Is the sales boom nearing it's end?

BackUpAndDown

I've just recently became interested in the whole apps sales thing and was wondering, is the sales boom just starting or nearing it's end?

As time goes on and more apps are released will it be harder to make a living designing and selling apps?

Do gamesalad users ever have a chance to sell over 1mil copies of a single app? I realize using a program like GS doesn't have the flexibility of a coding language but just how much are GS users held back?

I would love to hear the opinions of other GS'ers, especially the ones with a long history in selling apps. How has your earning changed over the years?

GRID

Honestly, even though I have yet to release my first game (it's getting close though!) I think, if you WERE to go full time GS Dev. Your best bet wouldn't be praying for a 1mil download app.

I think the best way to approach it, is to build a large 'portfolio' of games. Yes, some apps may only make you $5 / day (which it seems is v. much achievable) and the occaisonal one might reach $50 / day for a month or so, but imagine if you worked 40hrs/week and managed to 'grind' out a portfolio of 20/30 'B grade' games.

Would be interested to hear an opinion on this.

BackUpAndDown

what exactly do you mean by "flawless" gameplay? as in it doesn't have any bugs/glitches?

Unless your able to make your own graphics and music the cost would be pretty high by the time you reached the 20/30 mark. But in theory that idea should work... But for how long? With 5x20 downloads a day your customer base would run out eventually.

Fetaboy

BackUpAndDown said:
I've just recently became interested in the whole apps sales thing and was wondering, is the sales boom just starting or nearing it's end?

As time goes on and more apps are released will it be harder to make a living designing and selling apps?

Do gamesalad users ever have a chance to sell over 1mil copies of a single app? I realize using a program like GS doesn't have the flexibility of a coding language but just how much are GS users held back?

I would love to hear the opinions of other GS'ers, especially the ones with a long history in selling apps. How has your earning changed over the years?

It's definitely harder now than it used to be. I got in back in 2008 (with xcode) and had some crazy success just being in the right place at the right time with no marketing, no nothing, just word of mouth.

Now, with over 255,000 apps, getting seen without marketing is hard, but not impossible. I still think there's a path for success for individual developers via word of mouth by making simple but highly addictive apps/games, or something really funny. Being the first to innovate and come up with a new idea is a plus, as the copycats apps usually don't achieve the same level of success.

vegasmike1

I see 3 problems, one is Itunes itself, it is so global that we are all thrown in the same bucket, and advertising is expensive, apple gets all the push, if you do advertise you must say, now in Itunes, a push for apple.

Ratings are worthless and should be eliminated completely, there is no point to it, you get two reviews or ratings not from a friend one is 5 stars the other 1 star, so opinions are not ratings as there is no purpose its an opinion, good or bad, in order for a rating system to work there needs to be guidelines, some one says there are bugs, ok, maybe there are, what are they, just being able to say there are bugs means nothing so feedback is important.

I got a game called cannon cadet, all games submitted need to work on iphone and ipad, this game does NOT work on ipad, it goes to complete garbage, how can even apple approve a game that they never tested, its absurd.

third issue, is new and noteworthy, this is a total bag of blah blah, if someone at apple likes it, it goes n and n, if they dont it does not, and if it is a big company like EA it gets there even if the game is poorly reviewed.

Its a crap shoot, the whole thing, there is limited testing on the part of apple and they make out if they get the numbers up for developers and users, the winner apple, period, sure a few people might make some cash but its not apparent that you can make any money with this stuff.

Do it and hope.