often these two goals are at odds with each other. You can make things that pay the bills and bring you less personal satisfaction (unless you only care about making money) or you can make things that you greatly enjoy working on but they make very little money. These are the two most common scenarios by far. The ideal, of course, is to be able to build the games and other things that you want to be building AND make good money from them too.
And I had a C64. It was my second computer and where I learned Assembler. Great machine. I remember Farmer’s Daughter. It was a text adventure I think. There were other adult games too. That’s not my interest as I am one of the (apparently) few Americans not spending tons of time on adult sites each week. However, I do agree completely with your thinking. A person needs to find some topic, something they enjoy very much and ideally are very knowledgeable about and focus on that niche instead of trying to “make a great game”. That really is a very generic lame goal when you think about it. Lol
Seeing some of the current visual novels with erotic content that sell quite well on Steam, I’d say that is true.
At least a adult game is more interesting than some violent trash like Hatred. Make love not War!
But you won’t get such games onto iOS, or Google Play.
Steam censors those erotic novels. It’s ok to have insane amounts of violence and gore as the core focus of a game but if it’s about sex then oooohhh noooo, can’t have that. That’s our fucked up American bullshit puritan culture right there for you. Celebrate killing and death, and crucify love and sex. Good times.
lol.