[Android]Why did my Game Fail??

I recently released my game on play-store which failed very badly. Can you guys please suggest me where my Game failed, how can i improve my game? What extra features should i add more to get more play-ability?

(Link for Game) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ScrambleGames.Freeway&hl=en

PS : i am not posting this for downloads , i really want to improve my Game. Please Delete if this post is in wrong Place.

 

What does "failed very badly" mean?

If you just mean that you didn't get the big sales you were expecting... well that's normal. The vast majority of mobile games get total downloads and revenue very close to zero. Much of that has little to do with the game itself, and a lot to do with how much money is poured into marketing (as well as a fair amount of luck).

Now if people were giving your game bad reviews and saying it wasn't fun, then that would suggest some design flaws we could brainstorm about. But I see you have 86 reviews and five stars. That looks like a success to me.

 

It's not just mobile either. Steam is largely the same with the vast majority of games making very little (less than minimum wage is in the United States). We're past the point you can simply release a good game and have a reasonable chance of success. You have to attract attention to it or it will simply be buried.

https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024976/Let-s-Be-Realistic-A

 

What have you done to build a following for your game? How much promotion have you done for your game, including paid promotion? The mobile app stores are too saturated to expect discovery through them anymore, unless your game is already one of the top downloads. So you need to be trying to grab attention through other means both before and after its launch.

The description of the game that reads like it was put through Google Translate isn't helpful. Your reviews are good, so I'm guessing the issue isn't with the quality of the game itself.

 

"Are you crazy about Speeds and Can you fly through the challenges of Space??
if you think you can, then put on your seat-belt and take the control of your precious Space ship, the only key for your Survival."

Don't take this personally and get upset, but you could do a much better write up to sell the game. If English isn't your strong point, considering paying somebody to do this.

Secondly, it looks like you have good reviews from the people who played it. So the game must be fun. You probably haven't got too many people buying it though because the presentation seems amateurish.

Consider a gameplay video, a trailer, better screenshots. Study best selling indie titles on steam and compare them to yours -- the presentation on the store page I mean.

 

I haven't played because im at work, but what I can take from your writeup...

You don't know where you are, and your precious space ship is your only way out.
Put on your seat-belt and dodge mysterious crystals as you fly through alien canyons of an unknown planet
or race through space debris and meteors to fly further away than you ever have before.

but...
with those ratings, and the fact that you consider it a failure, im inclined to believe that you bought reviews. google knows this, and it wont help your exposure. but bigtime got a good point, make a gameplay video. show it off. let people see how it plays. that will allegedly help a lot. im in the process of putting together a video for my museum. it cant hurt...

edit: also, it hasn't been updated since October. people like "new and improved".
so... improve it, especially right before a publicity rush

 

I'm curious about this as well. How did you get the 86 reviews?

What places have you posted the game to try to build up downloads / a following?

Cheers,

Dave

 

hah, did you read the reviews? this guy has some good friends/family, most of the reviews seem like personal messages.
(nothing wrong with that, its called "marketing and using social media")

 

Agree with EVERYBODY above, great advice!
Something to consider. Is there story, even minimal story elements, in the game?
Giving the player PURPOSE to play your game - beyond "get high score" "how far can you go" is something to think about.

The flappy bird / runner game structure is well worn and - imo - old.
Provide a purpose for the players to play beyond high score.

 

Nope : ) I should of though. An interesting lesson learned, if you have friends and family leave reviews... make sure you tell them to write decent ones.

 

How do you know that your game failed? What made you notice that?

And you have remember, that your game was released, only a few months ago.
Meaning that it'll take some time for it, to get noticed, by gamers.
It is not very often, that a game gets released and it instantly becomes
an instant hit, or a big seller.
I suggest being patient and wait a bit longer, to see what happens
as time passes. And I also suggest doing what the guys told you do.
Make a few youtube gameplay vids.

Or, if you want, try to contact Simmons from yovideogames.
He sometimes plays indie video games, on that channel.

 

PS Just realized this is somewhat of a necro, but here's my thoughts anyway.

Don't take this the wrong way, but this looks like a very beginner game and lacks a lot of style and polish (and probably content). I think the reason for this game not doing better comes down to quite basic things. These are my impressions from looking at the store page images:

1. The first screenshot shows the ship flying though cliffs against a space background. What is a cliff doing in space? What am I doing here?

2. What are the purple ribbons. Are they pickups, obstacles, or random confetti? What do they represent? They look neither attractive nor unattractive, and definitely forgettable;

3. The ship has a normal art style with some amount of details, the cliffs are lowpoly style with no details, and the background is an overexposed photograph with way too much detail. The clash here is jarring.

4. The second screenshot shows the same cliff scene with a puff of cloud in the distance and no ship in sight. What am I looking at exactly?

5. The third picture shows some asteroids, a ship and nothing else. Why do I want to fly through these asteroids? Where is the reward?

Based on these observations I am somewhat confused about what the game is about, except that I can be pretty sure it:

• Doesn't have a clear and impressive art style;
• Lacks satisfying objectives and rewards;
• Gameplay probably very repetitive since the 4 screenshots really only show 2 different scenes with not much going on in them;
• Lack of controls on the screen and lack of menu screenshots hint that there's not much to do in this game and even if there was, there's no way to compete with anybody.

So if the game has these things or you want to add them, you will need to afterward highlight them in the advertising and take screenshots that do a good job of displaying them.

 

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@baarde16 Please quit spamming your game/link in unrelated threads. Last warning.