Need suggestion from successful indie developers

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by WhitePanther, Aug 23, 2016.

  1. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

    Hello,

    I am a new indie developer and currently struggling through a lot! (seemed like lot of indie developers go through this stage lol) I cannot get regular downloads. So I at last decided to invest some money in my game(very little, not too much)

    The thing I need help with is that, which is the best place to invest my money so that I get good number of downloads? even 10 downloads everyday will be a good start for me.
    So please, asking successful indie developers who got more than 10k downloads for advice!

    Thank you.
     
  2. fgl_sam

    fgl_sam Well-Known Member

    Jun 7, 2016
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    Norwich, UK
    That can be dependent on your app really. Care to link us to it so we can provide better advice?
     
  3. mokoolapps

    mokoolapps Well-Known Member

    Oct 17, 2012
    61
    2
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    Male
    Mobile App Developer
    Online
    I would not suggest investing unless you know your ROI. You can burn through a lot of cash fast. Facebook is good since you can target users to what you need.
     
  4. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

  5. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

    What is ROI ?
     
  6. fgl_sam

    fgl_sam Well-Known Member

    Jun 7, 2016
    48
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    Engineer
    Norwich, UK
    - return on investment

    If you are spending $1000 usd, and from that you get 1000 users, if each user on average only earns you 10c, it was a bad return on investment. If they each spend anything over $1+, it was good.
     
  7. fgl_sam

    fgl_sam Well-Known Member

    Jun 7, 2016
    48
    0
    0
    Engineer
    Norwich, UK
    #7 fgl_sam, Aug 24, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2016
    I just played your game for a bit. It took me a few minutes to understand what I needed to do, but I got there. I will say, there are some free things you can do to your game. Checking the app for spelling (arcade is spelt "Acarde" in your app), adding some delays between level fail and ads triggering (it's like a 1ms break, and sometimes you tap ads accidentally, which is good for you in the short term, but terrible for the users), working on your graphics (mine is pretty low res on an android device, at least) and adding something to your gameplay could see more people stick around and recommend the game.

    I know it's not the most positive thing in the world, and I'm sure you were hoping for someone to say "Do this easy thing and you'll have 100,000 downloads", but in reality the game could use some development. I'd do that first before investing any money in it.
     
  8. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

    I dont wanna invest that much in my app, i want to invest like around $50 first, just to try it out. And for now i didnt implement any IAPs in the game, just gave some ads. Any idea on average how many hours the user should play my game to generate $1 ?

    And what do you think of the game?
     
  9. fgl_sam

    fgl_sam Well-Known Member

    Jun 7, 2016
    48
    0
    0
    Engineer
    Norwich, UK
    That depends on the CPMs you're being offered by the ad network you're working with.

    Lets say it's $1, you'd need 1,000 ad views. In the few minutes I played your game, I saw probably 10 adverts, so you'd need roughly 100 installs of users like me to make $1.

    Do bare in mind that literally only 20-40% of people will open the app a second time, and within a week of installing the app, you'd be lucky if 5% are still playing.

    The best you can hope from 100 users is that they play for as long as possible and you can squeeze as many adverts in without driving them away, then perhaps you could make $2 from them with a $1 CPM (which is low, just an example).

    IF you had a rewarded video, you might be able to get a much higher CPM, which is why they're popular right now.
     
  10. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

    Thanks a lot for the help. And i just put one video that triggers if the player dies after 100 points.

    And any advice on how can i increase the eCPM by myself? its pretty low, its 0.08 right now.
     
  11. BazookaTime

    BazookaTime Well-Known Member

    Start by making an original game not ripping off someone else's idea. (Rainbow Infinity).

    You received some pretty harsh feedback on the GS Forums about this, I am surprised you didn't learn from that.
     
  12. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

    Most of the games are copied from from something. And I gave it a lot of thought before making it, that guy didnt upload his previous game to google play, so i didnt think he will ever upload any of his games to google play.

    till now he didnt upload it, So I made one for android users. [I dont think this will hurt his market, no one will change from iphone to android just to play one free game, apple users will keep using apple and android users will keep using android]

    But most of the people in gs misunderstood me and thought i ripped him off. I could have copied more games from more users (which are even better than that game) but i didnt do that. I copied this only cause he wouldnt ever upload on google play.

    And lastly I didnt remove it even after bad comments because i have spent a lot time in it and i didnt wanted to go that time to waste.

    Sorry if I offended you in any way. But i dont think i ripped him off in any way.
     
  13. WhitePanther

    WhitePanther Active Member

    thanks a lot for the suggestions, i will work on those.
     
  14. breban1

    breban1 Well-Known Member

    I just installed and tried playing your game.

    The first thing I noticed is that the app required Device ID and call information. This shouldn't be a requirement for this type of game and is an immediate turn off to a lot of players. Also, why does it need access to photos and media files?

    The next thing was that there wasn't tutorial. It is definitely needed, especially in a game such as this. It's not intuitive what to do from the get-go.
     

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