About a year ago I decided to go for a career change. The money was decent at my job, but I wanted to design my own stuff. Well, I did that. I spent a ton of money, invested a lot of time and I finished my project. And I am proud of what I made. I enjoy it, it is challenging and it is nothing like most games out there.
This Friday Apple approved it for the app store. I wasn’t expecting much, but what I got is basically nothing in my opinion. I have 150 downloads as it stands now. One reply on my showcase in the Unity forums and no replies from the review sites I approached. What went wrong?
I spent a lot of time and effort in making the sure my game at least looks and sound decent. I tested the hell out of it and it runs smoothly on all the IOS devices. Am I wrong? Is my game bad? Or is the market just so saturated that the only way to get downloads is to spend a ton of money on advertising? Should I have made a clone of other games? I bet another Flappy bird clone get’s more downloads than my work. Am I too hasty and should I wait longer before judging? I can’t even find my own game in the app store under the new games section. The only way to find it is by exactly knowing what to look for.
Does anyone have some inspiring words for me? I love doing this and I want to keep doing it, but I need to change something if I want to make any money out here.
Realistic expectations are the most important thing. You are averaging 50 downloads per day during the initial release period. What did you expect to happen? And did you intentionally release the game during a time when many folks have Christmas on their minds?
I had and have no idea what to expect to be honest. I released the game when it was done on a day the data said it was a good day to do so. What is normal for a small game? I would expect the winter period to be the best period to release a game.
Unless you have a load of cash to spend on marketing to convince people they need your game, you need to make a game that people actually want. You can’t just make the game you want and expect the world to buy it, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.
Edit: Also, just releasing for iPad? Not a good idea, you’re cutting off a hell of a lot of players.
The one thing I didn’t see you say was marketing. If you didn’t talk about this early on, and nobody knows what your doing ahead of time, and what to expect… Then you won’t get a lot of traffic. Doesn’t mean it’s the end, but that’s a lesson everybody had to learn at some point.
You should have posted stuff on Twitter , Facebook, forums ect. And a lot! Not spam, but dev stuff, screenshots, videos, animated gifs. I’m not the greatest with that myself, but I now make a large effort with this. If no one’s listening there, they surely won’t on the store. It doesn’t take money to market, that just makes it a little easier. I on the other hand, would rather download from a real intractable human, who’s listening.
Also, did you try and get reviews on any websites? Without those, how is anyone going to find your app? Also, what in your mind makes your app unique? Perhaps include some more enticing information in the description. In addition, maybe vary the scenery a bit? It seems like all the levels are variations of the same colors, not sure how exciting that is for the user.
Where is the android/windows phone version’s? RELEASE those. iOS is saturated… iOS is very exciting on day-1 release. I got 127 downloads first day, im like weee! but that dropped to zero after about 2 weeks… pretty standard for iOS.
Android has been much more consistent. 5-10 downloads/day at least. Recently paid for a guy to do a PR push for my game ($100 - he submitted it to near 200 sites) and saw a boost in downloads, currently getting around 25-50 downloads/day (this might have been because the game got reviewed on App Apes - http://app-apes.com/2014/12/hardkour/)
Windows phone has been slow, possibly because I released it as paid (with trial - trial never expires, but users dont know that).
Thanks for the advice everyone. I am gonna try all of it.
@JamesLeeNZ I figured that getting the app ready for windows phone would be a ton of work and barely worth it. I’ll have to look into it. Android I am really sceptical about, seeing there are like a million different devices.
I would expect Nov - Dec to be a one of the worst times to release small mobile/indie games. That’s when all the AAA games are hitting hard - I only search the app store when i’m relatively bored and looking for something to pass the time. Between the abundance of AAA games hitting the shelves right now and the holiday season, that just isn’t the case for me. I’m much more likely to buy mobile stuff during January-Feb or June-July, when solid AAA games in a lull.
Of course I have done zero research to back this up - I’m just going off of my own buying patterns.
Android/Windows are easy to release on, but start with Android. Keep in mind, success on one platform can drive success on another platform, not always, but it happens. Getting downloads will give you drive to continue development.
Im getting close to 1000 total downloads across all platforms, the breakdown goes like this:
iOS: 320
Android: 606
WP8: 53
While those arnt life changing numbers, they are still keeping me enthusiastic about pushing my game.
Having a million devices isn’t really a big deal, but you will need some hardware to test on, however the good thing about windows/android, is there are some cheap options out there.
My main phone is an S4, but I brought a 2nd device ($100) and it played the game fine as well.
+1 for this. Generally speaking just seek out the minimum bar on each of the platforms you intend to release for and then go out and get a device of that specs for cheap on ebay. Generally speaking you can probably get a low end device on each platform for under $50 each.
This. It sounds like you’ve made the classic mistake of putting all of your time into the bit you’re good at - the technical, creative side of things - and little or none into the side you know nothing about - the bit where you sell your game.
The best game in the world is worthless if nobody knows about it.
Consider: when you buy a game, what leads up to the purchase decision?
Do you see something in a (virtual) store front and immediately buy it on the spot? Probably not. Few people do. And those who do are picking between your and every other game on the list. So that strategy (or lack thereof) will get you something like one percent of an already minority purchasing group. Bummer.
Alternatively, do you hear about it elsewhere? See adverts? Posters? Trailers? Reviews? Hear people talk about it? Think “hey, that sounds/looks cool”? Then later on you’re in a store front, recognize the thing you previously heard about and thought was cool, and only then even bother to click on it? Yeah, that’s most people.
Clicking on it is only step 2, as well. The funnel is something like see → click → read → buy → install → open → play. “See” will only lead to “click” if you’ve somehow managed to win the attention competition. Then you need honed material at the “read” stage - great text and engaging images - to lead to “buy”. The steps after that are also important, because if people don’t play it they’re not going to add to the buzz. And every step along that funnel has its own unique challenges.
Think about how you as a consumer go through that funnel. Then think about others (it’s a classic sales mistake to think others think like you!). Then based on that try to optimize each step to maximize the number of people who get through it.
“Requires in app purchase”, mmm, do you have any numbers on the bounce rate, say people who download but did not play(pay). How does android compare to IOS in terms of conversions.
I’ve had one purchase so far (the IAP version has been out for about a week). The IAP isnt available on iOS as of yet (since my downloads have gone to zero on iOS, diminishing my desire to put more work into it).
Granted an update may see me generate new downloads on iOS… What you get for IAP perhaps isnt appealing enough (removes ads, lets you customise color), however from ad’s Ive seen more revenue (granted its tiny amount) come from iOS - I use adbuddiz which pays out on click through installations of ad’s.
Ive considered adding a new mode that is more like 25 pt challenges - the free version could have half a dozen with a bunch more for purchased versions.
Your first app and you made it to 150 downloads without any extensive marketing and the stuff companies do when they release an app - Well done, I would say! Pretty impressive for a first attempt. Don’t lose hope, keep at it. As they say: If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.
In my limited experience the amount of interested users can vary a lot on the type of game you are making. I also think the two marketplaces still have a bit of “culture differences” between them. I haven’t experienced it myself but I have had enough feedback from others suggest that IOS is much more lucrative than android especially for purchases. For what it’s worth basic data on my game still under the radar for the most part (I won’t advertise until my next update makes the game better). It’s been out for 3-4 months depending on the platform.
downloads- total ~1500
IOS ~400 (27%)
Google Play ~100 (7%)
WP8 ~125 (9%)
Amazon ~850 (mostly fire tv) (57%)
ad impressions total ~3000 (probably best indicator of not one and done players I only show 1 ad every other game and not one to start which means they have to start a second game in order to see an ad)
IOS- (21%)
Google Play (8%)
WP8 (6%)
Amazon (65%)
My experience with android if you compare userbase% and ad impression% android is a bit higher than normal for it’s userbase size. However, for people that bought the IAP (remove ads) IOS is largest. In general the IOS market seems more likely to buy and the android market better for ad revenue (in addition to impressions it had more clicks). Obviously my sample size is way too small to be that useful but take it for what it’s worth.
Market research is really important. Ideally you should have a good idea what to expect going in, and set goals. And of course look at competitors in at least genre to see what is going on, where they are marketing and what size of market to expect. The more info you have going in, the better you can do.
Well, about the marketing side of things you all have valid points, but I think I got a bit demotivated to get started with that by the Unity forums. This thread I have had some great replies from people. However, when it comes to the core of Unity, I think these forums need some work.
I posted other work in the work in progress forums, but there are hardly any replies to what people make, even the good works by great designers and programmers get completely ignored. Same with the showcase forums. There are some really good games on the showcase that get zero replies. This community, due to it’s size, should have enough power to at least get each others games enough ratings to get noticed by the app store. All people seem to care about are assets and survival games. To be honest, I do not understand that such an important part of this process gets neglected so badly.
My plan now is as follows: the IPhone version is in review in the Apple Store for the next few weeks. I am going to use that time to try and get more reviews for the game on the various sites and hope someone will notice. I am also going to get the Android and Windows phone version up and running. Should not be too bad to do that. I’ll keep you all posted on the results.
