This is a crosspost from the GameClosure forum...Brian Austin (jokingly?) asked if I have 100 wives as I've had a few downloads, while songs have been sung of my charm and wit I only have the 1 wife, while she's pretty badass, it still counts as just 1. Oh and a dog, and 4 lodgers.
Like many on this forum, I'm primarily a coder, however I do have a background in finance, economics, franchise models and various business goings-on (my job is a sort of hands-on programmer with a focus on business efficiency, it's complicated to explain here).
Anyhow, I thought it pertinent to talk about my plan now that I'm out of the starting blocks. The game? Button Up!
The game in it's current state is the epitome of JEDUF and MVP - it looks ok and it works. Of course I would love to have a full-time designer that could sweat the details, of course there are bugs, issues, missing features and glaring omissions from my original design. But I can live with those.
I really want to make a living off this game, and that means getting a big userbase. Everything I've read says that the key is to getting the K-Factor right, bang the drum of marketing and advertising, make sure there is regular content updates and that the brand is tight, that'd all be easier if I had a budget and hands-on skills in these areas, but I don't. So the next step would be to find investors or get a loan, which I can't do because I can't prove the game sells, I can only prove the game sells by having a big userbase... Do you see the issue? Catch-22.
Set yourself goals, deadlines and a date to QUIT
Part of my "Mega Sheet" on google drive (click to view)The most important thing for me is to have a "Make or break" date, if I don't hit my targets by the 1st of July, I'm going to ditch the game and do something else.
It might sound like lunacy, but I believe it's vital to have this clause in your gameplan, go off and read about the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" and you will understand why. But more than understanding the nature behind our decision making logic it also lends a sense of urgency, there's nothing like the pressure of a deadline to get shit done! Also, my wife is happy having knowledge of the path ahead.
The 5 goals explained (a little):
- Installs
No explanation needed? I will eventually break this into the usual MUU, MAU, DAU - App Reviews
So people are confident about the quality of the game, I should try to reply to as many reviews as possible so people can see we are active - Facebook Likes
So we have a way to communicate with our players and fans, and to create installs - 3rd Party Articles
So people can hear about the game from reliable sources, will create installs - Revenue
So I can make a living!
I have a hunch that Google uses their usual search-engine logic to contribute to the ranking of games as well as the obvious ones: installs, reviews and revenue. I've read that Apple prioritises revenue above all other metrics, which makes sense. The metrics above might seem a bit disparate, but I'm treating the whole thing as a distributed exercise in SEO.
A Change of RoutineMaking a game is just the first part of a long journey, the next bit is sales, marketing, branding, growth etc. you know, running a business. You've undoubtedly have read that "marketing is a marathon, not a sprint" and I can agree with that on an anecdotal level, it also applies to the other areas of business life.
With that, my routines must change, it's no longer good enough to bash out code all day, nossir, now it's press releases, marketing, finances and (to an extent) HR.
The Old Routine:
- Planning
- Coding
- Forums
- Walk the Dog - I generally don't do lunch, dogs are better anyhow
- More Coding
- Forums
Current Routine:
- Planning
- Contact Indian Websites
- Contact UK Websites
- Walk the Dog
- Coding
- Forums
- Contact US Websites
I'd estimate I'm doing about a quarter of the coding as I used to, which is OK, it just means that changes to the game will be slow to fruition, however I hope to be more suitably knowledgable about prioritising tasks with regard to marketing needs. Over time I hope this routine will evolve into something that is maybe 50% programming and 50% management (assuming other people are on board doing marketing work).
The K-Factor and your To Do listSo you have a mega todo list. Good work. Now you need to prioritise it in a logical manner.
Almost from the beginning I've been assigning K-Factor values to the items on my list so I know how to best prioritise my goings on. For those who don't know, the "K-Factor" is a value you can assign to a game that describes it's "virality", a high K-Factor means your game will grow in existing demographics and spread to new.
Below are some real items from my list, they're in order I would consider their relevance to the K-Factor:
- Share Progress on Facebook
This is great for the K-Factor, it means the friends of the player can see the game, if the story is good, they might install the game! - Local Notifications - tell the user they have full lives etc.
This is pretty good, we want to make sure our existing players keep on playing! - Cache AJAX Calls - so they work "eventually" when data is activated
Makes our data more reliable, thus helps us measure more accurately, useful - Feedback System
It would be great to know if levels are too hard / easy, or that there's a bug - it sounds as though this might be a distraction from agreed goals - Add an about-us on the menu
This adds precisely nothing to the K-Factor it's an ego boost at best
In this way I think it's possible to doze through a mighty long list without losing sight of your goals.
PS - I've a half finished article that explains this in detail, it will appear in due course.InternationalisationEverything I've read tells me that games that are available in the native language of the player tend to fair better regarding uptake and sales. I'm still undecided about when to do this as the game is still evolving; I don't like the idea of re-translating the game, or having piecemeal translations...
The cost element shouldn't be a huge problem as I'm blessed with a lot of exotic friends; the lodgers we have at home are: Italian, Afghan, Bulgarian and Egyptian/Pakistani, I also know: a few Germans, a Frenchman, a Russian family and the local university is twinned with a Malasian uni, so we have that too.
It's on the list, and will be addressed once I'm confident a paradigm shift doesn't knock everything we have for six.
Black Market DealsOn a bit of a side-note, take a look at our first week of Google Analytics data below... something's not right, 4,777 users? That's way off the "official" figures on Google Play (380). After a little research I now understand that Play Store content is replicated into multiple other markets, notably Chinese Android phones aren't bundled with Google Play; players there tend to use one of these alternative APK markets. Essentially I'm happy that it's popular in China, but I'll have to find a way to monetise there - if they go to purchase something my guess is that the alternative market either takes all the money or the purchase simply fails.
So that's pretty high on my list... but complex? Possibly!
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