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Comment by Dove | Hacker News Reader

Take-home lesson:

To be successful,

    (1) Practice.
    (2) Network.

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And, if you look at the games that are really doing well in the store, write gimmicky, addictive games and make a fortune selling virtual coins/tokens/badges/clothes to people psychologically locked in to your scheme.

Freemium is king in the app store now.

I think is better to try to go for quality rather than gimmicks. In the long run it will succeed more often than not. Anecdotal Example: Apple

Going for gimmicks is like going for get rich quick schemes.

I have to agree with you. Our company briefly contemplated freemium, but have opted against it. It's still early in the freemium era and I already see a backlash in the reviews and within myself as I play games.

So yeah, while it is currently king, I don't think it's one whose rule will last forever. And if you've committed and positioned yourself to survive on freemium alone, you'll find yourself in a world of hurt.

I'd like to agree with you but if you look at the top ten games right now they're all freemium gimmicks. Maybe this won't last but that's clearly where the money is right now.

Apple started out as a get rich quick scheme, not a "lets change the world" scheme.

I don't know if that is true but it is irrelevant since they became successful NOT by using gimmicks or schemes but focusing on quality, which is the point I was trying to make.

(3) Be lucky

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