I recently replied to a post made on a 'Independent Game Dev' LinkedIn group I am member of. Essentially giving my opinion of what has been working for monetization (i.e., making a living making games.)

My opinion boiled down to this:

Make at least the full paid version first (even if you never release that start there.) You can think about monetization as you go! Maybe even put a placeholder in, but don't get hung up on the details because who knows what the market will be like when you finally get there. You can always plan on rolling out a free 'monetized' version at the same time or even after (e.g., Flip the Bird has a free version coming out for iOS soon. You heard it here first...). I think it is ok to separate the free and full versions. Let the user buy into the full game.

Make a game you want to play (and play them!) I have been playing Flip the Bird off and on for a year now. The latest iteration of updates has got me interested in it again. I want to grow this bird into something bigger, but my players are coming in slow and my efforts are being spent on the apps that are producing monetary results (not Flip), its not a bad game, the endless game play is fun, but we have so much more in store: levels, challenges, even the stalled tutorial development (you wound not believe how many folks do not see the "Tap to Flap" message flashing on launch, and even launch suffers from what I call angry-bird-itus... You tap to launch, not pull and release! We know this part sucks and we will address it in the free cycles because we want everyone of our apps to be great.) but I digress...

Monetize naturally. Always play the games you make, and look for natural breaks and placement to insert revenue generation on the free version (e.g., Doodle Army 2 has an ad in the lobby, that free and users who have paid for the access to the full set of in game weapons. 'pro pack'.) We are toying with adding a subscribe option to allow users to buy them away and tell us "make sure the servers stay up" with the power of their wallet. Your app might have load screens. Remind the user the game is not the full version and show them an add for a bit. Don't forget to cross promote your own apps if you have more than one too!

Once you are live make small changes (i.e., the balancing act.) As you murder the last great idea with the newest great idea, try to do so without losing your customers... Reminds me of the game Smuggle Truck sometimes as I try to make sure every change I make does not throw customers in such a way I can not recover them when they settle back down and realize I am not trying to screw them or don't care (I will look for a good example of this occurrence regarding monetization, but the only one that comes to mind is not monetization related, but related to using too much memory on Flip to allow the game to run on older devices. We figured out a way/hack to keep em supported, but wow what a lot of work... I can not wait for my users to upgrade!)

Use some form of analytics to keep track of user behavior. If your taking this seriously I don't see why you should object to exploring this in some form (staunch privacy advocates just started hissing at me.) And if you offer a free game track the user actions, that is part of the price of free. yes I just promoted the player's privacy be a monetized incentive. If you find it distasteful or invasive make your full game not have a lick of it and rely on more traditional methods of gathering feedback. The idea there is that you already have money from that person, so its all about making sure their gameplay is as pure as it can be. But it behooves you, the developer, to understand the players of your game. And I think a lot of players, paid users, would not mind letting you know how they play for the express purposes of making your game more interesting. Give it an 'opt in' option and state your intent to do no intentional evil with it but make a better game for those playing. But seriously think about it. I am personally tired of being dead wrong with some choices I have made. If I really knew how my players ticked better I would not have as chosen so poorly (it is varied in topic and degree to illustrate my bad choices, suffice to say it may be an interesting post for another time when looking at the reflection pool...)

I am sure there is more, I will end with this opinion:

Making games is a lot less fun when money starts to matter!

That is an excerpt from "The Tao of Fun and Profit", the working title of my next book.


Posting something to the internet has a chance of becoming stuck in the public domain for the rest of your life and potentially beyond. This what I describe something that has become interneternal... The collective memory recall powers of a redditor can be astounding to behold. Interneternity can be a very, very long time... think before you post kids!


Sound advice from Jeff Vogel  (on February 9, 2012) of Spiderweb Software for the indie: "Find your niche and own it. Accept what you can't change, be as awesome as you can, charge what you're worth, and stand proud on the ocean floor."

Jeff Vogel is one of the long term success stories I like to aspire to. He works hard, loves what he does, and as long as he keeps delivering the quality goods I expect he will continue to do well. I've never spoken to him, but if I do I think I will simply say "Thanks for all the fun and advice!" He has had a great influence in where I am and heading today.

Thanks Jeff! Thanks for all the RPG loving over the (dry) years! Thanks for encouraging and sharing as much as you do! Its the kind of stuff that fuels my forges here at CodeWorx!


I have been asked where do you sounds for apps. Well here are a few sites I have used for sound/music sources recently:

http://soundbible.com/royalty-free-sounds-1.html

http://audiojungle.net/

(I am sure I have forgotten some. I will edit when I remember!)

Those are the sites I start with. There is a LOT to be had right there and I usually don't have to look far. After that Audacity/Sound Forge apps comes in handy making new sound combos derived from other sounds. Its fun to play with, but I spend WAY to much time on it when I get into it!

I want to mention this last one, it has a reasonable cost to consider, but I find their samples to be great to try out entire packages of sounds. The guy running it has been very receptive to my feedback. Overall the polish is there. The need to rework sounds is non-existent. I have yet to buy set of sounds from him (no new projects in need yet), but it would save me countless hours of surfing and amateur foley work (did you know snapping a bundle of celery makes a great bone breaking sound?) Audio Skins is on my short list for sure! 

http://www.audioskins.com/index.php <- Definitely worth checking out!

Side note: Remember to read and understand distribution your license allows (royalty free or not!) That is a topic for another post another day!

Do you have a favorite sound site? Commercial or not, please share in the comments! I'd love to hear it!


Seems silly for me to do but I let my domain name registration expire (sort of). I was really busy working on doing a major update for one of the Appsomniacs games, Zombie Road Rage, and I forgot to authorize the transfer I initiated to my new registrar and hosting service... The devil is in the details. It is taken care of now (obviously if you can read this!) I am filing this under "silly dev". I will endeavor to not have THAT happen again! Anyone who sent me an email in the past few days likely got a bounce. Please resend that discourse, I would love to pick up where we left off!

 

EDIT 7/14/2012

My email now works again... Anything send to me from 7/10 to 7/14 midday was summarily accepted and discarded without warning. I got enough reports of non-answer on my part that I had to go kick the mail server to spin up after the domain transfer... Wow...

 

I'm not a system administrator Jim!


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