As I develop and prepare for my first commercial game (meaning I will charge for it) I have probably been doing what others do:
- Checking out Postmortems
- Wondering what my sales will be like (ok so this should be top of the list)
- Looking for as many tips as possible on successful launches
- Learning about Marketing, Publishing etc
Actually to be honest I have been getting a little stressed over it. What happens if no one buys it? What happens if it has a critical bug? What happens if I get a ton of online flak for a poor game? Am I doing enough testing? Do my graphics look ok?
Underneath it all what I am stressing over is "Will my game be a success?". But what is success? Is it money, happy gamers, a job well done or something else. What were my expectations when I put my first game onto Google Play? In order of importance I believe they were:
- Write a game and publish it
- Hope a couple of people download it
- Hope I get some useful reviews so I can improve the next game
So was my first game a success?
Write a game and publish it
Well by any measure this was an outstanding success! I did indeed write a game and published it on Google Play - Operation Typhoon. Not only that I then published it to the Apple store ( Operation Typhoon ) and then a Windows version to itch.io ( Moscow 1941 ). You got to love libGDX that has allowed me to write once and publish to three different OS's.
How did I make this a success?
- I kept it simple
- I did not add anything that was not in my original design
- I did my own graphics - not that good but made me appreciate graphic artists
- I learnt a lot
- and the most important thing - I had fun.
Since that first version I hired a graphics artist and for $75 got much improved graphics which I re-released mid December.
Hope a couple of people download it
This one exceeded all my expectations. I would have been happy if I had one or two downloads. The game is free but I think it is in a niche area.
So to date I have had just under 2500 downloads from Google Play. In addition my game is available on many 'alternative' sites (Read - they stole my APK file) and I am guessing the downloads are around the same.
In addition I have had ~650 iOS downloads and 11 Windows downloads.
The upward trend on Google Play in December and January are I believe solely down to me adding links/blogs to various sites. Post marketing does work!
Hope I get some useful reviews so I can improve the next game
So this is an interesting area. I have not had one review for the iOS version. Nada. Nothing. Tumble weed rolls through the review section. I have read other blogs that say the same. Those iOS downloaders are a breed apart.
On Google Play I have 32 reviews and currently stand at 4 stars. So that to me is another success.
So was my first game a success?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
What about my new game?
I need to stop stressing and go back to my simple ideals on the first game. So same as before but with one tiny amendment.
- Write a game and publish it
- Hope a couple of people pay for it
- Hope I get some useful reviews so I can improve the next game
Anything else will be a bonus....
