I was hoping some of you vets would be willing to share some wisdom regarding release timing. I’m working to complete my first game soon. My original plan was to get something on the App Store by the Holiday season. It will be close. I have no idea what to expect from the acceptance process and as I’m new to the medium, I keep finding ways to improve things.
That said, how big an impact does release date have on sales? I assume a large one, but then again, it’s an assumption and I’m aware of the cliches and know first hand that they are true.
I’ve been mining this board and the net in general for some time now. The thread at:http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/103967-How-to-earn-%C2%A312-000-in-one-year-from-game-development is so full of goodness I would have paid for it in book form. I’m aware that there are a ton of factors that go into what works and what doesn’t. I’m just wondering how much weight you give timing when preparing a release.
Thanks a ton.
Timing does matter, but if you are a small developer, it probably matters a lot less than you think. If you are submitting an Apple product, it takes them about 6-9 days to approve your app. However, they might also reject it, for a variety of reasons, which will set you back. So, it’s hard to get the timing perfect unless you are really willing to be quite patient. For big manufacturers of games, they try to release their products in November, so they are out by Black friday, before holiday shopping. If you are releasing yours in mid December, then … the grand scheme of timing already doesn’t apply to you.
From that other thread, you already know that marketing is going to be your big bottle neck. Unless you are EXTREMELY lucky, your app will come out and make a very little ripple in a giant sea of apps. What that says is that as a business person, you should never count on or even plan for luck. You should try lots of little things, experiment with different marketing ideas, and see what works for you personally. Build a product with a built in plan for a multi-year life-cycle. Plan how you want to release it, how you want to expand it, how you want to cross market it, and how you want to promote it. Think long-term, not just the weekend after release.
Be proactive, before you even release it and think through all the contingencies. Are you prepared for it to not sell at all? Are you prepared for it to sell a little for a few days? Are you banking on having wild success? Plan ahead, expect hte worst, and do everything you can to mitigate the risk to your bottom line.
Good luck and keep faith, even when events go against you - which they inevitably will at some point,
Gigiwoo.
PS - This sounds like a downer message, but it’s not. It’s meant to inject a sense of reality - plan for the worst, hope for hte best. That kind of thing.
Thanks a ton Gigiwoo.
Don’t worry about the downer bit. My main goal for a first project is to learn Unity and to learn the process and then continue to build on it. I’m fortunate in not needing to derive an income from this, but I also don’t believe in aiming low.
My secondary goals is a set of reusable constructs for things like state management, events, etc. so that I can begin to develop future games with a much faster turn-around. I know some of this is available off-the-shelve, but I’m not completely impressed with the implementation in some cases, and there’s little to be learned that way in any event.
In the end if this all turns out to be a hobby, I guess that’s OK. If it becomes a self-supporting hobby, that’s even better, but modest goals lead to meager outcomes. My current long term plan is to continue on regardless of sales. I’ve been a programmer for a long time but it has been at least a decade since I’ve pulled all-nighters by choice. That alone makes it worth the effort.
Thanks for the advice and good wishes and most of all, the reality check. I appreciate it.
You can set the availability date in the Appstore to whatever you want it to be. Some love to set the date near the Holiday season (much more downloads) - but you should be aware, that all the big companies will also try to sell big time (price reductions, advertisment, cross promotion etc.).
So for a Indie it might also be a very difficult time to be seen at all.