Lessons Learned from developing and releasing Apps?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Rainier, Apr 19, 2012.

  1. Rainier

    Rainier Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2012
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    Hi, I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share some of the most important lessons they've learned from developing and releasing their apps? What would you have done differently if you could travel back in time? Well, aside from buying the Mega Millions ticket with all the right numbers :)
     
  2. DrummerB

    DrummerB Well-Known Member

    Jan 17, 2009
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    Switzerland
    The most important lesson about the AppStore?

    It's a lottery.

    If you're looking for a safe income, you'll have to look elsewhere. Except maybe if you have thousands of $ to invest in marketing.

    If you're here just for the fun and experience, then you're in for a hell of a ride. Good luck. :)
     
  3. BravadoWaffle

    BravadoWaffle Well-Known Member

    Sep 25, 2010
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    There's so many lessons to learn, and a lot of them you just learn by doing and making mistakes. We learned a ton of hard lessons from releasing RoboHero, and are carrying all that experience into our next game which is going to be far far better.

    Here are our top suggestions:

    1. Don't go it alone! It's too hard to do this job alone and a team just makes everything so much more fun.
    2. Study study study game design. There's so much that goes into designing a real game that's actually fun, so learn it!
    3. Tell your game idea to everybody. If you can't tell them about it in 15 seconds and if it doesn't inspire excitement in their eyes, you need a better idea.
    4. Cut every single feature out of your game except the bare essentials to make it fun. Release that and iterate.
    5. Test your game on everybody and watch how they interact with it without your interference.
    6. Cut unnecessary features, but don't cut your social and viral channels. Your goal with the initial release is to build a huge user base, so make sure you have social media creatively integrated and let people sell it for you.
    7. Have a plan to monetize, but focus on fun first. If your game ain't fun, you're not going to make money no matter what.
    8. Roar the gospel everywhere you can as soon as you start the project. Have a website, be active on twitter, be friendly with developers and bloggers, make waves.
    9. Polish polish polish.
    10. Have fun and don't expect success on your 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd try.

    There's a ton more, but that should get you started. :D
     
  4. givenstage

    givenstage Well-Known Member

    Dec 9, 2011
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    Game Artist
    Singapore
    If I can only tell you 1 thing which I've learned so far... never ever neglect marketing. Do not spend 4 months developing the game and only on the last few days towards the end of development and start going "ok, so how are we going to market this?" <--- don't do that.

    Market early, collect feedback early, spread the words of your game early.

    If you're afraid of your top secret multi million dollar idea would be copied before you're done because of early marketing, then I would say the chances of failing because of lack of exposure would probably be way higher.
     
  5. PixelEnvision

    PixelEnvision Well-Known Member

    Jun 8, 2011
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    Indie Developer
    Brighton, UK
    What ever you do, stay away from the seasonal apps... Easter, halloween, xmas ,etc ;)

    But doing a seasonal theme to your already successful app is another story of course...
     
  6. Moonjump

    Moonjump Well-Known Member

    May 17, 2010
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    Game designer
    Lincoln, UK
    I wouldn't call it a lottery. Everyone has an equal chance in a lottery.

    With the App Store you can stack the odds in your favour. You need to market it so that people will see it. You need good icons, screenshots and description so that when people see it, they are more likely to buy it. You need a good game so that people will give it good reviews and spread the word. You still need luck, but you will be in a much smaller pool of contenders if you get everything right.
     
  7. givenstage

    givenstage Well-Known Member

    Dec 9, 2011
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    Game Artist
    Singapore
    I would have to agree, but somehow it just felt like the luck factor is too huge at times. You see for lottery, you could buy many tickets and it won't cost too much. But for developing games, sometimes 1 - 2 failed titles would mean bankruptcy especially for indie developers...
     
  8. DrummerB

    DrummerB Well-Known Member

    Jan 17, 2009
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    Switzerland
    Every ticket has an equal chance, but not every participant. Buying more tickets will raise your odds. Similarly, polishing your app increases your odds of success. In both cases you invest time and/or money to raise your chances. But no matter what, luck is still the most important factor in the game.

    There are tons of great apps not receiving the recognition they would deserve. And there is total crap that is downloaded by millions (fart apps anyone?).
     
  9. BazookaTime

    BazookaTime Well-Known Member

    What I have learned.

    1)Hard to get noticed when your App drops ten pages back the first day it is released.

    2)Having your game reviewed is huge but I wouldn't know since it seems like the reviewers shred my codes.

    3)I make much better games now than I did a year ago but I don't really see much of difference in sales.

    4)People expect a lot for a dollar.

    5)Updating content doesn't always add value. My best selling game is Slide Golf Mini. I doubled the content, added a shop and my sales declined.

    I am sure there is more that I have just blocked out.
     
  10. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    - Don't expect Apple (or any market really) to market/sell your game. New and Noteworthy, What's Hot, etc. And even if you make it there, you might still see poor sales.

    - Bigger projects = bigger headaches. More that can go wrong. It's a good rule of thumb.. even smaller projects can wind up more work than you'd originally anticipated. Try to start with something smaller 1st and then go from there after you've learned the process.

    - Hookups in the media (websites, bloggers, etc) are all well and good, but still might not mean anything for your sales. They might blow you off if other news is more interesting.

    - Expect the unexpected! Lots of things can go awry, that you may never have expected. When I launched 180, I sent promocodes to many websites and big-name social sites, podcasts, etc. For some reason Apple's system malfunctioned and many of the codes were "duds." Apple fixed it some months later, but by then it was irrelevant of course.
     
  11. My lesson is do not start it as free if you do a paid app. First several days have the best exposure and downloads. But I doubt whether it is a lesson if the exposure fades anyway...
     
  12. Marketing before launch, during launch, after launch.
    No matter how good your game is, it is nothing if it is not seen. Considering the 20k new apps that are released every week, you need the visibility to sell. Best to be able to invest some cash into that. Or have really good contacts to spread the news.
     
  13. Few more to add:

    - You only get one chance for a first impression, so make the most of it.
    - Free game and then either iAP's or possibly to a lesser extent advertising might be the best way to go / start out when you're an indie.
    - Quality and frequent updates make an impact but can be short lived.
    - Knowing when to move on to something else and utilize your time for small teams is all part of the process when starting out.
    - Don't except lots of people to write reviews for your game, even if you ask them nicely :)
     
  14. PixelEnvision

    PixelEnvision Well-Known Member

    Jun 8, 2011
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    Indie Developer
    Brighton, UK
    If your app is not picked up by the community at the release and you're unable to revive it with marketing, etc. Do not loose any more time on it, accept the fact and move on...
     
  15. Rainier

    Rainier Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2012
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    It sounds like marketing has been a fairly common theme among developers. Have you found any particular approaches to be more effective than others? Press releases, review sites, youtube trailers, what else is there?

    Thanks so much for sharing your experiences!
     
  16. PixelEnvision

    PixelEnvision Well-Known Member

    Jun 8, 2011
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    Indie Developer
    Brighton, UK
    I believe press releases far more efficent to get media attention instead of emailing individual review sites... If your app is interesting enough, they will contact you... You tube videos are important as a part of the press release, including one will be a big plus...
     
  17. IrishRed

    IrishRed Active Member

    May 22, 2011
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    Jumper of Sharks
    Boston, MA
    These are all good tips. A lot of us talk about marketing often because discovery is a really huge issue in the iOS app store: odds are that many of the people who might most enjoy your game are likely never even to discover it at all.

    Here are a few more marketing things I've seen:

    -- Release: Although you can add amazing post-release content after the 1.0 to transform your game, most of your initial reviews in the major media will still be based on your 1.0 version, and most review sites don't cover your updates at all (TA does occasionally, but usually only for games they already covered as a 1.0). So in most cases your 1.0 features will sit on the Web as the definitive reviews forever even if you make them inaccurate, and if a reviewer happens to miss you altogether when you release, you probably won't get a second chance even if they do discover you later. Marketing the 1.0 vs. all the post-release content updates is an interesting marketing problem that most kinds of creative media businesses (film, music, books) don't face.

    -- You can't really fake grassroots/social/etc. marketing even though people try constantly. For example, if you get on Twitter only to tweet about your own games and promote yourself, your Twitter marketing will be a lot less successful than if you are an actual Twitter user, engage with other devs and players, help them promote their stuff, and just generally contribute to the conversation at large and then occasionally mention your stuff.

    -- Same with your blog or website: posting articles, code howto's, concept art, audio, game design discussions, etc. is a lot more effective as a way to spread the word and gather an audience than posting just traditional advertising and product announcements, since it's a genuine attempt to connect with people through your work instead of just hawking your wares.

    -- In-person is important if you can swing it, whether that's showing up at conferences, local game dev meetings in your area, or whatever it may be and speaking to a people instead of just relying on the Interwebz. People you speak to will remember (assuming you're not an ass!), maybe intro you to others, post online for you, retweet for you, etc., and you will probably want to do the same for them.

    -- For reaching reviewers, in-person is actually the best way I found, but aside from that it's best to remember they're journalists and they want a good story to tell in a very small period of time. So if you come up with at least 1 thing that is different or story-worthy about your game and can tell that thing very quickly in a way that grabs their attention away from the gazillion other stories they see every day, that makes the game worth covering, and that should probably be the lead of your press release. Execution is not usually a story, btw, so saying you have built an even better or more addicting [insert game genre] isn't a good enough story regardless of whether it's true. Oh, and also don't use the word "addicting" and other overused cliches. Just be a person with an interesting game.

    I learned a whole set of things about iTunes marketing and Apple as well (like managing the enormous drop-off from being featured to being buried down in the category lists), but this is turning into a really long note, so I'll stop typing now and get back to work. I hope you make great games! :)

    Cheers,
    Sean
     
  18. David Phan

    David Phan Well-Known Member

    Feb 27, 2012
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    President & Producer
    Vancouver
    Awesome and well written post Sean! Thank you for sharing this goodness with the rest of us.

    DP

     
  19. Ebreeze

    Ebreeze Member

    Apr 29, 2012
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    My lesson learned is everything said above but also learning that the type of app game has a huge factor too. There is an endless wave of 2d side scroller arcade games. I know of mystery games that make fortunes. There are new music games that are great.
     
  20. RevolvingDoor

    RevolvingDoor Well-Known Member

    Dec 13, 2009
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    1) Good reviews are an amazing thing to have, but they won't make your game. I released my title, Towers (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/towers/id509478507?mt=8) earlier this month. We had a lot of positive feedback. iFanzine, for example, gave us a 4.5/5, saying wonderful things like "This is the kind of game design ingenuity that makes you stand back and remember what indie development is supposed to be all about!" Unfortunately, we ran right into some heavy competition, and a few good reviews aside, we didn't get much recognition.

    2) A good release does not mean success. I've watched a lot of good games release this month, and most started on a very steady decline after a week or two, even if they posted very good numbers initially. You're always fighting against hundreds of games that have become entrenched in the top 200 of your categories by virtue of having gotten there first, or being backed by a big company with a solid advertising budget, etc. Don't count on your release to make your game a long-term success.

    3) You can't always afford to make the games you want to make. The stuff that sticks to the tops of the charts? Very casual games, games driven by social interaction, and "high-end" games that draw people in with the kind of 3D eye-candy that no one could imagine running on a phone a mere 5 years ago. If you have an itch to make something truly revolutionary, be prepared for the possibility that very few people in this market may appreciate it.

    4) Crap sells. Sad but true -- you can see any number of apps that seem to promise some sort of sexual gratification posting unimpressive but steady numbers, despite tons of 1 star reviews.

    5) Now for some good news. Freemium is kicking butt and taking names. I really do think that everything aside, this is the way for an indie developer to go. Consider two recent releases: Ember Entertainment's Towers and Trolls vs Dogbyte Games' 8bit Ninja. I'd bet my hat that Towers and Trolls had a much bigger budget, took more time to develop, etc... Yet 8Bit Ninja, a ridiculously simple but enjoyable game, looks to have generated a whole lot more revenue. (I think that's a pretty safe assumption to make, after looking at the grossing ranks history of both games on AppAnnie.) I simply love 8Bit Ninja's low-key IAP strategy. You never feel forced to purchase IAP -- you earn in-game currency at a relatively good rate, but there are a lot of tiny, enjoyable extras to buy with it.
     

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