Hello to everyone, This last year I started my own game dev studio, we are getting huge! We are JUST 2 people doing everything! Hooray! The thing is that in the coming months we are going to release our very first iOS game with a major publisher but we spend a lot of time on this game (and we still do) with actually no income at all. I was thinking that when we finish this game the biggest possibility is that it will NOT make us rich and famous and probably our dreams will be destroyed! So i am thinking of alternative plans right now that we are closing to the date of our big success/failure. - Should we try the AppStore logic and release quick minigames once a month with no actual meaning and purpose? - Should i try to look for publishers that want to invest somehow on our work (and if so! is that possible for the publishers? anyone had any experience with that kind of contract here?) - Or should we give up and work as normal employees somewhere irrelevant to this subject? (NOT) please share your thoughts and experiences with me!
1) I personally wouldn't go the monthly mini game route. Although you'll probably make money over time due to the number of apps, i just think you'll be known for releasing crapware and have a support nightmare. It's pretty much not possible to develop and release a decent game within a 1 month time frame I feel. And you can forget the possibility of popular blogs or Apple featuring a sub par game. 2) Going the publisher route is a personal decision. If you want a greater opportunity perhaps in getting your game seen by utilizing the publisher's reach and don't mind giving up a % of your profits then go the publisher route. I've seen success both ways so I can neither say yes or no to this topic. And if you've surfed this forum enough, you've probably seen the countless number of publisher yes/no topics. Although money is the ultimate goal, i think the best advice would be to develop a game you are truly passionate about. Something that you wouldn't get tired of looking at after a few months, and something that you would actually find fun to play. You would be more likely to be even more detail oriented with this game and have a higher possibility of releasing something with top tier polish.
If they haven't paid you upfront for the dev costs, nor are comitted to publicising your app enough to make you a decent return, why are you going with a publisher anyway? I have nothing against publishers. In fact I'm in the "pro" camp. But that's because they either fund development and/or make sure it sells later. If they're doing neither then they're not really a publisher at all!
Could not agree more and that is my main purpose from the begining of this journey called game design, after being a simple player with many ideas for my whole life
