I just realized I purposely avoided looking at a thread for a game called Better Letter or something because we are working on a word game. Thinking about it for a second, I find myself purposely avoiding looking at upcoming or newly released games, particularly in whatever genre our next game is going to be in. I am not sure if this is to avoid seeing our idea already being implemented by someone else, or if I just want to avoid consciously or subconsciously stealing ideas from upcoming or newly released games in the same genre. However I have no problem looking at games in genres in which I know we won't be making a game in for the near future. Does anyone else have this Developer Genrephobia? Do I need therapy? Would the therapy involve unlimited ice cream?
Kind of started avoiding looking at any games in general because its depressing lol. It's depressing to see one crappy game reviewed with incredible ratings meanwhile we can't get one review guy to look at our game from the big sites. Just downloaded leps world for example and it seems to be the most uninspired game lol. Repetitive, lame powerups, level design is ummmm boring, etc yet the game is said to have 25 million downloads and reviews all over. That's depressing lol
Totally, I go thru periods of market research and periods when I hunker down to get a game finished I worry I'll miss something in that time but I also dont want distractions
Balloon Looking at your app, I think you may have made the fatal mistake of making a great game that took a long time to lovingly develop. I say mistake only because if you make that kind of app you need to have a huge marketing budget to support it. If you dont have marketing dollars, I think you are better off making small games you can pump out quickly. If Wooga or Rovio had made your game it would have been reviewed everywhere, advertised in 1000's of apps, shown to people playing their own games, BEFORE it was ever released. They would have probably put at least as much into marketing a game as they do in developing. My guess is the marketing is actually more than the development most times. If I were a betting man I would wager that if you made Balloon Ninja, turned your your toons into ninjas, and had them pop balloons, you could make it in 2 weeks and it would get more downloads than Balloon Loons. I am becoming convinced that only dedicated gamers care about originality. The average schmoe with an iphone or ipad prefers something simple that they already know and dont have to learn new rules for. Oh fruit ninjas with vegetables? Awesome! Angry Birds with Owls? Fantastic! An original game that will take 5 minutes to learn? Forget it!
I think most products are 'inspired'. As for original stuff, agreed. I failed big time on the AppStore, 2.5 years later and I'm off thinking about www.onegameamonth.com - so far 2000 have signed up! So @ all the greedy gits who milked the market, prepare for ~25000 efforts to saturate your efforts, too.
I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing is that I refuse to stoop to that lol. I was hoping to bring something to the store that users can have a new experience with. How sick are you of 100 different types of building games. Clash of clans is doing amazing but I downloaded it and played it for like two days before I got bored with that same style if game yet again. I figured if I do something a bit original then people would appreciate that. But you may be right that people just don't care. Maybe they like to play smurf village and clash of the clans games. Maybe that's all they want. But I'm going to strive to bring something unique to the table as long as I can. Even if it means not getting rich lol. Right now we have a free version coming out on jan 20th and we are already working in something really cool and original which is not a game that will be announced soon. If apple approves this new app it's going to be a hit for sure. And then we are turning balloon loons into a 2d side scroller that will be built with the same engine, but this time with some really cool level design. But more importantly with the same love So there is alot to look forward to and maybe along the way the review guys will start noticing us a bit. I am starting to put together a marketing budget as much as I can but I'm worried to just jump into it. I have 5k but its not exactly spare change lol. I worry about just burning it and getting nothing in exchange. What do you think?
Oh btw I take what you said as a bit of a compliment. Hope I'm reading that right lol. But if it is thank you!
Looking I find looking at other peoples work, may contaminate your ideas, also it may make you decide not to do that idea, this is not often the case as a lot of them are poor.
Getting back to the original topic, I do it the other way round: I ignore all releases except those in my genre. I want to know what others are bringing to make sure I still have some kind of diversification.