No One Said it Would be Easy
February 20th, 2009
Astute readers who have been reading the blog for a long time will notice that I just reused a previous post’s title. That’s ok, the title still works, so I’m using it again.
I haven’t been posting a lot lately for two reasons:
1) I’ve been busy working on my 360|iDev presentation and I’ve been trying to minimize distractions. It’s coming along nicely. The big problem is trying to cut back everything I wanted to talk about into the length of time I have to talk.
2) I haven’t had much Dapple news to talk about.
Dapple has been on sale in the App Store for 7 days now. It’s impossible to draw any kind of conclusions from such a short time on sale, so I won’t even attempt it. I’ve had a lot of people asking me about sales numbers and I’m not ready to share that yet. Let’s just say that I’ve been less than thrilled with sales so far.
That being said, I am still hopeful for Dapple. The sales so far have been based entirely on word of mouth and based on my tweets on Twitter. My hope is that sales will pick up once I get some reviews out there on the web. I sent out a lot of copies to review sites earlier this week, so hopefully we should see some game reviews start to show up in the next week or two.
Right now my biggest problem is just getting the word out that the game exists and that it’s worth people’s $4.99. Without reviews, that’s hard.
This last week has also reinforced the need for a “Lite” version of Dapple sooner rather than later. I think people are hesitant to spend the $5 on a game they can’t try. I think reviews combined with a Lite version could be a real boost to sales.
My priority right now is finishing my 360|iDev presentation, but then I’ll probably start working on Dapple Lite immediately afterward. I was originally planning to wait until March to start working on that and give myself a bit of a break, but it’s not looking like that’s a good idea anymore.
One thing that helps with all of this is knowing that other devs are struggling with the same issues I am. Mike Kasprzak, creator of Smiles, the critically acclaimed iPhone title and finalist for the IGF Mobile Best Game Award, posted an honest look at the sales of his game:
- A Cheerfully Blunt Road Map (www.toonormal.com)
But all of this raises doubts in my mind about the long-term viability of quality titles on the iPhone store. If “farting” applications are going to continue to be the top selling applications on the store, is there any point in spending 6 months developing a high quality title that won’t sell? I really hope that there is a way that it can work, both for the sake of iPhone developers and for iPhone consumers.
Well, this post is coming off more pessimistic than I had originally intended it to. I am confident that Dapple’s sales will pick up once I can get some reviews out for the game and once I can get a Lite version out. Here’s to the future!
Owen
From what I have seen so far the indie game seen is really tough and takes a lot of work to make it (I’m sure you are more aware of that than me!). I also think that the games market for iPhone/iTouch is VERY different from the DS/PSP or mainstream games market. Apple’s approach is very different than any other game system. They let almost ANYTHING through and you pick the price. Think of things like a fart application as a novelty. If Nintendo let you download that on a DS I think that millions of kids would be using their DS’ to make fart noises. The majority of people are entertained by simple things. A quality game like yours targets an audience that doesn’t want a cheap 5 second thrill. What does that mean for your market with dapple? If at all possible, find your niche audience and make them aware of the product. Anyone know of sites Owen could market dapple on that combine: painting, puzzle games and brain puzzles?
I would love to drop some dapple advertisement cards in some Universities or art schools. I wonder if any Canadian art stores would let you put in a coupon or something (no idea how that works!).
Overall I think a light version and maybe a web version is the right way to go and I really hope to see some reviews!
[...] To finish, two similar, but both interesting articles from two guys I enjoy chatting with, and who I hope everything works out for. Mike Kasprzak, whose Smiles games is one of the best things available on the iPhone, wrote his cheerfully blunt road map. In it, he discusses how things are going for Smiles, and tries to figure out where to take it next. As advertised, it’s blunt and honest, and that always makes for a good read. I’ve got a lot of respect for Mike’s position, he’s held strong with the $4.99 price tag on his game, which is clearly worth it, when he could easily have flinched and yo-yo’d the price all over the place. Owen Goss is in a similar situation with his new game, Dapple, and he writes about it in No one said it would be easy. [...]
Well, my two cents worth as someone who is purely a consumer, is that people will eventually find the good stuff, its the getting them to find it that seems to be the problem. Having perused the app store, i find it very hard to find the good stuff without being told where to find it by someone else suggesting a product and directly searching it, which is one thing i am happy about from Owen’s postings, that i can see other like minded people making interesting/fun products to consider purchasing.
Personally, i think Apple’s management of the App store leaves a bit to be desired, though it reminds me of other sections of the store early in their lives in terms of needing better organization. Its not nearly well enough organized and some additional categorization/splash space for programs in each section would go a long way to helping developers in the iphone/itouch universe get their products out and noticed.