My Three Picks
I heard some advice a while ago, probably on YouTube. I don’t remember who said it, but the idea stuck with me. “When you are a small studio, pick where you’re going to put your effort. Pick a platform, a storefront, and a market.” For me, that comes down to mobile, the App Store, and the U.S.
That being said, I’m deliberately not taking my own advice. I’m adding Mac because I’ve wanted to make a desktop title for a long time. I’m also adding Apple TV because, at least with this setup, it’s essentially free. I don’t really expect anyone to buy the TV or Mac version. Maybe it will help with getting featured, but I am basically grinding for experience with those two.
If I ran a larger studio, I’d have people working on each platform, market, and storefront to release as widely as I could. As an individual, I just don’t have the time to do more than one well.
Platform: mobile
My platform is mobile. I’m building for touch screens and how people play games on their phones and tablets. Within mobile, I picked iOS because I know it and already own the hardware.
Storefront: the App Store
Neon Labyrinth was my first serious attempt at making a game with the intention of selling it. When I launched it, I threw together the App Store page without thinking much about it. I didn’t have a video. I had some pretty crappy screenshots. Apple featured it anyway, and it sold exceptionally well.
But looking at how many people saw the page versus how many bought the game, the conversion rate wasn’t great.
I later put a lot of work into revising the page, and the conversion rate is substantially higher now. The page is still nowhere near perfect. But it makes me think that if I’d had it in good shape when Apple featured the game, I could have made a lot more on that title. I still have tons more to learn and figure out.
Market: the U.S.
One of the big mistakes I made with Neon Labyrinth was how I approached Brazil. There’s a vibrant retro game community there, and I thought the game would be a fantastic fit.
I hadn’t done localization before, which meant setting up the systems, translating every string in the game, and localizing the App Store page. I put the work in, turned around, and sold it to one person. Meanwhile, I was selling hundreds of copies in the U.S.
That one person is my hero.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I realized Brazil’s mobile market is primarily Android. I’d been thinking about the total addressable market without considering how many of those people could actually play my iOS game. I was sending an unknown title into a market where I had no audience.
I launch globally, but I only target the U.S. with my marketing. I just don’t understand the other markets well enough to get a reliable return from my effort.
Focus
I’m open to Android, Windows, Linux, and Switch, as well as other markets and storefronts. I first need a strong candidate: a game selling exceptionally well. Then I’d either pay someone with experience or sit down and learn what I needed. At that point, I’d have some momentum behind me.
Until then, I’m choosing to say no to those things. It doesn’t matter how many storefronts I put the game on if the game isn’t good. I want to focus the time I dedicate to building games on making the best games I can. These three picks help me do that.