Sharing is caring - Developers behind the Monument Valley reveal sales figures to public!

Have a look:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/15/mo...the-cost-and-reward-of-making-a-hit-ios-game/

 

Of course, now that you posted this we should begin seeing the clones start to appear in what... maybe 10 weeks or so? lol

 

Ima make one!!!!

JK
haahah.

 

I must confess I never looked at Monument Valley before. I just did and it is an excellent example of what a game should be.

Below are my observations from checking out several videos of the game play.

It proves that I am not the only person who dislikes the modern trend of treating players like they are complete idiots. No tutorials here. No continual tips popping up. It just drops you into the game world tells you how to move and leaves the rest up to you to figure out. Modern game design wisdom tells us this is horrible. Because you should provide tips and tutorials and other such hogwash. But not every gamer is an idiot. This proves a LOT of gamers want to be able to figure it out on their own even if they cannot.

Games should be interactive. If they are not they are not games. Players want to be able to impact the game world. Literally change the world if possible. I recently wrote about this in the Game Design forum. MV is highly interactive in this regard perhaps more so than any other game I have seen. The player is empowered with tremendous control over the game world. In fact, you must change the world to progress. At its core you are simply creating paths where there were no paths. The mechanics support, encourage and require the player to explore and experiment with this world.

The presentation is not stunning as far as detail and such go but it is stunning design wise. The architecture is interesting and, perhaps more important, starts out fairly plain and becomes more interesting as you progress. It is quite possible that players are as captivated by discovering what each new scene looks like as they are about the puzzles themselves. In addition, the isometric perspective is something gamers rarely see these days. But it nearly always provides a unique and interesting "look".

That is what I got from it. Basic game design principles implemented exceptionally well resulted in a very popular game.

 

If you look at the article it says 8 teams members 55 weeks, and the expansion took 29 weeks. I think indies usually bite off more then we can chew and rather then really polishing it.

 

Well done to them, solid short, but high quality game.

I find I enjoyed the first few levels, but then got bored of it quickly after the impressive art style wore off. I would guess this is a factor in the low completion rates.

The game looked amazing on the screenshots, won awards and stuff, and the art style was very attractive, so people made the purchase.

But in terms of 'retention' and 'addictive gameplay' this game had neither.

 

Wow, it actually won awards for the presentation?! I think it has a clean interesting look but am surprised it actually won awards. It definitely doesn't look bad but there are many games that look as good or better I think. I guess maybe it was the subject matter, architecture and things along that line. The isometric design does stand out since it is not seen that often these days. Maybe that is another part of the reason.

I never played it but watching videos it looks like they did an excellent job focusing on basic game design principles.

 

I'm not sure what the awards were for specifically, but from a gamer's perspective, after completing the first few levels I just didn't have this urging desire to carry on playing once the original experience and gameplay had worn off.

 

Isn't 50% completion rate quite high? Especailly for such a casual (broad) game.

 

For such a short game, that's not really an impressive figure. And Forgotten Shores had only a 5% completion rate.

 

Short in comparison to a AAA game, sure. But in terms of a market where most games get played for less than 10 minutes?

 

I'm not talking about AAA, I'm talking about common mobile games like Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga with hundreds of levels that can keep a player going for a very long time.

 

Don't forget Peggle Blast!



(Sorry, nothing of value to add, I just love Peggle Blast )

 

Sure, but of course anything is short in comparison to games that are endless and/or longer than usual. My point is, is the game short in comparison to how long people actually play them for?

Monument Valley keeping my attention for a bit over an hour managed to do about 20 times better than the majority of mobile games I try. Republique managed similar with [me almost finishing] its first episode. For a player like me, who enjoys unique, hand-crafted content, both of those games are long, not short, in comparison to other stuff on their platform. Comparing them to things I play on my PC, consoles or Vita, they're also well priced for their length.

 

Check out The Journey Down on iOS, great point and click adventure

 

It would be really interesting to know their marketing plan and budget share, planned to spend on ads, etc. Also, I don't know why, but it seems their Android version has ingame purchases, so how is this not freemium (apart from the fact that it has initial cost)?

 

IAP != "freemium". For starters it's not "free" to begin with, and the IAP isn't a micro-transaction, it's a full-sized expansion. "Freemium" means that someone gives you a free game with the intention of getting many small purchaes from you over a period of time. The game doesn't fit that model at all.

 

Well I didn't know that this game only offers DLCs. I thought that those IAP are just like in evey single game on the market right now. However I bought the game and I see that I was wrong. The game itself is very interesting, pretty looking and immersive. I would give it 5/5 and I really hope that freemium will end sooner or later. I know, some developers don't implement a lot of paywalls, but majority does and it freaks me out =)