Merry Christmas!
The season of warmth, joy and good cheer is here! Have a great Christmas everyone and hope you enjoy the holiday events in our games!
The Harsh Reality of Indie App Games Developers and Myths Surrounding It
Over the years, indie mobile games development has become very popular. Indie developer revenue becomes an appealing source of mainstream income. But, app developers are on the verge of facing new challenges and the indie app reality is not on your side sadly. The games business is changing extremely fast. The world is not only in the midst of console transition, but the mobile gaming market has also gone through the phase of maturing. Not to mention that variety of mobile gaming platforms that have had gained prominence for the past years. Veteran and novice app developers alike are entering the indie mobile games scene at a fast pace while some of the successful indie app developers are expanding their studios.
Are you a full time app developer? Are you planning to enter the indie scene? Although indie games are getting popular, Indie app developers are facing the harsh truth that competing to establish themselves on Android and iOS gaming platforms is not easy. Indie mobile games development may appear to be glamorous on the outside, but the truth is that being an indie app developer is stressful, money bleeding, sleep depriving, and can make you experience a roller coaster ride of emotions. Here are some of the problems that indie mobile games developers are facing:
Competition – There are over 600, 000 apps in the App Store alone. These exclude the apps available on independent mobile game platforms. This number will increase by the end of the year as many emerging app developers are submitting their apps to these platforms. If you want to succeed as an indie mobile games developer, you need to create high quality apps. This is the only way you can beat the competition. With the number of emerging indie apps constantly increasing, not all of them are high quality unfortunately.
There Is No Best Platform for Indie Mobile Games – During the past few years, Mobile app stores serve as the best platforms for indie app developers trying to venture out in the industry. But, this is not longer the case these days. The App store is saturated and giant publishers are focusing more on the market. It seems that the only way to compete on giant mobile publishers is to bring a well know franchise on the App Store or to have a strong relationship with Apple.
The Indie Development Is Growing at a Fast Pace – More and more indie app developers are getting business savvy. A number of emerging indie developers is putting marketing dollars on ads campaigns to promote their projects. Also, successful developers are teaming up to put indie games into the mainstream.
Indie Mobile Games Myths
1. “There is a best place to sell indie mobile games”
So you have created a high quality game and everyone that has tested it say it’s a good game. But, the problem that you will face is to look for a better platform to sell your game. In order for you not to worry about where to sell your game after creating it, you have to do a research on this right from the beginning of the app’s development process. The indie app reality is harsh and if you do not build relationships with established indie app developers, you may not acquire revenue from your game no matter how high its quality is.
2. “There is no need to do marketing”
You have to market your game if you want to acquire higher indie app developer revenue. Marketing sometimes is considered as a bad word among the flock of indie app developers, but it is not as bad as it sounds. Marketing is critical, and you have to do this if you want your game to be known in the mainstream.
3. “People may steal my idea if I tell it to them, even before my app is ready”
This is a common myth among indie developers, but they won’t. A person that is competent enough to steal your idea may be busy with their own ideas. Not to mention that ideas are cheap for indie developers and you may have plenty of them. Also, ideas change and you may come up with a better idea for your game before its ready.
4. “Build it and they will come” Or “There are always people who will buy my game”
This is not the case with indie mobile games. Some indie game developers think that developing a competent game is enough to succeed. But, it’s only a fraction of the battle. The most important aspect that you need to focus is determining the factor that will make people buy your game. As your own self, “Why will people buy my game?” This may sound harsh, but it’s the indie app reality.
5. “I have all the necessary skills to create a great selling indie game”
Actually no, besides, not a single person person has all the necessary skills to make commercial standard mobile game. Before you begin with your project, think about the set of skills needed to create a commercial standard mobile game. These include UI art, environment art, sound design, character art and animation, music, game design and balancing, production/documentation/scheduling, marketing/press communication and business skills/Legal /accounting. The truth is that you do not have all these skills, and no one person does.
If you want to create a commercially high-standard game, you will need the help of other people that know how to do these things best. The reason why huge companies can create high quality games is that they have the resources for these skills. As an independent app developer, you may need to spend more dollars on these set of skills if you want your game to be great.
The Harsh Truth about the Indie Sales Revenue
Some people enter the indie scene because they think indie development revenue is appealing. But, did you know that nearly 95% of the sales that indie mobile games make come from games that are highly discounted or on sale? Only 52% of indie games revenue comes from full-price sales. This is a very low figure because you already give a launch discount. With the indie games revenue decreasing, indie developers are facing harsh challenges. These challenges will arise from the increasing competition and highly saturated app market. Now onto making better games for the gaming community…
Mighty Dragon Studios
The Evolution and Growth of RPG games in the App and Play Store
In the role playing games, player takes on the role of one or more characters in the carefully designed environment. The player may also feel a sort of emotional involvement in the characters and story of the game. Most RPGs are set in a highly detailed fantasy world. But, there are role playing games set in other alternative realities like sci-fi worlds. There are also RPGs that are played in a settings that may features historic elements. Most RPGs begin with a narrative that unfolds as you proceed with the game. RPGs put strong emphasis on combat and tactics as well as feature character statistics or attributes that are as well combat based.
When you try to search for RPG on App Store or Play Store, you will find that there are way too many RPG games available nowadays. Not to mention that indie RPGs that has been increasingly becoming popular these days. With the increasing number of games in the Play Store and the App store, did you ever wonder why the once-marginalized RPG genre has become a powerful, dominating force?
How RPGs Became Powerfully Dominating Force?
In the modern mobile gaming landscape, the king is RPG. For the past years, modern blockbuster experiences have happened and these blockbuster experiences have fuelled the exploration, skill building, character development, and game play improvements of the classic RPGs. In 2012, many of the emerging games in the App Store and Play Store have RPG elements. People are introduced to mobile games that offer multiplayer experience, leveling up abilities, and harvesting XP, bringing the classical RPG trophies to the heads of RPG fans everywhere. Indeed, nearly all competitive online and mobile games have RPG elements and mechanics that result to proliferation of RPG trappings in unlikely of places.
One of the primary reasons why mobile-role playing games are increasing in number in the App Store and the Play Store is because there is an increasing demand for it. Lots of players are looking for the so called best mobile-role playing games and developers are taking actions to meet these demands.
Probably, the fact that more and more people are playing RPGs is that role-playing games offer them with constant positive feedback via the core mechanics. You may not be aware of it, but this is habitually rewarding. Earning experiences and points; obtaining better equipment and items; receiving new abilities and perks – all this can provide players with a powerful boost of sense of achievement on a regular basis. This can lead to immense feelings of satisfaction and progression.
Face the truth; building a talented, powerful character, and getting your hands on a shiny new gear on a regular basis gives you more buzz than simply completing a puzzle or getting to the next level. Mobile role-playing games continue to rewards gamers for every chest they open, for every enemy they defeated, and for every quest they completed. As result, gamers cannot get enough of the sense of satisfaction that RPGs provide.
Another reason why mobile-role playing games are increasing in number in the App Store and Play Store as well as other mobile app markets is that RPGs are much more about ability and become far less mechanical. Mobile role-playing games can capture the imagination of players that lead to a truly immerse gaming experience.
These days, the game worlds are compelling, diverse, and rich. They are packed with fascinating characters to discover, jaw dropping game settings, and diverting quests to embark on. Mobile RPGs and really all role-playing games live or die depending on the appeal of the imaginary world and the quality of its environment. To put simply, RPGs will succeed if they are built in a compelling world that intrigue players, which other gaming genres don’t necessarily offer.
The true nature of RPGs provide players with as many things to see and do as possible. Open-world RPGs are often overwhelming in tasks to complete, secrets to unfold, and quests to complete. These games are mustered with a huge volume of content being offered to a racer, a shooter, or action game. In the world where money players have is becoming tighter and tighter, it’ only natural for gamers to pay for games that cost money but offer high value and immense number of gaming hours content rather than buying a cheap game that offers limited hours of solo campaigns. Don’t mention the freedom of choice players have in the broad worlds of RPGs.
Effects of Increasing Number of Emerging Mobile Games Developers
Mobile games development, especially the RPGs is becoming an attractive source of sales these days. Many emerging mobile games developers; indie developers and established game companies are focusing their efforts in creating RPGs that can attract large audiences of hungry for entertainment players. As the result, the RPG App Store and RPG Play Store are saturated with these games.
On the consumer’s perspective, the increasing number of mobile role-playing games in the RPG App Store and the RPG Play Store is a huge advantage as they have a more variety of different games to choose from. Besides, the cost of mobile RPGs is at the fraction of the cost of the PC or console titles.
The increasing number of mobile RPGs means that they need to create high quality games. The competition is increasing and they need to spend more dollars so they can create simply better games. Also, the increasing number of mobile role-playing games has made developers to cut down the sale price of their games in order to make sales.
But did I mention all of our games are Free to Play…?
See you on the flip side!
Mighty Dragon Studios
Mighty Dragon Studios accepts Ice Bucket Challenge!?
Nothing more satisfying than seeing the developers of the game you like to enjoy getting drenched by a bucket of ice cool water for a good cause, right?
Well, here at the Mighty Dragon Studios following the social media craze about the whole Ice Bucket Challenge we thought we just have to jump on the bandwagon and simply participate in a good cause restoring faith in the humanity.
So for those of you who were living underneath the rock for the last couple of weeks the whole deal evolved from an activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research. Meanwhile more and more charities are hijacking this trendy idea to support their own causes.
So does it really matter how do you participate in the whole initiative? For those of you that just wished for one of us here in the studio getting treated to a bucket of ice cool water we can already tell you will be disappointed. But for those of you who believe in supporting a good cause and putting it before a good ‘ole laugh captured on an mobile device of your choice this may appear as a pretty honourable gesture. It’s the least we can do.
Keeping our cool nearly as good as sir Patrick Stewart while writing his check during his own ALS Ice Bucket Challenge participation we have established contact with Derek Clark who runs EntreLife blog and came up with a initiative of App Developers Stand Up to Cancer. We thought it’s a great cause bringing us indie-developers a little bit together and therefore we have decided to donate piece of our revenue from Heroes of Deneos to Stand Up 2 Cancer foundation.
Maybe it is not as entertaining as pouring ice buckets over our heads as a challenge but it is still participation in the initial idea of supporting a good cause. As a small indie studio we thought we can relate to this the most and I hope you – every single person reading this or playing our games will find their own way to participate in their version of The Ice Bucket Challenge.
Don’t forget to enter the realm of Heroes of Deneos and perhaps you will increase as well the impact of our contribution for Stand Up 2 Cancer!
All the best!
Mighty Dragon Studios