Discussion How can I learn the game type that will get the most downloads

Hello, I've made a lot of games before, but generally I either left prototypes or made to others for a fee. I want to make myself a game that can get the most downloads.I am aware that there are a lot of different factors in getting a download apart from the game type.But how can I learn the game type that will get the most downloads, other than looking at the most downloaded games on google play? How do I best analyze the most populer current games?

Not: The result will be disappointing i know that but i want to do everything in the best possible way and try myself

 

You've pretty much answered your own question, there. If you want to know what is most downloaded, find places with published sales / download figures and look at them. You'll probably need to do a bit of your own analysis, such as categorising the games.

There are also articles on GameDeveloper.com which analyse such numbers, but note that such analysis is not necessarily predictive of future performance, and can go out of date quickly as market conditions change.

 

Don't.

Here's the thing that people generally don't consider when it comes to "the most downloaded games:"
They're rarely, if ever, unseated by games that are just like them or even improved versions of them.

As an example, I want you to think back to the years 2005-2010 if you can. Back then, everyone on a desperate quest to develop "The WoW Killer." Loads of companies were churning out MMOs in an attempt to unseat World of Warcraft or even get a slice of World of Warcraft's marketshare. Do you know what they got instead?
A whole host of games that nobody remembers, are now largely cancelled, or had to pivot to free to play just to stay above water.

For a more recent example, we can look towards Vampire Survivors, a game that is was largely based on the game Magic Survival, but handled its execution with a lot more effective hooks to make it basically the biggest deal for a while. It took a game that was previously locked to phones, improved its presentation in ways that made it eminently more streamable, but also brought in some of the same techniques that gambling machines do to really keep people tied into its core loop.
How many Vampire Survivors clones can you actually think of that lasted in peoples minds more than a week or two?

When you chase trends, you will always be starting the race at least one lap behind. You'll always spend the start of your game's life playing catch up and by the time you think you're making good progress, the race might even be over. Remember the Minecraft clones? Remember the DayZ clones? Remember all the PUBG clones and how only a tiny handful of them ever stuck? These were games that were developed by major studios with loads of experience and even they tanked for the most part.

Don't chase trends if you want to make money in games.

 

Right, exactly! If I find out that Vampire Survivors is the most successful game on Steam then if I make a clone of Vampire Survivors I should make a lot of money, right? No. Everyone will just say "I want to buy the real Vampire Survivors, not some stupid fake-version that this guy is selling." You can't make successful game by imitating those who succeed.

If you have to ask "what game will sell the best?" then you're already too late. If anyone can answer your question that means that they've already won and you've already lost.

 

While the above is solid advice, I think it's worth keeping this bit in mind:

There's a huge difference between wanting to know what's selling well and having decided to clone it.

 

There's a lot less than you'd think, honestly. If you're not able to really analyze the nuance of both how and why those things are popular, something much easier said than done, you're not prepared for that easier. On top of that, even if you can do that, the only thing you'll really notice are things that have been lowest common denominator factors in games going back decades.

Analysis is one of those things where people tout it as a big deal in game success, but the problem is that that analysis is almost always done in retrospect because the trends in games that indies can effectively implement are constantly changing and shifting much faster than they can develop an effective product in.

 

Is this meant to be a response to what you quoted?

 

I would like to mention that I am talking about mobile games because I think the world is completely different on PC. For example, thousands of copies of CS:GO came, but only a few survived, as you said, it is very difficult to compete.

However, as far as I see on mobile, things are not like that, I look at the games that have been popular lately, and most of them have the same mechanics, gameplay with diffrent theme. If we look at Endless runner-style games, most of them are Subwey Surfer copies, but they have a lot of downloads. For example, I saw a game called Falcon Dash, it is completely a copy of Subway Surfer, everything is the same. But it still has over 100K downloads though.

I heard in a youtube video that people prefer mechanics they already know they don't want to try new games on the phone mostly and i agree with that for majority.

 

Yeah but also a bit of it is because I misread because I was one foot out the door when I replied.

 

I don't know numbers these days, but on mobile I doubt that 100k downloads is really a success any more.

Right, but keep in mind that the games visible on mobile are usually the top ones. You might find a dozen Subway Surfers clones which have a bunch of downloads, but I suspect that if you could look for them you'd see that there are hundreds or thousands which have basically zero downloads.

Just looking at what's common among the good stuff isn't enough.

Are you looking at "hyper casual" games, by any chance? It could be worth reading a bit into those and the business models around them, because they're very much a numbers game.

It didn't seem to be talking about what I said at all.

 

It's more elaborating on the second half.

 

Brotato is a thing. And most successful games are variations of what came before them, very rarely a genre pioneer is successful because a market doesn't exist for the thing. Brotato succeeds because it doesn't copy Vampire Survivors 1:1, it gives its own take on the formula that Vampire Survivors popularized. And just because you can't unseat the top 0.001% hits of the gaming industry doesn't mean the game can't be successful. It's far safer to develop and market for an existing user base rather than risk it with something unseen before that no one is searching for.

The lesson here is that if you want to trend chase, do it early enough before the niche is overly saturated.