
Why indie developers can't win on the App Store - nodemaker
http://blog.tapdaq.com/post/67579337537/why-indie-developers-cant-win-on-the-app-store
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bunderbunder
The real reason why indie developers can't win on the App Store: There's just
too @%!@%@ many indie developers.

Let's look at the numbers from a different direction: Apple reports that the
App Store has 1.25 million apps earning $5bn in revenue last year. But 25
companies take half of the App Store revenue, leaving only $2.5bn for everyone
else. That means that if you knocked out all 25 of the biggest earners on the
App Store, the other 1.25 million apps would see their average annual revenue
_double_ to. . . about $4,000 annually. Hot damn! Call home, tell the spouse
to put the Hamburger Helper back in the pantry, the kids are eating at Chucky
Cheese tonight!

Everyone wants to be a game developer. . . but just like every other job that
everyone wants to have, it ends up being a cutthroat business. The big players
- the Apples, the movie studios, the recording studios - certainly don't do
anything to make it better. But even without them it'd still be wretched place
to try to make a living, simply because of sheer volume of competition.
There's something to be said for having a day job to survive on while you're
trying to make it.

As developers we should count our blessings in that department: unlike for so
many other high demand careers, chasing our dreams requires developing skills
that are also highly demanded for less glamorous work. We're fortunate to be
able to practically default into fantastically lucrative day jobs that still
offer reasonably enjoyable work.

By which I mean boring corporate jobs. Working long hours for low pay to go
chase somebody else's dream at XYZ startup is probably the wrong choice here.
Get the boring 40hr/wk corporate job. You'll make enough money to finance the
stuff you really want to do, and better yet you'll have enough free time to
actually do the stuff you really want to do.

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jpea
I don't see this topic as being any different than any other business pursuit.
As a general rule, it takes money to make money. The very pervasive and
(extremely) unlikely perception that your company can "make it" overnight just
by building something well only holds those companies back. Create a solid
business plan, building a product that is "good enough" and backing it up with
a marketing budget has been a tried and true method for decades. The
perception is only further deformed by what we see in the media (Instagram
being sold for billions, SnapChat being wooed, the Twitter IPO, etc). The
quicker you realize that it's harder than a cold day in hell, the quicker
you'll pick your business idea off of the ground and make something based on a
smart business plan.

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macspoofing
My guess(es):

1) They rely on the AppStore to do their marketing for them because you could
get away with that in the early days (or if you make the front-page
consistently). With 1million apps, that's not going to work. Turns out, you
have to do the traditional thing and go and pound the pavement, and market
your games yourself.

2) The price-points are crap. Selling software for $1 is crap-business, and
not every game is compatible with the freemium or subscription model. You
really need the price-point in the $20-40 range to be sustainable. You sell
1million games, and you get $700k?! Moving that many units is a massive
success and yet all it does it maybe cover your development costs and rent.

3) There's a lot of shovel-ware out there, and it's just too hard to punch
through all that noise.

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programminggeek
Ok, the reason "indie" devs aren't doing as well is if you aren't ballsy
enough to charge enough for their apps for them to be profitable.

Consider the $50 game vs $0.99 game. To make the same money from a dollar game
you need to sell 50x as many copies basically. As an indie dev with minimal
budget, making money in a market where significant revenue means significant
volume, it is going to take a lot of advertising to make a dent.

What the bigger companies have done is made games that are F2P with a much
higher value via micro transactions. Their revenue per install might be
something like $10 whereas the indie dev who doesn't want to charge as much
revenue per install might be closer to $5. That means the people with the
higher RPI can advertise more or spend more per install and still be
profitable.

It's not unfair to indies so much as it is that indies aren't charging enough
to make the numbers work. Also, if indies don't have the cash flow to float
that $5 per user over 12 months that it takes to get it, they aren't going to
be able to afford the $2.50 CPI.

The same economics play out in many, many businesses. Business is always a
game of balancing production, operating, and sales costs against revenue.
Whoever is best at that wins.

Maybe indies just aren't very good at business.

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AndrewKemendo
>Overall, King.com spends over $350k (Source: King.com) a day on mobile ads
and it can be assumed that the other 4 developers have ad budgets within this
range.

I have said this other places, but I will repeat it here. Kudos to them for
finding (or creating) a successful niche with high demand. I find it sad
though that sooo much money is going to marketing games that don't push
technology further, or really fundamentally help things get better.

You could argue that if you add up all the marginal increases in
utility/happiness that are gained from playing any of the saga games that it
might be a net gain, but I think that is a stretch. I find it tragic that this
is how the market allocates resources (time and capital).

~~~
cheesylard
Blame the piracy laws. These games are, of course, inherently worthless but
the current policies are propping them up when innovation should be in other
places.

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crusso
That makes no sense. If they were inherently worthless then no one would pay
to play them.

You mistakenly conflate cost to produce with value to consumers. Obviously the
content has value to consumers.

~~~
cheesylard
People only pay for them because they don't have any other choice. If it was
legal to sponsor an Android fork that had a pirate version of the Play Store,
I'm _sure_ all of the hardware manufacturers would be shipping it with their
phones.

~~~
crusso
That's irrelevant. You said that the games were "inherently worthless".

You're attempting to twist the language so words don't mean what most people
think they mean and I'm not buying it.

~~~
cheesylard
Fine, you are correct. I didn't think you were nitpicking my choice of words.

They _should_ be worthless.

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briandear
I hate the king.com people. Their mobile app ads are almost malware. They do
scammy App Store redirects when you're on certain websites. No, I don't give a
shit about candy crush.

~~~
crusso
Yeah, King.Com is pretty aggressive.

The funny thing with Candy Crush is that it's a free app. The only thing that
costs money is if you want to "cheat" to get extra turns and goodies to help
you get past levels. Totally defeats the purpose of playing a puzzle game, as
far as I'm concerned, but they make tons of money off those who are fine with
dishing out cash to see that next level sooner.

~~~
_rmp_
the funny thing with Candy Crush is that it looks like a free app. If you want
to keep advancing levels you will eventually need to pay as the difficulty
will make it near impossible to win without paying...

~~~
crusso
I'm up to level 197, haven't paid a dime.

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runako
If by "win" you mean "be in the top 5 grossing", there may be some meat here.
But it would be surprising for an independent anything to break into the top 5
grossing in any market, software or otherwise, in a few years.

But if by "win" you mean "earn a comfortable living and possibly modest
riches" then I doubt this thesis has any legs at all.

~~~
darkchasma
The irony that the top developers started as indie developers for the most
part, and simply grew their business with successful products seems to be lost
on the author.

~~~
mkaziz
Assuming that that's true (idk if it is), they were there first, when
offerings were more limited and the big wigs hadn't gotten in. My little
hypothetical appstore game isn't going to compete with offerings like Angry
Birds into which probably many man-years have gone in already. OP's point is
that it's harder to get in NOW.

~~~
darkchasma
When is this ever not the case? It's harder to own land now than it was when
the government was giving it away for free. That in no way makes it impossible
to own land, and no one says stupid things like "Why people can't win the land
grab in America".

Build a good product, it will sell. Build an innovative product that scratches
the itch of millions and you get onto the top 5 list.

What I see far too often is developers passing off a derivative or poorly
executed idea, and complaining that the marketplace is the problem. It's not.

~~~
mkaziz
I don't see why you're looking at it as an either-or case. I'm sure there are
plenty of poorly executed ideas in the marketplace, but that doesn't
invalidate my point. To use your land analogy, it's now just getting more and
more expensive to buy land in America - just as it's getting more and more
expensive (in terms of cost and effort) to put out an application that meets
the market's increasingly higher standards.

I'm not saying something is WRONG with the market, I'm making an observation
about the state of the market.

~~~
darkchasma
There are a million apps, and only 5 people that can 'win' the app store at
any time. To say it's more difficult to rocket to the top is an inane and
obvious observation. It has nothing to do with indie development, it's about
the fact that there are 5 top spots for one million apps. By definition,
99.999995% aren't going to win, regardless of whether they are indie or not.

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pyamparala
@nodemaker I think this raises some really interesting points. Based on my
experience moderating an exclusive app entrepreneurs group on Facebook I have
seen this come numerous times where an indie developer starts a post in
frustration complaining how he needs a huge marketing budget to go up in the
ranks on App Store. I hope either Tapdaq or somethings else can provide an
effective solution for this problem.

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joeconway
What's the group called?

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slazaro
Well it's "exclusive" so I wouldn't expect a straight answer ;)

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Fogest
Mojang is on the list and they were an Indie developer and they don't do
advertising.

~~~
TillE
I often see people treating Minecraft as an unrepeatable exception to all
rules, and maybe to some extent it is. But it also proves a number of points:

Graphics don't matter as long as you have a coherent style. Pre-written
"story" is not critical to games, and enabling player creativity is something
that will be eagerly received. One person really can make a great game all by
themselves in a reasonable amount of time.

Amusingly, the only lesson learned by most developers is that people really
want block-based worlds. Nah. If you look at Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress as
just the _beginning_ of what enabling player creativity in a simulated world
can look like, that way lies the future.

The indie road to success is the path not taken by AAA games. There's so much
potential for what games can be that hasn't been explored by mainstream
publishers, and Minecraft is a superb example of that.

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melling
Any advice on cheap marketing, or simply how to get the word out?

I've tried emailing a few blogs to get reviews, and now I'm trying to use
Twitter (@h4labs). I'm building iOS language learning software. The apps could
still use work but I think I'm approaching "useful."

The one interesting observation that I have is that since I wasn't making many
sales at $1.99, I raised my price on Monday to $2.99. As of this morning, I
already have as many sales this week as last week. In other words, for the
people who want my app, the extra dollar doesn't mean much.

By the way, constructive, even brutal, feedback is always welcome.

[http://appstore.com/h4labs](http://appstore.com/h4labs)

Back to work... gotta get one more release before the holidays.

~~~
fieldforceapp
Not marketing advice per se, but I highly recommend subscribing to Hack Design
[1] and giving more thought to not just the visual design and presentation of
your apps, but also the audience. My personal opinion is that non-game indie
devs need a niche, what's yours? If you're selling to school kids, then find a
good hook. For example, public middle schools in California require Spanish
fluency. Sell to the parents of those kids perhaps? Or if you're going after
the international tourist, try to combine the language skills with travel info
some how: "We'll teach you Spanish before you're plane lands!"

Also, I'm sure I'm not the first one to say it but you've gotta move to iOS7.
Do the easy thing and try using all native color scheme. As a design exercise
[2] it will help you focus on content.

Good luck!

[1] [http://hackdesign.org/](http://hackdesign.org/) [2]
[https://medium.com/design-ux/7348987453e3](https://medium.com/design-
ux/7348987453e3)

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PhilipA
The problem is the ranking- and discovery system. If you are not on any of the
charts, you won't be seen. If you would remove the charts, and find some other
recommendation system, it might give small app companies a chance, instead of
being only about the $$$.

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ig1
There are certainly indy games that have got to the top of the appstore chart.
Pou and Plague Inc are two examples (I believe both are single person
studios), neither of which have significant viral components either.

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Jagee6529
I came to a very similar conclusion while writing
[http://www.nGage.tv](http://www.nGage.tv). I cannot compete with the "big
boys" by myself but by empowering developers with a community and an API
designed to support the website "theme" (in my case coupling streaming content
with social engagements) you have a platform that has a chance of competing.

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al2o3cr
Shorter indie devs: "What's the music industry? Surely we aren't anything like
that..."

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GotAnyMegadeth
If only I could discover new games/developers at the rate of 1 - 3 an hour,
whilst working...

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wturner
I'm curious if these 'elite' developers budget out a chunk of their profits to
buy their own apps and/or free-to-play 'points' simply as a means of keeping
their games on the top grossing lists.

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vegashacker
I doubt it. What would be the point of paying your way into the top grossing?
I'd bet that almost all "normal" users go only to Top Paid (cause that's the
default) and Top Free (cause it's free).

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BigBalli
I agree with what other have already said. The main challenge is the noise in
the store… way too many crappy apps that still take up space.

However, you need to define "win". Just like in any other business if you want
to make millions you need to put in big cash (just look at real estate). If
you win by having a revenue that allows you a comfortable life, it's still
doable.

I've been an independent developer for 4+ years and have been living on it
since. I make mostly passive revenue with my apps and play tennis 2-3 times a
week during the day. I certainly will not complain.

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colin_jack
The bit about app store search is so true, in general I feel the app store
could get a lot more money out of me if they improved the search functionality
and added more linking between apps.

