I'm wondering... what is an "indie developer" for you all? For me, being self-published is what defines indie. Most of the time it means a smaller budget than going with Chilingo or Glu, but even games with a publisher behind don't often go over 50k budget. That's an amount an indie can raise. indie = self published? indie = budget below 30k? I agree with Rubicon, without good graphics, sound, and design, it's really gambling to think you can hit the jackpot with your game on iOS. Therefore, it's worth finding the resources to make the game good, should it be published or not. That's the only way to compete with the big boys.
Great thread, some really good ideas. However, I wanted to point out that there should be a lot of focus on retention. Its great to get a lot of users but if you can focus on retaining them and bringing them back into game play your user acquisition costs will go down and your LTV will increase. If you can retain your users longer overtime you will have more options to be able to compete with "the big boys".
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