Found a Great Article: Money & The App Store

JustMe74JustMe74 Member, PRO Posts: 542
edited April 2012 in Business and Marketing Theory
Apologies if this has been posted before, but -- I found this great blog from a lady who left UBIsoft to start her own indie game company:
http://thegamebakers.com/money-and-the-app-store-a-few-figures-that-might-help-an-indie-developer.html

There is a lot of insight along with links to the postmortems on a lot of successful recent iOS games.

Comments

  • tatiangtatiang Member, Sous Chef, PRO, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 11,949
    Really good article. Thanks for sharing!

    New to GameSalad? (FAQs)   |   Tutorials   |   Templates   |   Greenleaf Games   |   Educator & Certified GameSalad User

  • poorcollegedevpoorcollegedev Member Posts: 289
    excellect find!!! Very good read
  • patapplepatapple Member Posts: 873
    Thanks for sharing!!! Good read
  • xforcexforce Member Posts: 187
    thats a good wakeup call. though the games he listed that had bad sales i wouldnt even bother making in the first place.
  • bazookaBenbazookaBen Member Posts: 318
    edited April 2012
    i'd say a well designed game will win you half the battle. the other half is marketing genius.

    there's always an opportunity for us indies to give the big guys a scare. Be it via better game design, better storytelling or better marketing. 100 heads working on the same game is not a guaranteed win against 2 people in a student dorm.
  • itwebsolutionitwebsolution Member Posts: 40
    Buzz kill... Wow, this is like finding out that you didn't win the lottery...
  • SAZ_1SAZ_1 Member Posts: 397
    that was a fantastic read... would love to send it to all my relatives & family friends who think i don't need support in promoting my games! lol... ultimately you need a fantastic product to make it work! she makes it sound like getting to the top is impossible (very hard yes, impossible no!)... i would've liked to hear her own indie game success (or failure that read was pretty depressing, so i guess she's not doing too well lol!).
  • JoeMeisterJoeMeister Member Posts: 602
    Nice one. Also check this one:
    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/04/12/apple_wants_to_make_it_easy_for_non_programmers_to_build_ios_apps.html
  • JustMe74JustMe74 Member, PRO Posts: 542
    edited April 2012
    Buzz kill... Wow, this is like finding out that you didn't win the lottery...
    I got exactly the opposite from it. Read the postmortems from both the successful and the not successful games.
  • scitunesscitunes Member, Sous Chef Posts: 4,047
    Good article!
  • mynameisacemynameisace Hull, UKMember Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2012
    Gonna give this a read later on - bookmarked and ready! :)

    Ace
  • EbreezeEbreeze Member, PRO Posts: 481
    Some of these guys did lose alot of money...good insight here
  • mynameisacemynameisace Hull, UKMember Posts: 2,484
    In my estimate 80-90% of developers lose money on the App Store lol.

    Ace
  • EbreezeEbreeze Member, PRO Posts: 481
    Yeah I'm starting to notice that...if you spend $100k on a mobile game better make sure it's brilliant ...it's seems alot of these guys might make a 20-30% profit .....I'll stick with doing this on my budget
  • mynameisacemynameisace Hull, UKMember Posts: 2,484
    edited April 2012
    That isn't even enough, you could spend 100k and have the best game anybody has ever played but it make a few dollars a month.

    Spending tens of thousands on developing a game is risky business nowadays.

    Ace
  • itwebsolutionitwebsolution Member Posts: 40
    I get the sense that the App Store is like a modern day "gold rush". Who made the money during the gold rush? It wasn't all of the miners, but the owners of the supply stores and banks that sold all of the tools and loans to the miners.

    I feel kind of like a miner sometimes... Especially when I pay my subscription to GS or buy templates. I am not complaining, because I really enjoy working on these projects - I am like an old time miner who just enjoys being outside!
  • macewanmacewan Member Posts: 214
    Like anything business wise in life you don't quit your day job until... you get where I'm going with this. I'd like to have 6 months to a years worth of salary saved up before spending all my time on a new venture. Otherwise it's just part of the mix with other day to day business.

    Working from home certainly helps.
  • EbreezeEbreeze Member, PRO Posts: 481
    Spooky hoofs made on GS did pretty well...the game is polished to hell and back ...plus his other games too
    I've seen small team college age guys using unity3d do very well

    I'd strive to get there, not an easy road I'm sure but it can be achieved
Sign In or Register to comment.

© Vanilla Keystone Theme 2024