Arnold Kim’s recent blog post “The State (and Growth) of the iPhone Gaming Market” confirms a nagging suspicion many of us have had about Apple’s App Store for some time now: Things are not going to get easier for independent developers any time soon.
The biggest change, however, is the influx of mid-sized to large developers who are invading the App Store space. Companies like EA and Gameloft are really ramping up production of their App Store games. In March, EA announced 14 games coming in 2009. That’s a new EA game every 2 and a half weeks being released. Gameloft has ramped up their production as well and seems to be releasing games at least as aggressively. And these are high quality titles.
The big studios are coming!
Like any large machine, it takes a while to get things moving but the large studios have deemed the App Store a viable platform and are finally moving forward full steam. “What is the big deal, haven’t those studios been putting out games since launch?”, one might ask. Well up until this point the big studios have been releasing their big name, license branded game at price points around $9.99. The medium sized studios seemed to be happy releasing their polished titles in the $4.99 - $6.99 range. Indy developers were happy to fight it out in the $0.99 - $4.99 sandbox, where they could still make good money with a good game due to much lower development costs. So what has changed?
First of all, the quality level for gaming has been continuing to increase while the prices of games continues to drop. Major developers have been adjusting their prices downward in order to find the right pricing. At this point, I see $4.99 as a bit of a ceiling for quality no-name brands. If you price yourself above that you’re competing directly against Gameloft and EA titles. And the problem is that margin is getting narrower.
Over the past month or so, I’ve started seeing some price drops and launch prices that give me chills, and confirm Arnold’s observation. Here are just a few.
- Sim City - $4.99
- Scrabble - $4.99
- Yahtzee Adventures - $2.99
- Wolfenstein - $1.99
Prices for the highest quality games look to be dropping, and soon the day will come when indie games have to compete head to head in price and exposure with games attached to movie and classic game licenses, backed by ad departments and marketing teams.
What can we do?
Do you know what it takes to be an indie developer?
What will indie developers do to keep a foothold in the App Store and remain competitive? I think indies need to be strong in a couple major categories to give them the edge needed to survive in tomorrow’s (and today’s) App Store.
- Creativity
- Branding
- Cross Promotion
- Community Involvement
Creativity
Indie developers easily have the advantage here. The big major studios don’t make innovation a high priority. If they have big name game licenses which are guaranteed to make money, they will spend all their time porting said games to every new platform. Indie developers explore new game genres and control schemes and are able to come up with amazing new experiences like Eliss and Zen Bound (indie developed, Chillingo published).
Branding
Anyone who loads up a game that starts with an EA logo splash screen rightly assumes that the game which follows is going to be a quality, polished, fun title. Don’t dismiss the value of good brand identity that will stick in the minds of customers. Put thought and effort into logo and web site design. Get setup on twitter and facebook to become your own PR department. Show some personality, putting a human face behind your brand is something only the smallest studios can do. Let people know there is a real person/people putting their heart & soul into each game.
Cross Promotion
Getting a family of games out there on the store is important. Even more important is letting them promote each other so that one particular games success can be shared by the rest. Cross Promotion is a good way to multiply your efforts to building a following. Repeat customers can turn into cult followers and mini PR machines all their own. Single title developers who haven’t built up a stable might consider banding together with others in the same boat to build a communal brand and cross promote each other.
Community Involvement
Being active in iPhone gaming forums and actively posting to twitter in facebook is the easiest way to get people to know you. Its personal, and develops a much closer bond than any kind of advertising. Being personally available to discuss game development and troubleshoot is something the big name studios can’t do.
In general, indie developers should continue to think on their feet, always innovating and trying new things. Being nimble and resourceful is a luxury the big studios will never have. Will that be enough for most of the current indie iPhone developers to survive? For both ours and gamers’ sake, I sure hope so.
Nice article. Kelsey loves sky burger, hope it’s selling well. What’s next?
Updating Sky Burger, then something new, not sure what yet. Along with constant promotion to try and keep sales high.
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