Once again, I've been surprised by the reception of a game on TA versus how well it's performed on the AppStore. Lately, Contre Jour has had a pretty mixed-to-luke-warm reception but its developers are smiling all the way to the bank. To me, it goes to underline the fact that TA is a great place to showcase games & meet & interact with devs & gamers but the views of members can't necessarily accurately predict how well a game will be received out there in the wider world. So, why am I saying this? To encourage devs to keep the faith (maybe tweeking & making improvements as they go) even if they're not getting a lot of love here.
Yeah, something developers always need to keep in mind is that we get millions of unique hits, and out of those millions of people we have an active forum user base of ~10,000. Similarly, even our highest traffic stories might see a maximum of 200 comments... So yeah, trust me, the vocal minority is exactly that.
I would also imagine, most of the vocal active forums members and commenters are more or less die hard mobile gamers as opposed to most of the visitors to the website and on the AppStore who typically stumble upon great titles or who are simply seeking something new to play on their iDevice. Meaning the gamers are probably a bit more harsh and would critique a title more than the average Joe.
Thanks Hodapp for the insight & Pchukwura, I think you're absolutely right too. There's no denying this is a very useful testing ground but I hope devs will take heed & use TA as the resource that it is, rather than as a crystal ball. I've been looking more closely at Mokus - a one-dev studio (Maksym Hryniv) and I really have to applaud his efforts. Yes, he had a publisher but it takes incredible talent & massive amounts of determination to produce something this polished. This is by no means the only example of a game doing exceptionally well despite relatively unenthusiastic feedback & I've also seen examples of it working the other way.
It also has a solid 5 stars with thousands of user ratings. The Apple feature guarentees it huge visibility, but it clearly appeals to the masses. I don't quite get the premise of this thread though - by what measure is it's TA reception considered "lukewarm?" There's plenty of praise to be found for it here.
