As title says,
Still those are land of opportunity?
Still new mobile games released to there can survive without any paid marketing?
Which is more profitable platform? Android / iOS?
What is countermeasure to pirates(jailbreak, hack, get paid mobile games by free torrent etc), (which platform is more weak to pirates?) ?
Give up?
Saturated
Yes, but I personally wouldn’t risk it.
iOS
Don’t waste your time
Android still has some pretty bad piracy problems, however I believe they’re being alleviated in future (or possibly current) updates to the store to include things like proper encryption support. Discoverability is still a problem on both platforms with how crowded the market space has gotten, so be sure to get your game on as many review sites as possible.
Now, an important thing to consider for the future is the sudden emergence of Android based consoles, such as the Ouya, Gamestick, nvidia Shield and others. If you can be bothered/are able to get controller support into your game, it will help open these markets to you if they manage to find a permanent footing in the market.
You can make money. You won’t become rich.
If you’re lucky. There’s plenty of review sites you can use for free marketing.
iOS (between 4 and 8 times more profitable, last time I checked)
As Dabeh said, don’t waste your time. If people want to pirate your game, they will. You’ll be wasting time trying to prevent this, and you’ll likely end up causing more problems than you solve. Also, there’s a better chance that no one will care about your game, and you’ll wish they wanted it enough to pirate it.
Here is a Good Article for you to read leegod, and maybe other who are thinking about going into developing for iOS:
the title says it all, iOS app success is a “lottery”: 60% (or more) of developers don’t break even this was published in May 4, 2012… but I think it is still very much relevant because I don’t know of anything really changing with how to market and get your app (game) noticed on the App Store.
Have a look at this thread :
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/165780-Supercell-generating-1M-a-day
$1 million dollar a day.
nice! well i think that they are among the rare few who are making huge profits off iOS games! and im not just saying they are lucky, they just knew what they were doing!
i would not discourage anyone to make a game on Mobile Platform, but i think if your going to aim for it, only you have to come with something totally unique and original, and not just another FPS Game kind of thing.
I am about to tell you the secret to making a lot of money. Not just a little, not a medium amount, but a LOT of money. That’s right kiddo, the Shambhala of game revenue, that secret platform, that secret place where all things are possible and the world lay bare at your feet. Listen closer, step nearer for I will whisper this only once:
Before you get too excited.
There are thousand developer that fail, for one of these success stories.
It is possible to make money with mobile games. But you usually need persistence and some really polished games.
Don’t expect that your first game makes you rich.
I am more curious about how Supercell started with how many developers, and how many months taken to develop those game (Hay day, clash of clans), so overall, how much money they needed to maintain that first try before launch any game to iOS?
Seriously, ROFLCOPTER!
I’m sure the moderator cut the last sentence to keep this sapience for himslef. It’s a conspiracy !!!
It’s hard to say, but something important to remember about games based around microtransaction profits is that they rely on something known as “whales.” Most of the people who download an F2P game won’t ever buy something in-game. Ever. Operating profits come entirely from people who spend hundreds of dollars every month, known as whales. Even with F2P titles there is a huge chance of failure unless you’re capable of landing a whale.
Its cheaper to buy a lottery ticket, you have almost as much chance
Everybody has been providing really good points in this thread.
The best choice is iOS, for money making at least, because people who have iPhone’s etc are used to buying apps, as to where people with Android devices are used to getting apps for free.
Also with the whole pirating thing, Android gets pirated, but so does iOS.
Here is how you make money on iOS games: Make many games. Not one. Not two. Many. Done with one? Don’t keep updting it forever, start working on the next one. Only fix big bug issues with the previous games UNLESS you are incredibly lucky and those games make you hundreads of thousands of dollars (99.999% chances are they won’t)
Don’t expect any single game to make you back the billable time you spent on it, not overnight anyways. You should expect they will pay back for themselve sin the long run, not overnight. While those titles are making money, and slowly recouping the time you spent, you should be making other games. Eventually you should have many games that all cross-promote eachother, all of them making you a bit of income a month. At some point you may have a strong enough library to make this your actual day-job.
He nailed it. It’s saturated, but iOS. And, don’t worry about pirates - just make a good game and market it as effectively as you can.
Gigi.
^ This. The # of games published is directly correlated with how successful your titles are. Making a hit is bloody hard! Start shipping products to learn now, or see my sig.
Gigi