Rajan - Surviving The App Store

A successful iOS game makes $4,000 annually (this goes for any appfrankly). A successful Android game makes one seventh of that (onethird at best).

You are not a large multi-million dollar company (at least I dont thinkyou are given that youre reading this book). So you dont have thecustomer acquisition/marketing budget to beat this $4,000 annualaverage. Period.

You succeed in the mobile space by building many niche, high qualitygames. Trying to gain traction with using a wide net/with the generalpopulace, is like winning the lottery (Flappy Bird, Crossy Road,etc). If you make a generic game thats a copy of whats already outthere, its unlikely you will succeed.

Do not spend more than two months building the first version of yourproduct. Put it out there soon, get feedback from reviews, iterate ona steady six week cadence. Market directly to your niche audience(find the forums, online groups, in person groups that represent your audience).

One game wont make you rich. Hell, three games wont make you rich(this is coming from someone that had a game at the #1 spot for 18days straight, and three games in the top #100 apps overall). Buildmany games (more than ten) that have a consistent, polished style thatrepresents you as a game dev. And follow Xzibits advice:

Yo dawg. Cross promote your games, in your games, to get people to buy all thegames you made, that you promoted within your games.

To put it another way. Release one game, and find X people to buyit. Then make another game. Chances are (if communicated/marketedcorrectly), those loyal to you, will buy your other game too. Keepmaking good stuff that cater to this group (the one that alsobought your second game), and theyll continue buying what youbuild.

Also, dont quit your job trying to make it as a game developer unlessyou can live with no income for a long time. I repeat, dont blindlyfollow you passion. It wont end well (the last thing I need isanother suicidal email from a game dev that tried to follow in myfootsteps yes this has happened more than once). I had over $100,000in liquidity before quitting my job to pursue what I love to do. I gota college education, saved for ten years, lived well below my means,and got rid of all my debt. Only then did I feel I was to a pointwhere I could take some time off and explore what I really wanted todo with my life. Even then, a whole boat load of luck was involved,and the constant shit I need to find a job now threat is everlooming till this day (December 2016).

This book is separated into three main parts, plus some fluff. Ifyoure pressed for time. Read part two immediately, read thepostmortems end the end of each chapter in part one, then read the restat your leisure.

The fluff chapters were written after emails from game devs and fans over thelast three years. Some of these chapters are to inspire, some are tohelp beginners, and some are to give you a reality check.

• Redefining Success
• Get Started with Game Dev When You Dont Know How to Code
• Making Your Apps Accessible to the Blind
• Id Give Anything

The first part of the book are the developer logs of A Dark Room. Iwent back through all of them, and reevaluated what I observed then,with the experience Ive gained from doing this for three years. Ifyoure pressed for time, read the postmortems at the end of each logand then decide if you want to read the original dev entry.

• Building A Dark Room
• Marketing A Dark Room
• A Dark Room Goes Viral

The second part of the book are essays with extremely valuablepieces of advice/knowledge gained over my time as a mobile gamedev. Ive ordered them for you from most important to least important(again, if youre pressed for time).

• Build Games for Mobile
• Making Small, Sustainable Income
• How to Price Your App
• The Ins And Outs of the Review and Ranking System
• How to Market Your Game on Reddit
• How to Contact Apple About Your Game
• App Store vs Google Play

The third part of the book are interviews with other indie gamedevs, editors for mobile gaming websites, and other types of contentcreators. Each one provides a unique perspective of the mobilelandscape and how to succeed (or fail with style).

For those that dont have time to read the interviews. The generaladvice is:

• Build small and quickly.
• Stay true to who you are.
• All of this is hard work.
• Luck plays a huge factor.
• Be genuine when talking to others (dont be a sleazeball, ass wipe marketer).

Success, unfortunately, is a moving target. My own success in the AppStore started off with:

Awesome, I shipped! Holy crap I got some downloads!

Today its:

Damn, my apps only grossed $15k this quarter. After taxes, royalties, andpartnerships distributions, I only netted $5k. Thats near povertylevel in the US for a two person household. Im screwed.

Everyone has their form of this internal monologue:

I cant believe X got so much noterity. My game Y is so muchbetter. I put my heart and soul into it and this shoddy renditionmakes it?!

Ive been on the receiving end of this kind of frustration, herespart of an email Ive received when someone stumbled upon one of myReddit posts:

Ive decided to make an idle game. But a good one. A damn goodone. Something never seen before. And use the income from this trash -to fund games I actually would enjoy making. Such as [New Game X]perhaps. Ive decided to sculpt in shit, in order to eventually sculptin pure gold. It wasnt easy, mind you.

So Ive almost finished this Idle game. And thenIve bumped your reddit thread. And I am worried. Because thistime, it might be too much for me to handle. To digest.

Viral is one thing. But Ive always thought of viral as spotlight. Andspotlight only. So the game has to be good. Otherwise the viraleffect/spotlight will backfire and actually do more harm thangood. Well, apparently - I am wrong. Your game is not that bad. Itsso-so. Decent at best. Ive seen worse, Ive seen better. But such adecent game generating so much commotion and income? On a mobileplatform? In a paid model? It did almost all the things from theForbidden List of Dont. I give up.

How can I redefine success so that I stop thinking like this?

Ive tried my best in reframing rich as a function of time, money,and quality. So ask yourself the question:

How long can I maintain my current standard of living without workinga nine to five?