When I initially launched iCombat in April, I decided to wait on releasing a lite version to first see if I could manage to get up the charts without one. My fear was that a lite version would cannibalize my potential user base if I accidentally put too much of the game’s “secret sauce” out there for free. Looking back, I realize now I was so afraid to get the feature mix for the demo wrong that I irrationally avoided the option much longer than I should have.
And while part of my hesitation had to do with my optimism about iCombat’s potential and my marketing ability, it also had to do with the fact that I rarely buy full versions of games (although I do occasionally). After just launching my lite version yesterday I can say that my concerns about the lite version were misplaced and might have cost me quite a bit in lost income. Below are my main takeaways from having waited on launching the lite version and why I think too many indie iPhone developers wrongly steer clear of lite versions:
- Know your Apps Core value and its core user: This sounds douchey but it really is harder than it sounds to have the discipline to know the profile of your core user and then choose that feature you think will resonate most. For example, if you are making a game it is easy to think kids and adults will like it and they will all get hooked on the game play AND the graphics AND the story equally. Odds are your app will not resonate with everyone, and one salient feature will be the hook so the sooner you figure it out and admit it to yourself the better. You may be wrong, but better to know your target than water down your strategy by pursuing too many angles. Needless to say once you have your app’s core value outlined it will also be that much easier to design your lite version.
- The App store is not a lemonade stand: The App store is one of the largest, most seamless content delivery platforms ever and when it comes to pricing most of us fail to understand just how fundamentally different this is from anything we have ever seen. As a result we apply our personal conceptions of scarcity, value or what it means to transact with someone to something that is totally different. If you have released an app you will agree that pricing decisions or the debate about a lite version are often more emotional than rational. I am sure more than one developer has though “I don’t want to give it to someone for free when I worked 3 months on it every night after work while my wife was screaming at me because I was never around.” That would be okay to think if you toiled on a model airplane or a painting for that period and were selling the one unit you had created, but in the App store you can divide that effort across 40MM+ people so who really cares if 5MM users get your app for free if in the end 250k of them buy it? Read more…
For anyone interested in creating an iPhone app but wondering where to begin, I think the best thing you can do is just sit down and lay it out. I have always been a big fan of whiteboards and as of late the huge Post It Easel Pads but these are impossible if you travel a lot and are of limited use when trying to collaborate over long distances. The answer for me has been to use Balsamiq, a tool that allows you to quickly create mock-ups of both websites and iPhone apps. With Balsamiq I can work through the mechanics of how an app should work, and visually see the flow from action to action.
In previous posts I have suggested to first time app developers the importance of creating proper specs when planning to create an app. I think mockup tools like Balsamiq are even more useful than making great specs and writing out usage scenario examples. Not only does it help you better develop your idea but it also gives you the ability to share your mockups with other people instantly. For example, if you are thinking about outsourcing development or are talking to other team members, Balsamiq will let you share your mockups and convey clearly what you want to do (for info on how to protect your idea with outsourced developers read this post). And by visually demonstrating the flow of how you want your app to work developers will have a much better idea of what you are looking for. This will pay off in terms of the quality of developer you manage to get and it will also improve the accuracy of the time and budget estimates you get from developers.
Even if you plan on developing the app yourself, you can benefit from working through the fuzzy parts of your idea. A mockup tool will give you the simple tools you need to work through EVERY aspect of your app structure before you begin the development process. This is important because it can alert you to fundamental flaws in your idea or logic before you put the time and effort into building it.
In addition to the sketches of the iPhone and its main interface tools you also have sketches of dozens of buttons, switches, icons and other items that you can customize. For example, when you drag an iPhone image to the drawing area, a box pops up where you can select whether to include the status toolbar at the top, change the orientation, the background look, etc. You can even drag call out boxes into the picture as well to insert commentary about your mockup. Check out this video for an example of what is possible.
Balsamiq includes a free trial version so you can test it out today…give it 5 minutes and you will see how quickly you get the hang of it.
Before launching iCombat I wrote a post discussing the question of what to do with App store piracy. The options basically boil down to either: A) doing nothing, B) using RipDev or a comparable solution to make the app more difficult to crack, or C) implementing an info.plist check that allows the developer to see which users are using a cracked version and then altering the app for those pirate users (see Beejive IM’s response as one of the more decisive moves you can take with this approach). See description of how to do this here.
As a first time developer I wanted to protect my effort but did not want to pay an upfront fee to Ripdev without having made a dime so I opted to go for the more benign yet not totally passive option. I chose to detect when they cracked the application and then have a pop-up screen say something inoffensive along with a button routing them away from game play after 5 levels. The button redirected the pirate to a hidden page I created on my site called “You Jacked My App” where the text read:
“Hi if you have been directed to this page it’s because we see that you have a pirated copy. While we are glad you are interested please understand that we want to continue making it better, but to do that we need people to each pay for their copy. If you want to continue using please purchase today.”
The idea was to get the user to empathize with my cause and maybe convert a tiny fraction of those users into sales. While it was a cheesy move and probably a bad idea I figured it couldn’t hurt to try (maybe I should have just rickroll’d them all!). For a great example of a better executed version of this strategy see developer Ben Chatelain’s pop-up here which mentions needing the sales to help feed his 1 year old! I just found this but had I seen it pre-iCombat 1.0 I would probably have implemented something similarly guilt evoking.
See below some stats to give you an idea of the scope of the problem for iCombat as well as some conclusions I have drawn from the experience: Read more…
After 8 days waiting to be approved by Apple, iCombat is accepted and “Ready for Sale.” I was pretty patient during the wait but by today I was starting to get worried. I shot off a few e-mails to Apple, posted my scenario to a couple of websites and waited, and late this evening I found out that we were approved. When I spoke to the team they thought it was an April Fool’s joke, which thankfully it wasn’t because we are now in the App store. You can check out our description and buy it in the iTunes store here.
While I have been vague about what iCombat would be until now, I wanted to give you some background as to why we chose to do a classic arcade style tank game. I grew up in the mid 80’s playing a beat up Atari 2600 – it was behind the times even then (let alone now!) but the good side of having the outdated console was that I could buy old Atari games at used book stores for under a dollar. I didn’t have the money, or need, back then to buy a newer console and it didn’t matter because the Atari had some of the best game play design of any console I have ever played. Simple rules, easy to use controls, a fast learning curve, all of these things helped make it much easier than picking up today’s games (except maybe the Wii).
The game that captured my attention most was Combat, a 27 game in one combo pack that included the Tank game. There were many variations of play, one of which was Tank pong – here you fired missiles (squares) at the other tank (a rectangle) and they could bounce off of walls and hit the enemy. For me the bouncing missiles and fierce 2 player versus mode hooked me, and so when the iPhone launched we saw the opportunity to bring a similar type of game play to the younger generation of gamers. The idea was to stick to simple game logic but utilize the powerful features of the iPhone to create something great. Truthfully, we just created it also because we wanted to play it – and we tried to stay true to the game play fundamentals that made the original games so addictive. And while there are half a dozen tank style games in the App store, we hadn’t found one that scratched our itch for this classic arcade style play.
We hope, after playing, you will start to share our enthusiasm for tank games and that you will become a fan of iCombat. We also want to make iCombat better in future updates, so please send us your feedback at icombatgame@gmail.com or post something here. We are planning to offer prizes of some sort (maybe t-shirts or something) to anyone whose idea is implemented in future updates so send us your best suggestions for future changes such as new weapons, levels, enemies, etc. If your idea is good and others support it in the comments we will do our best to make it happen. I will be posting some ideas of my own in the coming days so don’t be shy to shoot them down if you think they are weak!
With all of the media hype success stories like Pocket God, iShoot, and Trism receive it is tempting to think that App store success is right around the corner. All it should take is to make something and launch it, and then just watch the bills come rolling in. While all of us developing apps would like for this to happen, the reality is that success, if it comes at all, usually takes much longer than expected. Take for example iShoot, where Ethan Nicholas had his game in the app store several months before releasing the lite version that pushed his paid version to No. 1. Or Pocket God, that launched after only a week of development but took 6 (or 7?) weeks of updates and community building to get it to the No. 1 spot. These were not overnight Sound Grenade or iFart gimmicky successes, but took a long term perspective and a prolonged marketing effort. Read more…
Being a first time game developer, I am finding that the final stages of game development, namely bug fixing and adding final polish (game menus, transitions, etc) take much longer than I could have anticipated. It is only now that I am beginning to appreciate some of the complexities behind product development and launch. From a technical point of view, it is difficult to know on the front end just how much time will be necessary to debug properly but also from a psychological point of view I am beginning to understand just how hard it is to finish well. At some point, when you have done the most interesting part of app development (where progress on a day to day basis is much faster and noticeable) you are stuck sanding down the rough edges and a sort of development fatigue sets in. With so little to show in terms of progress, i.e. spending days changing menu layouts or touching up fonts, the developers and the entire team get eager to just push it out the door already and see what happens. This is where we, and I assume most developers, debate the merits of fine tuning their app versus just launching it in the market, where it can start to make money and give some immediate feedback. Read more…
As I think about a price for my new app the question I keep struggling with is just how exactly does pricing affect user buying patterns. Apple’s frictionless purchasing process, where the vast majority of app store users already have a credit card on file, allows for painless one quick purchasing and has quickly made $1 dollar the new free. The question becomes though, where is it that the user begins to think twice? $2, $3 or maybe $5? From my point of view there seem to be 5 major types of application in the App store right now that make embody the current pricing trends:
- “Crapware” – cheap to make in terms of time and resources. Targeted by both experienced and inexperienced developers. Business model is either ad supported or sell for $0.99.
- Full fledged apps by amateur developers – more elaborate design and execution by part time developers. Attempting to create a full game experience with iShoot and Trism being good examples. Business model is pay model with prices between the $1 and $5 range.
- Full apps by funded start-ups – professional developers focused on higher quality games. Here we have iBowl by the Social Gaming Network for example. Quality of applications is high, business model is anything under the sun (to see one of the more creative examples check out Toy Bot’s $10k giveaway marketing strategy)
- Professionally produced games – major studios like Sega or EA using teams of developers to leverage the iPhone platform. Business model is selling games for $5+, probably closer to $10. A good example is Spore. Read more…
I started thinking today about where to price my app and I was reminded of a great article I came across in Apple Insider several weeks ago. The article is an interview with the developer behind Sound Grenade and it describes the rise of what he calls “crapware” in the app store. Developed in 20 minutes and containing “maybe 10 lines of code,” Sound Grenade has been in the top 100 free apps for weeks generating over $200/hour in ad revenue. Applications like iFart or Mood Phone fit in to this category as well, simple apps that leverage the platform to spread virally amongst what is probably mostly high school and college kids. And these gimmicky apps have done so well that it is hard not to take notice and tempt all of us to consider banging some out as well.
The question “crapware” apps raise for the app store are obvious, why would developers and businesses spend weeks and months and maybe tens of thousands of dollars to build an application that is competing with one trick apps that sell for free? Surely pricing pressure and excess supply will send the entire app store to the ad supported or near free pricing points. Well I disagree and am not too concerned that this will happen. There may be 75 versions of flatulence apps and I already found about 10 copying Sound Grenade but I don’t think that this will last for very long. Read more…
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