My Year as an Amateur Android Game Developer | Hacker News Reader

My Year as an Amateur Android Game Developer

kerebus.com

171 pointswallflower71 comments

I have every wish for success of this and every other business, but in the spirit of helping other impressionable developers, making a business is hard enough without making video games.

How do I love games and hate games businesses, let me count the ways. User expectations are pegged by AAA games, whose budgets you cannot possibly match. Those AAA products set a price point at $DIRT_CHEAP. (Angry Birds costs what?) Your core users are thieves. When you fail at marketing on day one, which you will because everyone does, in any normal business you get progressively better but in games the obsessive fetishization of the new means your game is virtually sunk. It is virtually impossible to iterate based on user feedback because your users are a) transients and b) not wonderful people to deal with. Gamers are virtually immune to ads, don't search for anything gaming-related, don't pay prices sufficient to justify CPc spends, and if by some miracle they hear sbout you via word of mouth they will search for you on PirateBay/etc first and Google second. Meanwhile, in addition to megacorps staffed by people who have been doing this professionally for years, you are also competing with a virtually inexhaustible supply of hobbyists, because perhaps 3 out of every 4 CS majors got into computers to make video games and the fourth one is lying.

Does any of this get better for mobile devs? No, it gets worse, unless you're picked by the platform's kingmakers.

Good summary. I agree with all but the first point. User expectations are not pegged to AAA big-budget titles. At least not on mobile phone platforms. Casual games that can be started and stopped in the time you spend waiting for the bus are increasing in popularity. The fact that Nintendo is at game conferences whining about the state of mobile games would seem to indicate this.

An advantage of writing games is that suddenly the pesky and difficult question of 'what problem does this solve for my user' suddenly vanishes.

Still, thanks for the candid summary.

agree on the games. In his case, he can narrow his target area and focus maybe on smaller target market. putting a game app out and placing it in that category and competing against big guns is like a suicide mission. You can bleed money on marketing but nothing will happen unless you have another Angry Bird like idea. I would recommend him trying different categories. Not all of them are so competitive. Also he shouldn't invest so much of his time on this one game. Every product has lifecycle and his app is no different. He should have a target of downloads/money too and once achieved, move on to the next app/game. Average iPhone app makes $750 per year and I am sure that number is somewhat similar for Android too.

That's scary, considering that "average" is skewed by the multi-million-dollar end.

What's the _median_ iOS app annual revenue?

there is a site that has all these cool interesting stats on iOS. I don't have it handy. I will post it later.

mean revenue is ~$3000 per year, median is $682. [1]

[1] http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/06/24/so-you-want-to-develop...

Sorry but I have to disagree with you - you use an awfully narrow definition of "game".

The game he makes is very unlikely to ever compete with the studios who makes AAA games, this much more of a casual game something that you may play on the subway or the bus during your commute; it's main target is not teens and he doesn't have the expenses usually associated with a game that size.

Minecraft proved that you can make money with non-casual games without competing on the graphics.

But if you restrict your definition of games to games targeted at teens and competes on graphics, then yes you will be left behind.

Minecraft is an excellent example of making something that is utterly different from anything else on the market.

The mobile market is hugely oversaturated with casual toys. Solution: don't make those. There are entire genres that are empty and waiting to be filled. Jeff Vogel is currently in the process of porting Avadon, his latest RPG, to iPad. I'll bet that he's going to charge at least $20 for it, and that he'll be quite successful. Why? Because there's absolutely nothing remotely like it out there on the iPad, and it's the kind of game I would love to play while relaxing with a tablet device.

You are assuming people write games strictly to earn a living, and maybe that's the big fallacy of the allure of the app-store.

But what if you write a game to learn to code (or code better), or simply to explore some gaming concepts you haven't seen elsewhere?

Personally this is no different than the guy that wants to be a band; if that's his passion, go for it. Just keep in mind a) it's for fun, b) it's a hobby.

If at some point down the road you are lucky enough to be paid for you hobby, all the better. Earning a living is a whole other level beyond that even.

While most of your points are valid, they're nothing that can't be overcome with persistance and the willingness to learn, and I fear that you've painted too bleak of a picture of the industry.

I think the biggest problem is that making fun, engaging games is really, really hard. A lot of people assume that because they can program, and they enjoy playing games, making them should be relatively straight forward.

But it just isn't. It's a creative skill that needs practice just like anything else. It's like making the jump from being a technically competent guitarist to writing music. Nobody writes great music on their first try, nobody writes clean code early in their career, and nobody writes hit games out the gate, except for prodigies so rare it's not worth thinking about.

And I think what happens a lot of the time, is that someone who would otherwise be making $100 an hour writing code decides to make a game for the fun of it, ends up making 1-10 cents an hour on the time invested, and ends up writing a blog post to that effect. So it becomes an entrenched view that making games is a hobby that serious developers need to grow out of.

My first game actually did make under 10 cents per hour of development time. But by my tenth, my best so far, it was up to $300+ (and counting). I still have hits and misses, and perhaps I'd be making more putting my skills to use in another industry, but money isn't everything. And I'm still not great at game design, merely competent - there's a lot of room for improvement there.

Yes, you're right about the bad points of the industry, however, there's one big positive - if you're prepared to stick with it, for years with little reward, it's actually not that hard to reach a point where you're making great money, creating products that people love and that you're passionate about. And sometimes people in real life will notice your shirt and say 'oh, you play that too!'.

Also, if done correctly, the path to making games is actually pretty safe - make them as a hobby, after hours, and release them for free. When 100k+ people download one of them from word of mouth alone, then it's time to consider whether you want to make a career out of it. If you can't make games after hours effectively, you couldn't make them full time, either.

Glad to see it's not all gloom and doom. I released a game on the market last week (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.interrupt.retrospa...) which has gotten 3500 downloads, earned me $1.30 in ad revenue, and enough in paid downloads to pay for a latte. I'm planning more updates and fixing things based on reviews and feedback so I haven't given up on it yet, but gaining traction is going to be slow from what I can see.

It doesn't sound like your story contradicts patio's. He is saying that the game industry is comparatively hard to succeed in. Of course this can be overcome.

But it's an industry where the winners win big and everyone else struggles, not unlike professional athletics. So when offering advice to outsiders jumping in, the advice should be measured. Among the hard-working success stories of those that made it, the stories of those that didn't get lost.

This sounds right to me. I've tried lots of non-successful games in the iOS app store, and haven't found one that's much fun to play yet. On the other hand you see game developers who have sublime gameplay, have done no marketing, and succeeded -- most recently Tiny Wings.

It sure seems like fun gameplay is the limiting factor. It also seems like that should be a less scary problem to solve, but I'm not a game developer.

Is it considered hard to assess whether your games are fun? Or just hard to make fun games?

Awesome. You sound like exactly the kind of person I was hoping would jump into the thread. Have you written a blog or anything about how you made those improvements?

I'm working on game #3, still a sub 2.5 star game on Kong. I think I've only made about $5 over the past six months, but I've learned a ton about programming and artwork both!

I haven't written any blog posts about it (although I'm planning to after I get some more time).

If you (or anyone else) has any questions, feel free to contact me at michael@bigblockgames.com.

I think this was definitely true before smartphone/social platforms got to scale. A few points to consider that are counter to yours:

Check out the top apps on the Facebook platform. http://www.appdata.com/leaderboard/apps Yes, the top games have big budgets (still TINY compared to video games historically). But page 3 or 4 pages in and guess at the budgets of those games (that are merely in the 2M monthly active uniques range). Scroll 9 pages in (600k monthlies). How many consumer businesses EVER touch 600k people, much less in a month?

Gamers are NOT immune to ads. Most of the game builders I know buy installs (i.e. CPA ads) because it makes financial sense to do so.

Virtual goods models allow you to fill up the demand curve. In other words, poor people (who would've stolen games in years past) can play for free. Middle of the road folks can pay a few bucks when they get bored. Rich hardcore players can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.

Virtual goods models make piracy somewhat impractical.

Most of the people I know succeeding in games had never developed games before.

I think your advice is dead on for shrink-wrapped games, traditional shareware, and maybe even fixed price mobile games. I'd throw my weight behind mobile games before I'd throw it behind virtually ANY other consumer effort. All that said, of course, a b2b startup has a much greater chance of survival. The whole consumer-software world is crowded beyond belief.

"Does any of this get better for mobile devs? No, it gets worse, unless you're picked by the platform's kingmakers."

I can only vouch for the major mobile software marketplaces, but the App Store, the Android Marketplace, and Amazon's Appstore are festooned with indie/small shop (or even one-person) developed apps.

There are handfuls of developers whose works fans look out for. Mika Mobile is one. Never heard of them? They made Zombieville USA, a million+ selling app. They followed up with OMG Pirates!, another million seller. They now have Battleheart, which was top 5 in the app store and is still on the top 200 charts, even at $2.99 in the notoriously penny-pinching App store.

Need more? How about taptaptap, who have never made an app that wasn't a huge ($500,000+) seller. Or Backflip, Donut Games, and Nimblebit, who have all had monster sellers consistently.

There is room for not only hobbyist and/or one-hit blockbusters (Tiny Wings, Doodle Jump, Pocket God), but also consistent sellers (the aforementioned, Popcap games, and of course Rovio), along with AAA megacorp houses. Now, being an indie rock star competing against the Billboard and the millions of bar bands hoping to strike it Aerosmith-big, now _that_ is an undertaking. Ditto, filmmaking and acting.

Disagreement. It is hard, yes, but if you approach the game design from the ground up as a business model with potential for built in marketing hooks and virality - even if it isn't a "viral" or "blockbuster" game - the way in which a game can be made is actually straightforward.

What makes it hard is not the creation, so much as untangling your brain from all the nonsense about what makes a game "legitimate." If you go for legitimacy you'll fail off the bat because it is, as you say, a matter of competing with the big guys. But if you are adhering to lean principles throughout, you can get a game business going. It just may not be a "dream game," necessarily.

A harsh analysis, but entirely consistent with all I've been reading about Android Market experiences. The developers that luck out and get hundreds of thousands of downloads for a game or even another application, STILL hardly make a living out of it (for the limited time that the success lasts, that is).

It's enough for me to bury my own commercial Android plans. I'll just finish the hobby game I'm working on as best as I can and release it for free. For a few dollars a month I'm not going to pester users with ads either. Who knows, with that experience and changes in the market I'll still have a shot at an Android business later on.

For the braver developers in this thread who already have applications out there, and building on the network promotion mentioned here: Why don't you get together and set up your own system of referrals? That could work much better than just referring to your own other applications (if any) in a closed loop.

Temporarily de-anonymizing myself because my Android experience is apparently not typical. My main paid app (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dozingcatsoftware....) is getting around 25 purchases per day, with no marketing effort whatsoever. It was featured in a few blogs and podcasts, but they came to me. It's had over 10k downloads in a year, and my original goal was 1000. Reasons I think it's done better than average:

- It's not a game. As patio11 notes the competition in that area is incredibly intense. In the last few days I've picked up Angry Birds Rio for free, Galcon for $1, and AirAttack for $3. If you aren't an experienced game developer, you're not likely to produce something at that level.

- But it is fun. It has unlimited "replay value" and lets users be creative and show off what their phone can do.

- The free version converts really well, paid downloads are around 20% of free downloads. It does everything the full version does except for saving pictures and videos. There are no ads, other than a Market link to the full version.

- I don't have to spend any time or money on custom artwork. Even the buttons in the latest version I took from the camera app in AOSP.

So maybe I'm just lucky, but creating a quality app in a non-saturated field has been enough to produce a decent side income, without having to deal with business or marketing at all.

Oh, very cool. I'm going to have to try this out on some place more interesting than my office, and buy the paid model if I like the results.

10k paid downloads of an edge filter? Well played.

Don't foret that Angry Birds was Rovio's 40th game. Stickability counts.

I think to succeed though you need to put out more than 1 per year. I also think there is likely to be a network effect, if someone likes one of your games they may try the rest... this is the equivalent of the McDonalds "you want fries with that?" - that is they know they only get a certain number of people through their door, so they need to extract as much value from each customer as possible.

You will only get so many eyeballs, so if you have more than one game you may get people who try one also trying the other - free marketing. :D

52nd game.

Pretty sure a lot of developers would have got similar stories. It's just the wild wild west and they couldn't find gold. In the meanwhile, whoever is selling the pic axes, the app stores, are making money.

It's all a fad. Create value or sell pic axes.

It's spelled "pick", and it's all one word "pickaxe".

Sorry, french native here! thank you.

Gaming is a cruel mistress for developers. It's so hit-driven that it can be hard to really predict what will do well and what won't. Something that is a smashing success on one platform might just be completely overlooked on another.

Couple of things from someone who has been in a similar situation:

1) You don't have to be a good marketer to set up a twitter account and tweet when you add new levels and new features. Retweet them from your personal twitter account and it will at least hit your followers. Don't feel ashamed of asking a few friends to also retweet to their followers. The effect might be small, but it's a minimal effort.

2) Focusing on one app is a bad idea. It's like having a stock portfolio of 1 company. Make several games, even if they're smaller and less polished. You might see that one is more successful and can then concentrate on making it more polished.

3) Most important: do what you love. Don't make your platform, language, or design decisions based on what your google analytics says will make you a few bucks more. If you do that you might as well go back to working secure corporate jobs.

good points, I agree! I would also say include all social sites in your marketing effort.

I've been in the android market for a year and have done over $100k in sales of my games, and you hit the nail on the head. Create lots of games, and not just for the money. You have to be having fun while creating or it becomes a miserable job. I'm falling into that rut myself, and because I've spent so much time working on my flagship game, I've gotten behind. Competition of that game has increased, sales have slowed down, and I'm scrambling a little now to get my other games polished and selling at a higher rate.

All the while, I'm sick that I'm not loving what I'm doing anymore as I chase the dollar. I think it's time for me to reboot and spend my time on a game I've always wanted to play and make. If I love doing this again, my success will sustain itself.

Congratulations on your success! And good luck with the reboot.

How many games have you released in that year?

I have launched 11 games in all since I started.

Only 2 have netted over $10k.

I think 2 others could do as well if I just get back in there and do some nice updates.

11 games in a year?! That sounds amazing. You do it full time?

Great article. Hits close to home because I'm also in the same boat - writing an iOS game on the side for fun as someone with no prior gamedev experience.

I forgot to gave you some of my marketing ideas. I am executing these for my iPhone app but you can apply the same for your Android app too. Review the list part 1 and 2. Let me know what you think

App marketing part 2: http://tukulogics.com/blog/?p=63 App marketing part 1: http://tukulogics.com/blog/?p=50

In a year of Android development I made my own MMORPG for it. However, the technology part was the 'easy' part. But the real adventure is in looking for good artists. Coming up with solid concepts, and turning those concepts into game art and stories.

I'm knee deep in the middle of that. It's almost as fun as programming. Screw the money, I'm doing it for the fun of it.

I love this guys writing style, it reminds me of David Thorne from 27bslash6.com a little.

Here is my experience with the app store , I created a website for toddlers http://microangels.in , Someone suggested that I make an app, since I had the HTML and Javascript ready I used the android webbview and Jquery mobile to create the Toddler books app https://market.android.com/details?id=in.microangels . The app was released on February 10, As of today there have been 7951 installs with 68% active. I have integrated the app with admob and it has made $45 so far, I don't know if this is because kids tend to click on advertisements or its because the list scrolls below the screen and the clicks are accidental

My other app Taekwondo forms https://market.android.com/details?id=form.TaekwondoForm is webview based and released on Feb 25 , it has 532 downloads with 68% active installs and has made .83 cents so far.

This needs a lot more polish. Why not contact some (student) animators or illustrators who are willing to work for a small percentage of the profit ?

Well after giving 'small' percentages to a)Yan b)Robert c) US Govt d) Finnish Govt and e) Google ..I am sure he won't be interested in another shareholder :P

I think it's got an appropriate level of polish. The original version with the marbles was rather ugly, but the updated graphics look super-cute while still remaining functional.

Braid wouldn't be Braid without the art. Dirt cheap illustrators won't help him; he needs someone good.

That's why you hire a student - students who are really good will often take on a project just because it, say, hones a skill they're looking to improve, or because it fits in nicely with a class assignment they need to do anyway. Or maybe your game project is part of how they'll get that full-time job they're seeking out at Blizzard?

They say in tech recruiting that "the best people will almost never be looking for jobs" - it's true in creative fields too. In terms of trading off cost and talent, I can't think of a resource as undertapped as art and design students.

I really need to add sound to my Android game. [1] It's a board game, which means elaborate sound isn't a normal part of the experience; but it could at least click as you move the stones around. I suspect, as the author says, that most people would turn it off; but it'll contribute to the appearance of a polished game.

I released the paid version last November, for 99¢; so far I've had 8 sales. A month or two ago I released an ad-supported version; it's up to 123 downloads, and has earned 5¢ in ad revenue--most of it in the first day, which makes me think advertisers were experimenting to see if my users would click through.

I never expected vast success--it's a traditional Malagasy game, not a flashy video game--but it'd be nice to get enough to pay back my $25 Market membership. :-)

[1] http://fanorona.thibault.org/

I would encourage you to implement haptic feedback wherever possible. People still like to know the right thing is happening even if they turn the sound off.

Oh, yeah, that would be good. Thanks!

I think the next most obvious step should be to go for Amazon Appstore. They are serious and if your app gets selected for a free app of the day ..I am sure you'll be flying.

Do you have any stats on what a featuring on Amazon Appstore does for an app?

The appstore was launched a few days ago...

Well the featured app of the day is sold for free, which means a lot of people will be downloading it. And when the app is sold for free according to Amazon TOS, the developer gets 20% of the list price. So if the volume of downloads is immense then you should be able to pocket a decent amount of cash from the sale. Will have to wait a while for the stats though.

It costs $99 just to register to sell through Amazon. He'd have to make a lot more sales to be worth it.

If the game has been around on the web (under various names), why did he have to get a license from iPhone developer? It's not like iPhone developer "invented" the game.

He got a license from the guy who invented the game originally, not the guy who wrote the iPhone app. I'm not sure if he really needed that as such, but it sure seems like a nice gesture.

I think he wanted to use the same name. So probably he had to get some sort of blessing from the original author.

He also ended up using all the levels - 79 of them - which would have been a huge time saver.

very good post. enjoyed reading about your experience. I also think you should write more on 1) learning Android development (maybe tutorials for the novice) & 2) more on marketing. Like you, I am new to mobile app development/business. Learned Android development first but then got into iOS. For now, sticking mostly with iPhone. It’s way different but the idea is “fish where the fishes are”. I like Android but to me at this point, it’s good for consumer but kind of harsh for developers. People ask for refunds on Android apps and they can continue to use the app moving it to the SD card. Glad you are trying out different things on marketing. I am doing the same and my first app is no out yet :-) Apple still reviewing it. You are correct on graphics. I think that is mighty important. I am sharing my journey of app development, marketing and overall experience through my blog too. Check it and share your thought. Good luck!

> I knew I had a marketing problem but instead I preferred to refractor my code

Heh, I know this too well. I suck HUGE at marketing. I've got 4 games in the iPhone app store and made since October 2010 whooping $780 ...

Actually I would be very happy if I got 20 sales a day :)

I guess my adventure in indie gamedev will end by the end of this year when my funds are used up and I'll have to get an office coding job blehrgs

Agreed. As a hobbyist Android app developer, I know all to well the thought "I will start the marketing blitz as soon as I finish feature X..."

I'm in exactly that spot right now. So the question is, does it make sense to front the money and start advertising early, when the product is still not as featureful as you want it to be?

For what it's worth, I shelled out $10 for a Minecraft "alpha" release. You make the call. :-)

There is always Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/video%20games...

I'm getting 20 downloads a day without marketing with my iPhone app. Trouble is, it's free.

no money from adds?

Make a paid version. Also, what is your app?

this is for all of you guys. when you mention you have an app in the market, mention the name or at least give your blog link or app link. in a way it would be your free marketing and for readers it would be a reference to see what type of app is getting what kind of downloads.

This seriously drives me nuts. I know as web people we're sensitive to comment spam, but if you're commenting on topic then for the love of god promote yourself a little.

At the very least, put your game/webapp in your profile.

I would also like to know which games you've made. I'm starting as an indie game dev myself but I have a good amount of experience on the App Store (and 5+ years of writing games for mobile devices as an employee). I can give constructive criticism too if you're willing to get some.

It is nice to know that we are not alone in this, so let me tell you our story.

Background: we are following the HN community for good 4 years now and it inspired us even more to start our own business. We are loving it and it is a dream come true.

To the topic: yesterday we launched our first own product, iOS game Tap4Two. That made us very proud - we shipped! But what would make our day is - if it sold.

You can see the screenshots here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap4two/id424411131?mt=8

Landing page: http://www.tap4two.com/

We found a niche - there are very few games for 2 players to play on one device. Real gaming has always been about few friends coming over to play on a console/pc. And that's exactly what we were missing on the App Store. We made a game, in which two players compete simultaneously in a series of challenges - who will be first to spot the right solution. If you get it right - you get +1 point, if you tap your button when the wrong solution is shown - you lose 1 point.

We hired an art student to draw a nice logo for Tap4Two, but we have drawn and polished the graphics and the landing page ourselves. We are happy with them. When the first version was ready to ship - we launched the landing page, pitched it everywhere we could, made a gameplay video (homemade tripod for iPhone 4 - great fun, take a look: http://tumblr.com/x1a1pmizw9), submitted the app to review. Then it went a bit downhill: we set the availability date to 24th March, but the game has gone "Ready for Sale" on 21st. As it seems, this "feature" of App Store has not been changed, even though lots of people are saying otherwise - game has gone live on 24th with the release date of 21st, which made it debut on the new releases at 81st position in puzzle category. Not a very good start. As expected - it has not been found by almost anyone - it was bought by all of our friends and just a few real customers. It made 30. position on the Polish App Store (as it's our home country) - but Poles are not buying much. Actually the only review we've got comes from a real customer, and it's very heartlifting.

We've pitched the reviewers, posted on forums, facebook, twitter, everywhere - without luck so far.

Any suggestions guys? Do you think the graphics could be more polished? Any tips with marketing strategies?

Today: zero sales so far.

TL;DR: Made, pitched, shipped, did not sell all that well.

Here are some promo codes, if you would like to try it out: Y4YK743NXXNX YXH3X7FXARF4 4JYKM7AKWWHR APK74H36NETW YNYPAFJ66HXA

> We found a niche

OK. But who's your target market? How do you envision people using your game? In a game that is strictly multiplayer, I think you really have to understand the social context.

While I quite enjoy playing board games like Carcassonne or Arkham Horror with friends, or even stuff like air hockey on the iPad, I don't really see much lasting appeal in a game like this which is quite simple and so directly competitive.

In short, I think you need more interesting game modes.

Heh, I'm from poland too. :)

btw. our website is: http://www.MinyxGames.com

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