Assuming I market my game to the best of my ability and it is a good game (which I believe it is), what are the chances that I will at least make back the $500 I spend ($99 to Apple + $400 to Unity) on publishing to the iphone in say, 6 months? It seems like a pretty big risk to take.
If you have an amazing idea, maybe less 
Without knowing your game, art, mechanics every answer will just be wild guesses.
Also since you’re so hesistant to show any of your work/game in any of your threads, I have the feeling you’re not too confident about it already at this stage.
Because if you truly believed it was a good game, you would spread the word about it already now in this thread to sparkle some interest in the project and gain some potential customers just by asking this question in this thread.
Also you can publish quite a few games in 6 months, which will increase your chances of refunding your investment.
But still nobody can predict how big your chances are to succeed. With you being so mysterious about your game, I doubt, you are up to task, just yet. You may ask all these questions about marketing, money making and chances for another month or just dive into this whole thing 
There’s so many resources about going the Indie route on the Internet. May it be game developing or any other form of freelancing.
If that’s what you want to do, you gotta take the risk and calculate some ups and downs. That’s just how life goes
If it was that easy, many more people would take that route, right ?
If you’re that unsure, just don’t do it, I’d say. Only people who take the risk, can actually get something in return
Also you kinda asked the same question already in here:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/76602-So-how-much-do-indy-games-usually-make
For $500? If your game is good, with good marketing, you should make it back in the first day or week. Failing that, at least in the first month.
Not for $500, dude.
I don’t actually know what kind of profits people here make on the app store (there are several threads here about that, look em up), but what i do know is that good game development plus good marketing is what resulted in games like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, Fruit Ninja etc. Good game making decisions + good marketing (and maybe some luck, if you believe in that) = Profit!
Don’t listen to Acumen, he just wants to steal your idea.
Nah, just kidding, he’s actually right.
Assuming your game isn’t a horrid pile of crap thrown together in a few hours with no polish, and that there is actually some content and it’s a solid release I don’t think you’ll have any issue making your money back. I can’t say you’re going to become rich from it, but making your money back shouldn’t be to much of an issue.
I have a few reasons as to why I haven’t really shown anything from my game:
1- I’m 17 so I’m at school and track for 8 hours a day so I don’t have that much time to work on it
2- I’ve only been using Unity for less than a month
3- The only real coding experience I have is in VB, which isn’t very helpful in Unity
So needless to say, my game isn’t all that far along, but I’ll be sure to share when I feel its ready. To give you the basics, its a 2D platformer with a lot of short, quick levels (I have 50 right now, I’m planning for 100). I was just asking about the spending thing to see what others had to say… so once I get it done I’ll have an idea what to do.
Honestly, a 100 levels? I would cut that down to maybe, 20…30 max? depending upon how short it is - like angry birds - this way people who do play iPhone games are to waste some time when they aren’t near some other gaming console. Hence why you shouldn’t make it a LONG game but something to like, mix it up, yet always get them to come back and play more, just my 2 cents.
I know what you mean but the levels are very short, I’m really trying to model off Angry Birds length levels. Nice and short. I have them divided up into sets of 10 and they take 5-10min to do a set of 10.
Still, I’d go with an ad supported game, give them like the first 10, if they want more add in In App Purchase, to remove the ads and get more levels. If the first 10 are good you should get a decent income from both ads and users purchasing more.
I think a platformer can do well but you would need to have some kind of hook. Ask yourself why would anyone want to play your game when they have already played many platformers before. For example look at the game shift you can change the direction of gravity, or braid where you had to do time manipulation
http://www.appannie.com/shift-2/
That’s exactly what I was planning.
Threads like this crack me up.
Just because you can create statistics on how much revenue the average iOS game generates does not mean you can calculate your “chances” of success, because as others have mentioned, ultimately it depends on the quality of your game.
If your game is good and unique, your “chances” are good. If your game blows and you’re just trying to flood the market with shovelware in the hopes of making money, you probably won’t.
I just wanted to get an idea of if people were making money or not. I’ve heard of good games that make barely anything because there are so many games out there, and I just wanted some general info as to what others thought. I’m not an idiot I realize a crappy game won’t make anything, you don’t have to be such a smart ass.
I would say if it has a unique selling feature it could make money (look at shift – with the gravity switching).
- Does the game have good production value. This includes good art and visuals.
- Does the game have good “gameplay” - Is it “fun” (subjective of course) to play, or does it become boring (personally I would rather play 20 well designed levels rather than 100 boring/bland levels)
- Does your game have a target audience or a market for that mater. I would say try to find out what are the platformers on the appstore, examine them and ty to piece together what works and what does not (this requires doing a bit of research – maybe you can use appannie).
- What makes your game “unique”. Why would a gamer want to buy your game rather than some other platformer, the same goes for a reviewer – why would the reviewer want to review your game. Does it bring something unique or fresh for example Braid: Time manipulation or Shift with the gravity switching.
These are some questions you can try to ask but ultimately I am not sure and its somewhat of a crapshoot
That’s exactly why I asked. Since it’s a crapshoot, I wanted to know if a lot of people, no matter what the quality of their game was, weren’t earning much.
@Winning Guy
Is it REALLY that hopeless?
eventually it can be ^^…best way to know is actually make an app…and buy some Lottery ticket haha XD
If you want to achieve success, ship often.
The more you try, the more you fail, the more you get closer to success.
So, if you don’t want to win, don’t take the risk to play.
In order to achieve success in the app market, I would build a framework and focus on 1-month development cycle games (14-16h/week) so that I can release 7-8 apps in the year.
If I got some results from the first games, I would immediatly invest in hiring somebody for the tasks that take me the most time, so that I can focus on planning, marketing, shipping more.
And I would expand that way.
And if I get enough money later, maybe I would allow myself to work on 3-6 months development cycle games so that I get more freedom with the project and enjoy.
That’s what I would do. I would fail often. But I would increase my chance of success.
More than anything I would build a business, not a way to keep myself busy.