We've just launched our first game for iOS devices, Dog Park: Top Dog (shameless plug), and while we'd like nothing more than to sit back on our haunches (hilarious pun!) and take a breather for a bit it seems like we've just climbed the mountain of development only to encounter the enormous chain of a mountain range that is marketing your app. Like a great deal of small indie game developers out there, we were heavy on tech experience but not so much in the marketing department. In some ways, I'll confess that my few experiences with marketing companies has often left a bad taste in my mouth: the marketing reps seem to lack knowledge about what they're selling, there's a feeling that they don't care about the product, or worse they seem to think little of the end user. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and I'm in the position of trying to get the word out about our great, new, amazing, best ever, innovative, ridiculous hyperbolic adjective game, I'm realizing what an uphill battle it really is. "Duh!", I'm sure you're thinking - but it's still a "Duh" that you can only really realize when you're finally in the muck of trying to sell on the app store. It's not enough to craft a new idea into a solid and appealing product, getting it in front of the people who would appreciate it is the real battle. The App Store is full of so many wonderful games that artists and developers have poured a lot of their time, effort, and themselves into - unfortunately it's competing against those games with bigger ad budgets and best connections in the industry. That's not to say a small game can't make it - look at Little Wing as a recent example - and it happens enough that small developers all over the world still keep rolling the dice to try and get into this market. It's just that the odds seem very slim indeed these days to get your game noticed. So, what do we do as small developers? Do we turn into auto-bots, spamming everyone on twitter and email and hope that eventually something sticks? That doesn't seem very appealing to me and I doubt it does to most of you here, either. I understand that there's no magic bullet - nothing is easy, things take time, patience is a virtue and all that. I just wanted to reach out to everyone here to hear what their thoughts were and whether they had any tips for a small company (there are three of us here, four if you count Ziggy the Dog) who are feeling a bit emotionally spent these past few days. Thanks everyone! Mustafa
Hey Mustafa, Congrats on releasing your first app! A common theme amongst app developers, as you've discovered yourself, is the importance of marketing your app, and the realization that the work goes beyond just the development of an app. If you look through these and other forums, as well as other websites, you'll see a number of posts about what might be the best practice for creating a "successful app". You have the right idea - it's just a matter of patience, continuously doing outreach to the press, community, your users, etc. Keep building apps - if one of them succeeds, you can promote your other apps to those users. There's a ton more advice around the net. It seems like you should take advantage of your fourth team member in promoting your game
Thanks guys - Yah, I've been doing my best putting the word out and sharing as much as I can without feeling like I've wandered across the line of self-respect (heh). Do you guys know of any sort of indie game bundle we can try to participate in here on toucharcade? I would guess something like that already exists, but if not I'd be interested in trying to get something together with other people. Ziggy says hello.
Yes good luck! I too expected more on my first release, it doesn't happen without exposure. Since then I demoted back to hobbyist and now it's fun again! The amount of energy required in marketing a game is fulltime and completely unrewarding (for most developers). Like they say "it's not what you know, it's who you know". edit: Hey Ziggy...you posted at the same time as me...woof!
That's one beautiful dog ya have there... I don't know why but the dog seems to have this 'Don't worry, I understand...' expression... it really calms one's mind. Anyway, is guess I could relate to how you feel (we're a 3 man production team too)... always thought that having a well polished app released, and the marketing will happen by itself... I guess I was wrong. All the best to your app, may it be a success!
Hah thanks again everyone. It's a tough slog but at the end of the day, we're making games, so you're right that we should focus more on enjoying it than worrying so much. Sorry to ask again, but does anyone know if the other devs here at touch arcade forums have tried to get an "indie game bundle" thing going? I'd love to coordinate with everyone to spread the word. -m
there have been indie bundles but its pretty pointless due to the nature of the appstore where free and 99 sales are a daily commodity.. the last one i recall was a bundle of several (low quality) games into a single app (similar to the stuff triniti does) the point is where is the benefit for the user.. on pc i can understand the attraction of humble & co.. since the prices are a tiny fraction of the games costs.. but on iOS the prices are already more than low.. so one would need to bundle quite a strong collection together from "high" (lol) priced iOS games.. like 20-30$ value to get some attention.. if this is even possible on the market with customers awareness of continuously sales from pretty much everybody..
Indie Game Bundle I think bundling games together is a great idea. It's interesting that while mobile devices and the AppStore have created new, previously unavailable opportunities for small teams to develop and self-publish our games, marketing them remains so difficult. In order for indie developers to compete with well-connected megapublishers I would say that working together to promote, bundle and sell games is a must. Of course quality is the most important thing, but so far your game Dog Park is getting great reviews so I'd say you've nailed that part. Question: What do you think the most effective way to bundle a few games together would be? An app which includes all of them together for one price or another 'free app a day' thing which changes over time?
Yah that's what I was wondering about - also, if you reduce your price to free on the app store then won't you naturally see a bump even without participating in an app bundle? Really, just partnering up and organizing with other fellow developers seems worthwhile; if we can create our own network then we should be able to work together to support each other's games a bit, no? Perfect world?
Hey aoineko - Just saw your post, sorry! Yah I like the appvent calendar (appventcalendar.com) style of doing it where you promote apps for a whole month and then each app gets a day where they're free - if we can band together then we can also team up with some of the bigger/more trusted review sites like touchArcade or others and promote ourselves as a group. Another idea I like is to pledge a certain % of the profits to charity. -m
My apologies if I'm highjacking the thread. But I have a few questions born out of curiosity. How long did you guys work on the game? And did you guys work full time?
I'm almost starting to think the dev subforum should just be renamed "how do I do marketing?" Which is valid because marketing is difficult as hell and often so neglected by the majority of indie devs, it's practically a time-honored tradition. My advice, for the 2 cents it is worth (or 15 apps, if you prefer) - yes marketing is difficult and developer-unfriendly, but it should never be considered as this "magical thing which can never be understood and therefore must be feared." Like any other discipline of the entire process, it simply takes a lot of trial and error, putting oneself out there, a heavy degree of humbleness and willingness to keep trying different things from varying angles. I guess what I just typed there really amounts to little more than a fair degree of hot air "chin up and go get 'em" but we really are in such an early time of all of this where there's just not a particularly clear roadmap of how to go about proper marketing yet. I could probably write a long novel about all the rights and wrongs (I already have in this forum, and many others have, as well) and honestly part of your research, if you are so dedicated, should be fishing such things out on your own (or asking from "those who know" that can point you directly). That really is the start of such knowledge - poke and prod, do research, build relationships, share in the community and spend a ton of time figuring out just how to ask the right questions. That's the most usefulness you can get out of a forum these days (and it is a lot). As for things like "indie bundles" and such, well they are nice ideas, and they represent a strong sense of community which should really be indispensable on the wider spectrum of small-time development; but really such things should not in-and-of-themselves seem like turn-key solutions, they can really introduce as many problems as they may originally appear to prevent. It's already been touched on quite a bit in this thread already how it might not be very feasible so I won't really go on, but the point is that yes community and helpfulness from other devs should be embraced, it's startling to me how infrequently that such things happen on a larger scale. So many of us are fighting over scraps when we could probably join up to carve out some nice larger chunks of this pie; the indie mobile development community is just not very conducive to that, this early into it's existence.
FreeAppaDay.com worked very nice when I tried it on an iPad game of mine, but it's also really expensive for indie developers like myself. Also, it only works on games that a) got a specific number of ratings already, and b) are paid (prior to the promo day). I was kind of burned by two Twitter promo services. Paid a not-so-low amount, but didn't even see a noticeable spike in downloads that day. Actually, before I paid that campaign I was very aware that it might not work at all, and as such I was OK with paying for the lesson if needed (lesson received, thanks ). My first game, I sent to 50 or so sources, and only got 1 review, so I kind of try to focus on sending to resources that seem to work better, instead of submitting to every blog on the subject I can find. Some blogs seem to be so overwhelmed by app submissions that the only way with any chance to get featured is to become a paid banner I'm currently trying to get the work out on Karate Girl Destriction Run (shameless plug) and am looking into further tips as well. Anyway, I love the TouchArcade blog (as a player), so I'll always keep submitting my games here
Great post. Initially I hoped we would have more net traction due to the fact we have such a unique game coming to the store. The fact is that you do have to figure out to get it out to the most people because they won't do it for you. That's an important distinction because these days when something goes viral its rarely a product any more. If a product explodes it's due to serious marketing exposure. This could be a nice trailer that's picked up by the blogs or a press release that exposes you way outside the forums you visit. ultimately, the good news and bad news is that you market well after launch in order keep interest. You could actually look at the game launch as the midpoint of the dev cycle, with the second half dedicated to marketing and updates (that are really partly designed for marketing purposes).
John, I think it's also possible that Apple discovers your game and puts it in their "Games we play" or "New & noteworthy" section. I had two games do really well -- free games, not do really well in terms of revenues! -- and didn't really pay for any marketing, but did have them featured (I did put a news dialog in my old games for those who downloaded them). But they became featured by Apple, and that made a big difference. One is Siege Towers For Two (150,000+ downloads in the first weeks), the other was Spikeball For Two (100,000+ downloads in the first weeks). Note after the first weeks downloads, the numbers dropped substantially. It's worth noting that for these games, I really tried to find a niche of something that I didn't see much of in the app store yet, to really find something that could make players happy where other big companies don't have a lot to offer yet. That was what I found to be the case for exclusively 2-player-1-device games during the beginning of the iPad (the situation may be somewhat better now, I'm not sure). Note: I had some games of this niche released with substantially less downloads. Now, as for getting high revenues, that seems to be a different issue... haven't found the formula for that yet!
Getting into the new and noteworthy seems to be a holy grail for most indie devs. I've been told publishers with name recognition have a much easier time doing it which can be an advantage with going with publisher. As far as free is concerned, it's really really difficult to evaluate free content as successful/unsuccessful as it relates to ultimately generating revenue. Free drives more traffic on sites so when you app goes free or launches free websites are more inclined to talk about it because more people will read the article. Free can spread really well but to me the only real benefits is developing a brand with your studio (super hard with the standard one man show studio) or a brand with your game (the first one is free and is downloaded 100k times but the second gets bought that many times). Both are really great goals for small studios but it's a long term plan knowing your first game will essentially be an advertisement for your studio.
John, or you go with In-App Purchases. Then you get a chance at the free charts while still making a living. (That's the route I'm trying for my newest titles...)
That's a fantastic option. The IAP model, while a little abused, is a brilliant packaging system for games. I'm pretty confident ALL games will have a more streamlined inclusion of it than what's currently found in PSN and XBLA.
TC Games - From the moment the idea was conceived till the day it was in the App Store was 7 months, actual development (code, art, and sound) took about 10 weeks. We worked part time as we all have full time jobs, so it was mostly nights & weekends, and we contracted some of the development work out. Great post - headcasegames - I agree that it seems like we're fighting for scraps, but you're right that it's too early to tell whether this will be the norm going forward, if the big players will eventually push small time indie types out of the market all together, or if we'll be able to carve our own niche out to still do what we want to do for a living while still earning a living from it. I agree there is no magic solution and no one thing can be applied to every game and expect the same results. Continuing to learn from others, from your own attempts, and applying those lessons is the only way we each will figure out what does and doesn't work. I've learned a lot from these forums and other devs and appreciate all of the experiences shared! If nothing else, it's nice to know others are feeling the same way. Btw, if anyone does have any specific links to other good threads that you learned something from, and that I may not have had a chance to find yet, it's always appreciated. I keep trying to learn as much as I can. Thanks M
