How short can a paid mobile game be?

Hi everyone, as a new mobile game developer I have been gravitating toward shorter, simpler, replayable games as they not only fit my personal taste but most importantly leave more time for developing interesting game mechanics as opposed to detailed art and large volumes of content (I'm inclined to think they are a perfect fit for the solo developer for these reasons). It is of interest to me that they can be extremely successful even as a paid app (e.g. Super Hexagon, Desert Golfing, Impossible Road, Alone, Dead Runner) since I would like to release my first game in this category.

My question is, how short/simple can a replayable game such as a runner be and still be seen to be worth at least $0.99 on the Play Store? The dev behind Super Hexagon mentioned that the original concept came from a one-day game jam and the final product (although perfectly complete in my mind) I don't imagine took very long at all. Although some games seem to be extremely short/simple they seem to me to almost always fit into the 'achingly beautiful minimalist usually-pixel-art' category which is not really my forte and which seems to carry with it some sort of special value. To put things in perspective, my game will include assets from Unity's free projects

I personally prefer games to be very minimalist without tacked-on levels and (unlike many people it seems) have no trouble parting with $0.99 for 5 minutes of the right kind of fun. However with the app store full of AAA games for free (with IAP of course) I'm wondering if the expectation will be there for paid games to have some minimum volume of content.

Thanks for your thoughts, William

 

They can be as short as you want them to be. But you probably want the people to keep coming back to the game playing it over and over again. The longer they are playing the better it does with ranking, the user might be playing your game and his friend sees him playing it asks whats that -- oh its game x (maybe he buys it himself).

 

I wouldn't pay for an endless runner unless it blew me out of the water, both visually and gameplay-wise. Too many solid free ones available, that are enjoyable even without making use of their IAP.

If you are making a simple runner using Unity Asset store assets, I don't think you'll gain a lot of $0.99 buys.

 

No idea why anyone would make a paid game for iOS anymore. You'll just sell almost no copies.

 

You would need to have really good production values to sell a paid mobile game in which you might as well try for a steam game. If you look at some of the top paid mobile games they are infact steam games - 5 night at freddies, goat simulator and plague inc.

 

Hey thanks guys, so there really is no taboo limit in your experiences, that sounds great as I think the return period is more than sufficient for guaranteeing the buyer that they're getting what they want. I just don't want to break some 'moral code' and get 1 star reviews for trying to be a ripoff.

Far as paid apps are concerned, well that might be a topic for another day, but I've never seen data to suggest that ads are worth it unless your game is played a LOT, and also I personally buy mostly paid games as I 1) dislike ads and IAP and 2) actually feel good buying something if its worth it, and even if it doesn't hold me long I don't mind losing 99c for a bit of pleasure. And there is evidence that paid simple/short games can succeed although I know most have a history (and connections to press?) in the business.

I'm still open to 'free' considering the prevalent mindset, and I wouldn't mind seeing more data on Unity Ads though although there is virtually nothing added to the review thread for months

Far as Steam is concerned it doesn't seem incredibly easy to get there and the game I'm developing lends itself well to mobile I think. I'll probably see how it goes as a paid app and then either switch to free or make a lite version (if Android have no probs with that).

Cheers, William

 

Ads alone won't make you enough money for you to quit your day job. Pretty much you must have compelling IAP. But more than that, you usually can't just add in the IAP last minute, because they won't be compelling in that case. You have to kind of build the game around the IAP. And making compelling IAP itself is a HUGE chore with a lot of time involved. Add to that the fact that you hate IAP...

Now don't think about your own preferences. Most people don't mind the occasional ad or IAP's as long as it's not "pay to win". It should be possible to win without buying any IAP. That's the moral way.

 

Hi Jerotas, thats the thing its too simple (its a 3d asteroid runner), has not been designed with IAP in mind and I don't really want it to be. Although I hope it is pleasurable and addictive

That said I have no moral contention with IAP at all and I understand that (as you pointed out) there certainly is nothing wrong with it if you are giving some sort of complete experience for free. I guess I just don't get it how anyone can be stingy about 99c and I respect those who have succeeded at grabbing people's attention with quality over quantity (esp. Desert Golfing, I would have hated a menu and tacked on levels). Like I said, if there is something I like, I feel particularly good paying for it and don't get all righteous if something fails expectations that are not empirically measurable. But of course my preferences aren't universal and there is overwhelming evidence that people go for free stuff.

I'm open to a lot of suggestions but IAP doesn't fit and ads seem a bit worthless unless the moon aligns with Venus and your app goes 'viral'. I guess I will put up a showcase thread to get more ideas specific to the game.

Cheers, William

 

@Zaladur, the only thing I'm really using are asteroids, though it must be said they account for much of the scenery at any given time, and I have put a lot of effort into composition to make the scene tie together, which I think is more important than having exceptionally beautiful and detailed art.

 

Ok then maybe you should think about making a free version that a player can play just long enough to addict them, and then it ends. They need to buy to get the full game. One IAP only.

The thing is that people want to try before buying, but with a purely paid game there's no way, so most won't do it. A lite free version means zero barrier to entry. That's the most important part of free games.

 

Heres the problem 60k new apps released each month, and only a third of users are even trying new apps (only 3 a month).

1. There may be over 1.2 billion apps in the App Store, but it appears most people are content to use the apps they've already downloaded.
   
   A staggering 65.5% of U.S. smartphone users fail to download any new apps each month, according to comScore's recent mobile app report.
   
   Even though people are using the apps they have more than ever, only approximately a third of U.S. smartphone users choose to give a new app a try, with this remaining third downloading an average of three apps per month.
   
   
   
   
   Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-apps-people-download-per-month-2014-8#ixzz3NVirE2qM
   
   Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-apps-people-download-per-month-2014-8#ixzz3NVhmGnLr
2. Currently, there are 1,252,777 apps available in the App Store, and as many as 60 thousand apps are added per month – and this rate is itself growing. In 2013, 453,902 new apps were released in the Apple App Store, exceeding adjust's prediction of over 435,100 new apps by 4 percent. https://www.adjust.com/assets/downloads/AppleAppStore_Report2014.pdf

 

@jerotas, sound advice there, thanks.

@Aiursrage2k, nothing like a bit of statistics to bring you back to reality, 60 thousand a month wow! Thanks for the links

 

Interesting that some of the top paid mobile games were from Steam. Is volume that low now on mobile games that being successful on Stream is a ticket to success on mobile? I do know gaming on Facebook has mostly dried up to more reasonable levels - for a while it seemed every friend one had on Facebook was playing games on Facebook.

I made one runner that was worth $0.99 cents for sure using Unity Free 4.6.1, the Infinite Runner Kit Pro, and various art work from the asset store. I didn't write a line of code but did have to get some bugs fixed and alter some materials and textures which I know not much about.

Despite the fuss about non-originality if you use assets from the asset store, especially art wise, fact is, unless you own famous IP - one zombie character is like another and one anime character is pretty much like another. It's a non-factor, especially since you can do a bit of texture altering rather easy. I looked in the last 2 days on App Annie and it's easy to see the 3D art is Poser or DAZ or stock and looks good when presented correctly. Although many manage not to do so. Same with the 2D art. You don't have to browse through many games to recognize the same art styles over and over.

Besides all that: the biggest games I've see at Apps Annie are using a style I've thought is, well, not very good or interesting at all (e.g. Clash of the Clans) or far too busy (e.g. Candy Crush Saga). It seems those were the styles used in the late 80s when I decided to stop playing video games. It's pretty clear these games are about keeping fingers busy more than strategy or fun.

There are runner games from Sega (Sonic the Hedgehog) and Zynga (licensed Looney Tunes characters) that are good but I'll be straight up with you - you can do the same yourself easily minus the pre-owned intellectual property and preferential treatment companies like Zynga and Sega get in product placement. So don't feel bad if you fail. And Unity's come a long way to make it so easy and work with enough CPU/GPU power.

I messed up in naming my game though - unfortunately the search engines for Amazon and Google Play to my surprise put far more weight to keywords in the game title then in the keyword section or description. :-(

Nevertheless I changed it in a couple of days to free well because although it was fun enough and not annoying with begging for IAPs or advertising it's really just the foundation of the game I want to make and so in that sense was a good learning experience that I can use to expand to create a game that's more original.

So 2 downloads for me - one download from a friend for his boy and another I don't know. I myself haven't actually downloaded but did do a genre search based on 'christmas games' and it showed up on page 31 despite being days old. Sorry bubba, no one gets a fair chance like that. If you change the sort from 'Relevance' to 'New & Popular' makes the search much less relevant as that just brings up the pre-existing IPs and already established titles with release dates truthfully a non-factor. And this on Amazon a less popular app & game store. On Google Play in 5 pages of listings and no way to sort by date of release or any other way my game doesn't even show up. A post to Facebook on my personal page would have gotten 2 more downloads had I released to iOS by friends
children. It's not insulting - these are adults with busy lives.

No advertising and I can truthfully say I got about what I expected with regards to downloads. It's the listings and lack of available sort criteria that were cripplingly stupid and I can't take credit for that. Look, if I ain't going to wade through pages of listing to find my own game you can bet Joe Cool ain't going to either.

If you checked out Apps Annie for the various app stores the past week you'll see a surge in popularity for non-gaming apps like LinkedIn, Facebook, & Pandora. Fact is the expensive tablets & phones go to the earners in the household. Children get the hand-me-downs and cheap HW. Trouble is Unity doesn't really work "almost easily" well on mobile until you get the duo & quad core CPUs and Android 4.4. Sorry folks - grownups with $800 iPads & Androids are not going to spend a lot of time searching for games. Most games I see are targeted to teenage boys.

So in summary just a heads up at what to expect on average so learn modeling and programming and enjoy them - just don't expect to get rich. If you want to be business-like stay on Unity Free and target in the asset store very
carefully for your needs.

So make your runner & release to Steam if you get the votes or whatever they do. Realize though a lot of the voting is rigged.

 

Terraria, Surgeon simulator, are also steam games. Those games probably would have sold on any platform they were on. I just think the only people buying games on mobile are at least for the most part "real gamers" (who want higher quality games, so probably that will sell on steam will sell on mobile).

 

thanks @goat I think asteroids would fit the bill as something you could buy stock and work in without too much trouble. Interesting about keywords, I was thinking about them today and coming up with searchable words.

I thought perhaps a paid app can stand out a bit more since nobody seems to be trying it and this might even out the disadvantages a bit but maybe thats not the case. Edit: Although, I'm well aware of the absolute importance of marketing and will no doubt do plenty on that front.

And also, it's rare to me to find a game from a newish developer with detailed art that doesn't look way too busy. For me, probably my most important criteria visually is lack of busyness and simplicity of play. @Aiursrage2k maybe I'm an exception, I don't whip out a mobile with a four inch screen to play a sniper in battlefield vietnam. I just want some good old hedonic stimulation and I don't even need a game to pretend that it is putting in the effort as long as it hits the right notes and is reasonably pleasant to look at. I'd rather wait til I get home and put on some earmuff earphones to play Splinter Cell or something.

I'll have a look at steam though I thought games had to be PC-sized and of exceptional quality to get on there.

 

It's true. You'd need to be well-known or deliver such a premium experience people can't resist. Probably, that's not an infinite runner.

 

No not really (there is air control, bad rats and other crap that gets on steam), but I meant more of this way - imagine you wanted to sell your game on steam now think of that as a benchmark for selling your game on the app store. If nothing else it might help you sell a few more copies

 

Don't spend money on advertising.

And a stock infinite runner is still fun and easily extendable out of the genre of infinite runner. An infinite runner makes a great starting point for an easy game that you can expand at your leisure.

FPS and other genres - less so.

Personally, I never thought that I'd make a lot of money so I want to encourage you to make a game that is fun for you to both play and create but do it in a way that the game can grow to be something you can expand your programming and modeling skills in Unity and Blender. An Infinite Runner is the ideal starting point.

When people do that maybe the dearth of originality in the app stores will cease. Unity really is getting to the point were that will be possible if you think fun and enjoyment for yourself rather than what's popular - because let's face it we are not so different, excepting those purposely trying to be 'cutting edge', that if you just create something original that you like, a lot of other folk are liable to too.

However, we can't do anything about the app search engines or preferential treatment big companies and established titles get. If a simple chronological and alphabetical search was not so abused it'd be a different story but I'm not kidding when I said I saw multiple companies/publishers on Apps Annie with 40 - 240 titles each in the space of no more than 2 years.

No way am I going to waste time competing with that, especially since many are funded by various government agencies as startups.

 

@hippocoder Well I think it is possible, I sort of know the guy behind Stratega (paid) and as far as I know its one of his first if not his first game and he didn't really market it for a long time and still made enough to be happy with. Although I wouldn't say it is anywhere near easy.

@goat, I wasn't planning to spend money, just send lots and LOTS of emails. I watched the marketing talk on the Unity website by indiegamegirl and it fits in with my experience in employment and business that contacts and networking is everything.

Edit: I agree with you also about making something you like and I've never even thought of playing an FPS myself on mobile. Although I disagree in that I think indie and mobile can be the place to try something 'cutting edge' such as procedural generation which might be harder to fit into a more detailed and realistic environment such as might be found in AAA games.

 

Oh is that a super short game then? I've only done 7 or so mobile titles (3 for us and 4 for clients) so I wouldn't really know. I can talk about our apps. One of them was a tap bounce game, a platform game and a music app.

The platform game and music app still sell. But interestingly they only make a couple of dollars a day. Both got featured by apple since they're generally high quality. But neither were enough to convince us. The free tap game made the most money with ad revenue.

For clients we did an infinite runner, a shooting game and a few others, and all of those made more being f2p. It seems to me what I said is accurate from my POV but I'm sure there's always an exception.

Should you rely on exceptions or rules?

In any case you will probably not want to sell a short game or a game lacking in quality in any area. In any case you might be the one to buck the trend, it seems your mind is made up.

 

@hippocoder that's kind of depressing. I thought paid wasn't that bad (I only have one paid game under my belt, so I can't compare with how f2p does financially).

I assume the platform game is the other brothers, but which game is the tap bounce game? (if you don't mind me asking of course).

 

Yes, that's a problem - there is plenty of quality and more and more turnkey quality. Not that that is the main factor - the main factor is getting noticed in the volume published.

The rules are only your starting point and you grow by allowing exceptions to those rules that don't harm others.

Infinite runners aren't short games and are for all intents and purposes the same thing as Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, and all those 2D platformer games out there. They are easy to extend and create you own unique fingerprint on.

Exceptions are the rules that the OP uses to alter the stock version of the infinite runner we both assume he's making and make himself an original game that might be his break though financially and artistically.

That's why I think it's a good ideal to start super simple with an infinite runner and expand his skill set. If he has the HW already he can be published for less than $100 although for his first game it's primarily walking him through the entire process once so he knows how to handle it better when he comes to the plate with something more original though still not any easier to get noticed. Your success will really come down to word of mouth if you do something good and original.

 

@hippocoder it isn't really a super short although definitely simple graphics, its a strategy game probably with high replayability but I haven't really played it.

Thanks for giving examples, and I certainly may be wrong about ad revenues being worthless compared to paid apps (and not because they make a hell of a lot). Its hard to find anyone willing to give out clear numbers on ad revenue, probably because of terms and conditions etc.

I'm thinking that for now, since I have 1 level (though it is endless!) I will whack some ads in and use it to get me some data. If it doesn't go well I might add some more stuff and try paid.

 

@goat, I am trying to make something original and unique and certainly something different would be a help in getting people to buy a type of game that has been done over and over again. Hopefully I'll succeed in this. However, as I've been at it for a while now with a few unfinished projects lying around I'm trying to keep it in my mind to not wait until I'm sure I've got moondust before I go to market.

In fact I've toyed with the idea of spending a few months making extremely simple one or two week games. This might not make me so popular in some quarters but is probably essential for me to do at this point to gain a bit of momentum as well as giving me the freedom to try a variety of new things in a relatively short space of time.

 

If you have an ideal and the assets PM me & I can help you more privately if you get stuck coding or with minor artistic considerations. However, I'm not going to create a model from the ground up or write/integrate over a few dozen lines of code. No borrowing of any assets I have paid for but I will offer reasonable help for one project only. Make it small as I have a small internet bandwidth & a small 240GB HD on my computer.

I came up with an ideal for you that I feel is original (I'm not a gamer so I can't be sure) but it's cost you $150 in assets you need to buy (from the asset store not from me - I already own them), some art and some frameworks (also asset store), as well as $50 to publish to all the stores but iOS / Mac. These would be one time costs but given the flood of apps on the market I'm not going to lead you down a path spending $200 with success very unlikely.

 

Look, just do it. I'm actually a bit of a maverick, I often buck trends, but I do that with a fairly large pool of experience to draw on, I think others can too but it can easily backfire. If you can avoid it taking too long to make, then the experiment is yours to play with, and I doubt anyone here can truly predict the outcome.

 

I made a dual lane infinite runner for a college kid out of UAE based in London a month or two back. He has racked up 500 bucks in ads since about 2 weeks back on android. Maybe because it was dual lane? Trust me..this kid doesn't know how to market. He needed a hand held every step of the way.

 

Yes, word of mouth is the only reasonable hope for us peons.

 

@goat thanks I've got enough I think to put some ads in and drop it into Android. I'm a decent programmer and although I enjoy making every aspect of my game, art has always been way too tedious at least at the level I've tried. Thanks for the offers.

@hippocoder thanks for the encouragement, I started with ideas of making an asset-laden shmup even though I don't really go for them myself, just because it seemed like a cool idea to do something graphically awesome. But I notice that the games I like the most, and often the ones that do spectacularly well such as Super Hexagon are more like semi-original ideas with exremely minimalist graphics. I think its a better idea trying lots of things to come up with original mechanics and not to spend too long on graphics, since it seems the more detailed they are the more prone they are to disappoint if you're not that great at it.

 

No problem, I like Tempest too.

 

very cool game

 

Why? Have you got anything other than empirical evidence to support this statement?

 

I haven't read all the replies and comments so sorry if I repeat something but I don't think the length of the game necessarily matters, even for paid apps. I think as long as your game has really good quality you should be fine. Take Monument Valley for example. That game is only an hour (at the most) and it sells copies like crazy. The price for that app is $4.99 and on sale has been $2.99. People still buy it.

You also mentioned having the game be re-playable. I think if you do that then you have nothing to worry about. It will basically come down to is the game good and how well you advertise it most likely.

 

I prefer a game, no matter how long or short to ultimately have 100% re-playability.

I do stuff AAA games don't do anymore like they did 15 years ago.

I obviously make the game, which normally are Multiplayer games.
But Multiplayer games are only as good as you make them, eventually they will most likely get old.

So I do things, extra things that most people (the younger) generation at least, wouldn't look for.
It's almost like a trademark of mine LOL. I ALWAYS, on every single level, add secret spots, whether it leads to this bad a** weapon, a place to hide, a place to literally hide behind and never be seen to kill a player.

I just love how games like Duke Nukem3D, Goldeneye N64, Perfect Dark N64 did Secret Spots.
I will always let players know at some point there is secret spots on the map(s).
That way it keeps them on a mission to always try and find the secret spots.
Some easier than others, but I think it really helps with keeping people playing, because it's not the main mission
to the game, but it's almost as if it's a side quest to try an find all the secrets.
Just to say yeah I found all the secrets noobs lol.

 

@N1warhead I agree with you, for me unless a game is an incredible work of art or something then it should always have an element of replayability which basically equates to an element of controlled randomness. Even a relatively small novelty can make an age old story redigestible, as every author knows! And if it doesn't, it should try to be as abstract as possible so the player can inject their own novelty into it every time they play it. Otherwise the atmosphere is totally ruined for another playthrough.

 

Just thought I'd mention another game I think is fantastic, I don't usually go for shmups but mok force is brilliant

 

@Billy4184

Yeap yeap