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[trilby]

Guys I'm curious to know when the best time to launch a game is (if such thing exists).  Mine will hopefully be ready in the next 4 weeks which pushes us real close to the christmas/new year period. 

I'm wondering if sales are affected by seasonal things in my head people are busy, spoending money elsewhere etc. but also come January there will be a whole handful more mobile users with their shiny new iphones etc.

What do you think? Push on or wait a bit...

[Toby]

I'm in a similar situation, and I decided not to push for Christmas. My thinking is that Gameloft, EA, Disney and the like will have their highly polished, well marketed new games out then. As a first game, I really can't compete with that. Despite the influx of new users and people bored over the holiday, I think visibility will be way down.
So my advice is to spend a few extra weeks polishing.

[Muz]

I'd say it's a bad idea, unless you're going for the top 10 market. There'll be a quality game vacuum after New Year's.

You get a little boost (at least in the Google Play market) when you first submit something; best to save that boost till later when people are looking for new things.

I don't think anyone actually buys mobile games as Christmas presents, as you can't wrap it up. But a lot of companies put Christmas deadlines, partly out of tradition, partly because they want to wrap it up and have a long holiday.

[trilby]

Interesting theories guys.  When do you reckon a good time to start pushing is then mid January or as far away as February?

Muz when you say quality game vacuum do you mean a quality time to release new games or a time when big brand quality games will be released?

[Muz]

Er, I mean a bad idea to release low budget games near Christmas. People don't really buy unknown games as gifts anyway, and you can't beat the marketing budgets of a lot of games.

By vacuum, I mean all the big games are aimed at December, and there's nothing on for a while after that, except for the ones that missed the deadline.

I'd estimate around mid Jan - early Feb. Maybe even later. There might be a big market for the kids who got new iPhones, but they need a while before they get bored of the mainstream games, and start to look for games like yours.

[PDS271]

Trilby,

Have you started a website for your game and/or company? Also, have you begun marketing on social media sites?

[trilby]

I have a week off work from today so am going to start. Was thinking initially a developer blog followed by a Facebook page when I start to get the artwork down.  Not really sure what's best to be honest as I have a working barebones game at the mo and not much else

[PDS271]

I think a development blog is a great idea. People love original content, and the key is to update it regularly. I would say at least 2-3 times a week. What happens is that search engines are more likely to recommend sites tat have more original content on them.

Also, get on facebook and twitter as a minimum. Twitter is maybe better than facebook because it really allows you to network with other indie developers. And they love to  help out and hear about what's going on.