The real reason why indie developers can't win on the App Store: There's just too @%!@%@ many indie developers.
Let's look at the numbers from a different direction: Apple reports that the App Store has 1.25 million apps earning $5bn in revenue last year. But 25 companies take half of the App Store revenue, leaving only $2.5bn for everyone else. That means that if you knocked out all 25 of the biggest earners on the App Store, the other 1.25 million apps would see their average annual revenue double to. . . about $4,000 annually. Hot damn! Call home, tell the spouse to put the Hamburger Helper back in the pantry, the kids are eating at Chucky Cheese tonight!
Everyone wants to be a game developer. . . but just like every other job that everyone wants to have, it ends up being a cutthroat business. The big players - the Apples, the movie studios, the recording studios - certainly don't do anything to make it better. But even without them it'd still be wretched place to try to make a living, simply because of sheer volume of competition. There's something to be said for having a day job to survive on while you're trying to make it.
As developers we should count our blessings in that department: unlike for so many other high demand careers, chasing our dreams requires developing skills that are also highly demanded for less glamorous work. We're fortunate to be able to practically default into fantastically lucrative day jobs that still offer reasonably enjoyable work.
By which I mean boring corporate jobs. Working long hours for low pay to go chase somebody else's dream at XYZ startup is probably the wrong choice here. Get the boring 40hr/wk corporate job. You'll make enough money to finance the stuff you really want to do, and better yet you'll have enough free time to actually do the stuff you really want to do.
I don't see this topic as being any different than any other business pursuit. As a general rule, it takes money to make money. The very pervasive and (extremely) unlikely perception that your company can "make it" overnight just by building something well only holds those companies back. Create a solid business plan, building a product that is "good enough" and backing it up with a marketing budget has been a tried and true method for decades. The perception is only further deformed by what we see in the media (Instagram being sold for billions, SnapChat being wooed, the Twitter IPO, etc). The quicker you realize that it's harder than a cold day in hell, the quicker you'll pick your business idea off of the ground and make something based on a smart business plan.
1) They rely on the AppStore to do their marketing for them because you could get away with that in the early days (or if you make the front-page consistently). With 1million apps, that's not going to work. Turns out, you have to do the traditional thing and go and pound the pavement, and market your games yourself.
2) The price-points are crap. Selling software for $1 is crap-business, and not every game is compatible with the freemium or subscription model. You really need the price-point in the $20-40 range to be sustainable. You sell 1million games, and you get $700k?! Moving that many units is a massive success and yet all it does it maybe cover your development costs and rent.
3) There's a lot of shovel-ware out there, and it's just too hard to punch through all that noise.
Ok, the reason "indie" devs aren't doing as well is if you aren't ballsy enough to charge enough for their apps for them to be profitable.
Consider the $50 game vs $0.99 game. To make the same money from a dollar game you need to sell 50x as many copies basically. As an indie dev with minimal budget, making money in a market where significant revenue means significant volume, it is going to take a lot of advertising to make a dent.
What the bigger companies have done is made games that are F2P with a much higher value via micro transactions. Their revenue per install might be something like $10 whereas the indie dev who doesn't want to charge as much revenue per install might be closer to $5. That means the people with the higher RPI can advertise more or spend more per install and still be profitable.
It's not unfair to indies so much as it is that indies aren't charging enough to make the numbers work. Also, if indies don't have the cash flow to float that $5 per user over 12 months that it takes to get it, they aren't going to be able to afford the $2.50 CPI.
The same economics play out in many, many businesses. Business is always a game of balancing production, operating, and sales costs against revenue. Whoever is best at that wins.
>Overall, King.com spends over $350k (Source: King.com) a day on mobile ads and it can be assumed that the other 4 developers have ad budgets within this range.
I have said this other places, but I will repeat it here. Kudos to them for finding (or creating) a successful niche with high demand. I find it sad though that sooo much money is going to marketing games that don't push technology further, or really fundamentally help things get better.
You could argue that if you add up all the marginal increases in utility/happiness that are gained from playing any of the saga games that it might be a net gain, but I think that is a stretch. I find it tragic that this is how the market allocates resources (time and capital).
Blame the piracy laws. These games are, of course, inherently worthless but the current policies are propping them up when innovation should be in other places.
People only pay for them because they don't have any other choice. If it was legal to sponsor an Android fork that had a pirate version of the Play Store, I'm sure all of the hardware manufacturers would be shipping it with their phones.
Unfortunately "worth" in any functional sense is defined by the demand for it, so in that sense these are immensely valuable. That is my lament, that something with so little functional utility (outside of a dopamine reward loop) has captured so much voluntary worth.
I hate the king.com people. Their mobile app ads are almost malware. They do scammy App Store redirects when you're on certain websites. No, I don't give a shit about candy crush.
The funny thing with Candy Crush is that it's a free app. The only thing that costs money is if you want to "cheat" to get extra turns and goodies to help you get past levels. Totally defeats the purpose of playing a puzzle game, as far as I'm concerned, but they make tons of money off those who are fine with dishing out cash to see that next level sooner.
the funny thing with Candy Crush is that it looks like a free app. If you want to keep advancing levels you will eventually need to pay as the difficulty will make it near impossible to win without paying...
I think you should be hating the websites that does this rather than King.com
King.com Explicitly prohibits this (and a number of other things) when they advertise with ad companies. But there are always rogue elements (Probably the said websites in this case) that does these kind of things to drive install rate (and make money from King.com).
If by "win" you mean "be in the top 5 grossing", there may be some meat here. But it would be surprising for an independent anything to break into the top 5 grossing in any market, software or otherwise, in a few years.
But if by "win" you mean "earn a comfortable living and possibly modest riches" then I doubt this thesis has any legs at all.
The irony that the top developers started as indie developers for the most part, and simply grew their business with successful products seems to be lost on the author.
Assuming that that's true (idk if it is), they were there first, when offerings were more limited and the big wigs hadn't gotten in. My little hypothetical appstore game isn't going to compete with offerings like Angry Birds into which probably many man-years have gone in already. OP's point is that it's harder to get in NOW.
When is this ever not the case? It's harder to own land now than it was when the government was giving it away for free. That in no way makes it impossible to own land, and no one says stupid things like "Why people can't win the land grab in America".
Build a good product, it will sell. Build an innovative product that scratches the itch of millions and you get onto the top 5 list.
What I see far too often is developers passing off a derivative or poorly executed idea, and complaining that the marketplace is the problem. It's not.
I don't see why you're looking at it as an either-or case. I'm sure there are plenty of poorly executed ideas in the marketplace, but that doesn't invalidate my point. To use your land analogy, it's now just getting more and more expensive to buy land in America - just as it's getting more and more expensive (in terms of cost and effort) to put out an application that meets the market's increasingly higher standards.
I'm not saying something is WRONG with the market, I'm making an observation about the state of the market.
There are a million apps, and only 5 people that can 'win' the app store at any time. To say it's more difficult to rocket to the top is an inane and obvious observation. It has nothing to do with indie development, it's about the fact that there are 5 top spots for one million apps. By definition, 99.999995% aren't going to win, regardless of whether they are indie or not.
XL Recordings is a true independent label. It is not owned by a major record label, even indirectly. That's the definition of independent that is used within the music business.
Just because they're incredibly successful, doesn't make them not an independent label. Changing the definition of "indie" to exclude XL makes the claim that 'indies aren't successful' a simple tautology.
>Just because they're incredibly successful, doesn't make them not an independent label. Changing the definition of "indie" to exclude XL makes the claim that 'indies aren't successful' a simple tautology.
Perhaps, but has the benefit that it keeps the definition of "indie" as "not a big marketing and sales behemoth" intact.
And that's more to the essense of being "independent" than "doesn't belong to a major record label".
If we're to accept incredibly succesful, large selling artists, big marketing as "independent", then what does distinguish major and indie record labels? Simply that it's not a conglomerate?
Actually, it states this: "The boundaries between major and independent labels, and the definitions of each, differ from commentator to commentator" in the link.
@nodemaker I think this raises some really interesting points. Based on my experience moderating an exclusive app entrepreneurs group on Facebook I have seen this come numerous times where an indie developer starts a post in frustration complaining how he needs a huge marketing budget to go up in the ranks on App Store. I hope either Tapdaq or somethings else can provide an effective solution for this problem.
I often see people treating Minecraft as an unrepeatable exception to all rules, and maybe to some extent it is. But it also proves a number of points:
Graphics don't matter as long as you have a coherent style. Pre-written "story" is not critical to games, and enabling player creativity is something that will be eagerly received. One person really can make a great game all by themselves in a reasonable amount of time.
Amusingly, the only lesson learned by most developers is that people really want block-based worlds. Nah. If you look at Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress as just the beginning of what enabling player creativity in a simulated world can look like, that way lies the future.
The indie road to success is the path not taken by AAA games. There's so much potential for what games can be that hasn't been explored by mainstream publishers, and Minecraft is a superb example of that.
IMO it's quite possible to do well on the app store. Sometimes someone builds a great app, and it does marginally well, but Google or Apple notices it. They recognize that it's an interesting product and will likely at least call you about a job. Which in my book, would be somewhat of a success.
I quit reading as soon as I saw Mojang on the list and then the extrapolation that everyone on the list must be spending the same amount of money on advertising as the first company.
Any advice on cheap marketing, or simply how to get the word out?
I've tried emailing a few blogs to get reviews, and now I'm trying to use Twitter (@h4labs). I'm building iOS language learning software. The apps could still use work but I think I'm approaching "useful."
The one interesting observation that I have is that since I wasn't making many sales at $1.99, I raised my price on Monday to $2.99. As of this morning, I already have as many sales this week as last week. In other words, for the people who want my app, the extra dollar doesn't mean much.
By the way, constructive, even brutal, feedback is always welcome.
Not marketing advice per se, but I highly recommend subscribing to Hack Design [1] and giving more thought to not just the visual design and presentation of your apps, but also the audience. My personal opinion is that non-game indie devs need a niche, what's yours? If you're selling to school kids, then find a good hook. For example, public middle schools in California require Spanish fluency. Sell to the parents of those kids perhaps? Or if you're going after the international tourist, try to combine the language skills with travel info some how: "We'll teach you Spanish before you're plane lands!"
Also, I'm sure I'm not the first one to say it but you've gotta move to iOS7. Do the easy thing and try using all native color scheme. As a design exercise [2] it will help you focus on content.
An invitation for brutal feedback is always a good start!...
Graphics
-If you update to ios7 customize look, otherwise might be bland completely. I suggest just using the skeumorphic textures to make up for design instead (bad but most viable option).
-Needs Better Art / Common Colors (maybe same as language icon)
-Too many different apps. It's like dividing & conquering own efforts to make it up the charts.
-Good luck... immense competition
The problem is the ranking- and discovery system. If you are not on any of the charts, you won't be seen. If you would remove the charts, and find some other recommendation system, it might give small app companies a chance, instead of being only about the $$$.
There are certainly indy games that have got to the top of the appstore chart. Pou and Plague Inc are two examples (I believe both are single person studios), neither of which have significant viral components either.
I came to a very similar conclusion while writing http://www.nGage.tv. I cannot compete with the "big boys" by myself but by empowering developers with a community and an API designed to support the website "theme" (in my case coupling streaming content with social engagements) you have a platform that has a chance of competing.
I'm curious if these 'elite' developers budget out a chunk of their profits to buy their own apps and/or free-to-play 'points' simply as a means of keeping their games on the top grossing lists.
I doubt it. What would be the point of paying your way into the top grossing? I'd bet that almost all "normal" users go only to Top Paid (cause that's the default) and Top Free (cause it's free).
I agree with what other have already said.
The main challenge is the noise in the store… way too many crappy apps that still take up space.
However, you need to define "win".
Just like in any other business if you want to make millions you need to put in big cash (just look at real estate).
If you win by having a revenue that allows you a comfortable life, it's still doable.
I've been an independent developer for 4+ years and have been living on it since. I make mostly passive revenue with my apps and play tennis 2-3 times a week during the day. I certainly will not complain.
The bit about app store search is so true, in general I feel the app store could get a lot more money out of me if they improved the search functionality and added more linking between apps.
Let's look at the numbers from a different direction: Apple reports that the App Store has 1.25 million apps earning $5bn in revenue last year. But 25 companies take half of the App Store revenue, leaving only $2.5bn for everyone else. That means that if you knocked out all 25 of the biggest earners on the App Store, the other 1.25 million apps would see their average annual revenue double to. . . about $4,000 annually. Hot damn! Call home, tell the spouse to put the Hamburger Helper back in the pantry, the kids are eating at Chucky Cheese tonight!
Everyone wants to be a game developer. . . but just like every other job that everyone wants to have, it ends up being a cutthroat business. The big players - the Apples, the movie studios, the recording studios - certainly don't do anything to make it better. But even without them it'd still be wretched place to try to make a living, simply because of sheer volume of competition. There's something to be said for having a day job to survive on while you're trying to make it.
As developers we should count our blessings in that department: unlike for so many other high demand careers, chasing our dreams requires developing skills that are also highly demanded for less glamorous work. We're fortunate to be able to practically default into fantastically lucrative day jobs that still offer reasonably enjoyable work.
By which I mean boring corporate jobs. Working long hours for low pay to go chase somebody else's dream at XYZ startup is probably the wrong choice here. Get the boring 40hr/wk corporate job. You'll make enough money to finance the stuff you really want to do, and better yet you'll have enough free time to actually do the stuff you really want to do.