I want to monetize my game. At the first time, i planned to create an RPG game (classic RPG) with ± 500 MB in size. But when i realize that the apk size limit for google play store is 50 MB i decided to cancel my plan and switch to another.
But, is 50 MB size large enough for a game? Is pay per download the only method to monetize this game?
You can use expansion files to get around the 50MB limit and Unity supports the creation of those files (Edit->Project Settings->Player->Publishing Settings->Split Application Binary)
The only other suggestion is if you were to instead of doing a full-on 3d RPG, if you did a 2d low rez tile based one a la Final Fantasy, etc… You could fit many more graphics into a much smaller space that way. But when you say around 500MB I assume that this idea is far from what you were looking for.
Even tile-based one can weigh well into hundreds of MBs. Why? Music. RPG needs lots of music and that usually weighs lot, even if its ogg or mp3. Look on rpgmaker.net, RMVXAce games in particular (earlier versions used MIDIs so music wasn’t so big issue). Most of those games are 200+MB downloads.
Hehe. Unfortunately to do that you need custom engine written just for that one game and unable to run any another and some uber executable compressor (AFAIK they’ve written their own exe compressor which is better than UPX. Shame executables using it gives false positives).
Without compression or downloadable content, procedural content generation is the next available choice for getting smaller applications. I think kkrieger used run-time shader generation, as well as procedurally generated textures and models.
50 MB is huge. I made this in less than 6 MB and about 5 MB of it is music I would guess. Next Christmas I will add to it. Scrolling levels with distinct environments probably. And probably a secondary goal. Don’t focus on making movies just focus on making games and 50 MB is plenty of space.
Yes when you start it up it quickly loads in content from remote sources that is why it requires a WiFi to play, still the actual game itself that runs is only 26 MB so you can make good games and get around memory limitations, but it requires good architecture and knowledge of the technology.
Well, sort of. That initial load out contains virtually no content. Through the FUE and into your faction selection it requires about 100mb, and that basically doubles when you start PVP or missions. The initial load is mostly core code an UI. Sure it is highly optimized overall, but there is really no game to play until the core assets are loaded, the inital drop is core code and a few graphics (splash screens and enough UI to display errors. But you are correct, you don’t need hundreds of mbs to make a good game.