TA guys, i had a question.(and please don't flame me on this topic) I wanted to ask if i should make lots of games with quality graphics and semi-less content, so people can play in short bursts, yet still be worthwhile, or make fewer games, with way more content and quality graphics instead? i ask because the app store market is freaking me out as to why most people cannot get sales, and i think if i had more games, that would increase my buffer size for more sales, and everything would be polished. however, if i had less games with more content, i think it would more likely create a following. any ideas?
It would really depend on what you want to. I think there are also some threads on this, so search. There might be articles online too.
No, I'm not trying to make a crappy game, my point is that should I make games with less content, and then update it, or should I make games with lots of content and story. If I do the Latter, it might just not get bought by buyers. I don't ever want to do what khaled did, I want to be a dev that updates and talks to everyone on the forum.oh yeah, all the games I make will have the highestquality I myself can possibly put in it.
1) Concentrate on the core gameplay, make sure your controls are spot-on. Originality of game genre and concept is not as important as how it plays and looks. In fact, if your game concept is too unfamiliar, it might be too difficult to communicate what the game is about, leading to poor sales. 2) Make sure your game has a signature visual style that gets people interested right from the first teaser screenshots. 3) Announce your game well in advance of its release, build anticipation through active communication with the community. Market, market, market... exposure is everything. 4) Plan your internal roadmap so the initial release is quickly followed by updates, preferably weekly, to keep the community interested and active. If you release an update after your game has fallen from the charts, it will most probably not boost your sales much. Updates help, but only as long as you're still up there. 5) Make your initial release as simple as possible, but no simpler 6) After the release, listen to the community and build the game according to the feedback. The above is essentially how Pocket God and now Minigore are doing it. If you can match what they do, then it would be wise to do so. Those two apps are good examples of a repeatable pattern for success on the App Store that's also compatible with the rock-bottom pricing business model.
+1 on what Frand says. You should also check out the interview that davecazz over at Bolt Creative did on their "formula" for success on Pocket God. I think I posted the link on another thread in this forum. Suggest you do a search. Dave made some very good points in that interview that any dev would benefit from.
cool that is what i wanted to do. i want to stay active in the community, and i will try to update everyone on everything i do.
I had the same thoughts as you when I started last November. I thought I'll just put out a concept and get people's feedback on how to improve it. And it didn't really pan out. I wanted to do a music game, but make it fun and super cute. I ended up making the concept too unfamiliar and like Frand said, it ended up confusing people as to what the point was and no one would try it. The game was called Xylo Ball. You play as Xylo the musical hamster that lives in a toy chest full of musical instruments. Xylo is just a ball really and you roll him around the toy chest using the touch controls to play the musical sequences you hear on the toy instruments. Oh and after you finish a sequence you eat a cupcake. I don't know what I was thinking really; I must've been hungry. But it's a very good example of how throwing random creative stuff into a game can make it just weird and confusing. I really wanted to make a music composition game where the physics simulation served as a visual metaphor for the music you were creating. Instead I created a dumbed down version of that idea because I wanted to it to be what I thought was marketable and as a result I don't know if the original idea would've worked. If I had to do it over again, I would've stayed true to my original vision and released a 2D music metaphor game. Then if it failed I could've learned from it. As it is now I have some crap cupcake eating hamster thing. I can't learn anything from that except that people don't appreciate random things in a game. So my advice is to be true to your own vision, because you don't know if something will sell until it does. But if you do want to make money then I can give you the advice that's been given to me by people much more successful than I. Plan to fail often and try to limit the time you spend on any one project to a just a couple weeks to a month. Put out variations on conventional ideas that people are familiar with. Work with an artist. Pocket God wouldn't be a success if it wasn't for those cute pygmies. So from my experience, I'd strive for both quality and quantity until you hit it big. Then concentrate on the quality. Because people are very aware of crap. You can put out something rough as long as it has something novel and interesting to offer. And when I say novel and interesting I don't mean cupcake eating hamsters... I don't know if that helps or not. I'm not exactly successful at this yet so take it with a grain of salt... Good luck! -Greg
