Unity Game Developer Contest 2016

I got one saying:

 

I think your right, which is sad for me because i really did think i could grow organically on windows store...
better get started on marketing, or do i just try to make a better game

 

I had problems with search visibility as well, but anyhow here was my submission! Ape of Steel 2

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/ape-of-steel-2/9nblggh5nxch

 

@Mintah Looking Good! so how did you decide on pay first vs free to play?

heres mine
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/avolight-us/9nblggh6bqmg

 

@AVOlight Thanks! Cute game as well

I decided to go with pay (with trial) instead of free to play because:

I've developed many games on the Windows platform, since the unity Beta days on Windows Phone 8. My games sometimes have had downloads above the 100,000 mark... one even over 500,000. The very first few games I made I went down the paid route, which generated no sales because the games were simple endless games. I tried using Microsofts advertisement framework, which at the time made me a couple pennies of profit. Finally, Google came into the picture and released their admob framework. I integrated it into one of my games (Jolly Fish) that had an outstanding amount of downloads (over 500,000 downloads). I made about 1000$ of ads, however... if this had been on another platform the eCPM rates would have been 10x higher. After some time half-way into windows phone 8.1 I found that the admob ECPM rates were very low, and google wasn't offering much support for the new O.S updates. I released Ape of Steel (the original) onto windows 10 during the first Unity Windows developer contest. At the time it was for Windows 8, and so I initially made the game 100% free to help me get a better chance of winning the contest (hoping that popularity would help me). The game made the front page of the windows store, got about 70,000 downloads, and soon after I made it paid. After that, I saw a more consistent pattern of paid downloads; I was making about 60$ - 80$ for about a year. I also made a few games that had in-app purchases, and those generated about 2 - 5 in app purchases per month.

Okay so, why did I go paid this time? Well, based on the past I wrote above, I felt like this time I have a whole Audience of gamers who played Ape of Steel 1, and will want to see how the game improves in Ape of Steel 2. They get a 1 trial to give it a shot and hopefully they get attached to make a purchase. Ape of Steel 2 is a game that I worked on over the span of 2 years, and I don't want the game to be spammy and full of free to play junk. As well, AdMob doesn't support windows 10 AND, I tried Microsofts new advertisement framework in my other game Log Hopper, and it has really low rates.

 

Has anybody had any issues with audio in there game? All sounds & music were working fine before and after I uploaded. Days after being on the store, there were no problems. Checked in today to play my game and I've noticed all audio is muted now. No sound what so ever. Strange.

 

@Mintah Thank you for the detailed answer !

this is my first game, and its very simple and endless, i've got a lot to do and a lot to learn
Thanks again

@WildLogicGames Don't have sound in my game yet but, had an issue with in-app purchases that stopped working on the same build that was working, (several hours later) turned out to be an issue with my windows computer itself

 

@AVOlight Hmm ok. There aren't any issues with sound on my computer. The build works as intended on my pc, audio is working fine. It was working in store. Maybe the Microsoft team have disabled the audio because it's causing issues with some users? I dunno I've had 1 reported hang out of all users. It definitely had audio before and upon entering the competition.

Orrrr maybe the music is so terrible they did me a favor and disabled it haha

 

@WildLogicGames use Microsoft chat support here its much faster than the email support

 

@AVOlight thanks! I tried reporting the problem then got a - There was a problem processing this request. Please try again after a few minutes message lol. Whilst i'm here, i'm interested to hear what you think to the below screenshot? Where I've circled, do you think the shadow of the cloud could get away with not casting properly over the land? Or should it be a detail that isn't over looked.

 

@WildLogicGames yea that error message is an issue in some of the support categories, i tried selecting some other ones and it worked, also i was using the new edge browser (Firefox doesn't seem to show the dashboard correctly)

depends on the time it takes to solve it and the value you would otherwise get on other areas like sound, or adding content etc..., it doesn't look like it would be easy to solve

by the way would you be alright sharing how many downloads it took for your game to show up in its category in the store?

 

@AVOlight Right well i think i may just hover them over sea, or land without edges ect. Probably take too much time for such a minor detail i reckon.Yeah sure it's currently had 44 downloads. Advertisement is the bane of all indie developers!

 

@WildLogicGames Thanks for sharing the download numbers, i've got 3

 

@AVOlight you just need to advertise, you'll get more in time. This game is on steam greenlight, it's on twitter i post where ever i can really. Quite a lot actually and it's only got 44 so probably doing quite bad considering.

 

Hey guys here is my entry for the contest:
https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh5gs2w

I've been looking for options for Ads for Windows Universal Apps what do you guys recommend?

 

I got 500 downloads but only 1 IAP

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/treasure-maze/9nblggh5hxqm

 

thats something to about
IAP is hard

@hjupter the anime style looks great!
Ads are hard, (personally i've got no experience with Ads) @Mintah mentions his experience above

 

Nice!

I'm not sure if I understand the Microsoft Dev Center statistics properly, but if so, then it looks like mine has only 10 downloads so far.

And two of those were myself. . .

 

I hope popularity is not taken into account for the contest

I've released Super Night Riders on Steam 3 days ago, and so far it sold around 50x times more than on the Windows Store in one month

I think that there is a serious visibility problem on the Windows Store, especially if your game is premium only like mine (so you have almost no chance to appear in the new and rising category as you compete with free games on the install count), and not featured by the store's staff.

 

Thanks

The fun part is that 1 IAP turned out to be my testing voucher but was delayed to show up. so zero money so far because there is no decent ad solution. I think its time we considered other platforms

 

I guess not many people are browsing the games anyway in windows 10. Could you please elaborate on your experience with publishing for steam ? what needs to be done in few steps and how many changes did you have to do to get it there

 

The only requirement (and challenge) on Steam is to be Greenlit. I've started my Greenlight campaign on September - one month after I started working on the game, and got Greenlit 4 months later. So, unless you're making a super popular game, you should plan for Steam many months before completing your game (I've completed my game on the end of January).

 

And if you're having trouble getting votes for your game on Greenlight, this may help:

In my observation, games are often Greenlit shortly after being a part of a bundle or sale (on eg., IndieGameStand). Lots of people pick it up at a cheap price, then give it a vote on Greenlight so they can get a Steam key, too.

 

I just passed the 1000 downloads today but still 0 $ because there is no ads and IAP

@Mintah can I make the game paid after it was already published as free ?

Also has anyone successfully integrated Vungle with windows 10 ?

 

We have 130 so far : https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/goldfather-casino-tycoon/9nblggh5gp9g

 

Thanks for sharing, did you get any IAPs ? I just want to try to understand how windows 10 users begabe

 

Not really no but it's a soft release we're not expecting anything to happen at the moment, we released it now for the competition but we have loads of features to add to it and we keep updating it weekly

 

Yes of course! Just make a new submission and you should be good to go ...

On Another note, the Unity website it says "You will be contacted if you are a winner on or around February 26th and you will have 5 business days to respond to claim the prize." I haven't been contacted so I guess I didn't win... This whole contest was a great lesson for me; these contests are a waste of time if you're an individual trying to put something up in a short amount of time. I'm sure the winning games are going to be (as usual) games produced by real game-studios who don't juggle full-time work and have a dedicated team. I have no problems with Microsoft themselves, but I guess i'm just dreading all the time I put into rushing to finish the game for the contest and putting up with so many issues during the porting process. Boo hoo okay i'll stop qqing

 

Thanks for info. The contest showed me that I can at least produce something. I think the whole windows platform is not a good choice at all for games development.

I am thinking I should just try Apply because thats where the money and rich players ?!

Also the unity website says
"
Contest winners will be announced on or around March 30th, 2016.
Winners will be contacted directly with details on how to collect their prizes.
"

 

Potential winners will be notified by email on or around 4 March 2016. The winners would have been contacted, or will be soonish.

 

Well yes, the winners will be announced to the public on March 30th, however on the contest page (near the bottom) there's a section that's titled "How will I know if I am a winner?". There it lists an estimated date when the winners themselves will be notified. I am guessing this will give them time to prepare and make final adjustments to their app.

 

looks like we lost.. xD

 

think i've been in a bit of a development bubble,
i really did think i had a shot at a pro license,
someone from India just took the time to give my game a 1 star rating

 

Did anyone in this thread receive an e-mail because they've won something? Just wanna make sure whether I didn't get something or the contest is still on.

 

I would assume that there will be some some sort of NDA or they will only contact the top winner . If they send emails to everyone who one whats the point of delaying the results till 30 march.

 

There is a delay because they need marketing materials like gameplay videos to produce a contest reel. That's also why the winners are contacted beforehand. Why would there be an NDA?

 

Hi, I just found an email in my mail box that I won honorable mention, but email is from email address ...@HelloWorld.com so I'm confused is that real information or fake. That email shouldnt go to me from unity or microsoft email? Someone could confirm this is not fake?

 

Same here.

 

Same!

 

Plus we have slight problem. We submitted 2 titles. We have no idea which one got to finals...

 

Well which ones? Do share do share

 

MagiCraft : Balance - ported from IOS

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/magicraft-balance/9nblggh5z6n3



Pixel Combat 3D - soft launched on PC. Getting quite popular btw...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/pixel-combat/9nblggh5h2xv

 

Both look really good! Well done!

 

It probably isn't fake, it has © 2015 HelloWorld, Inc. All rights reserved. at the bottom of the t&c page https://unity3d.com/contest/windows/terms. Congats on the honorable mention!

 

Guess that means I didn't win anything. Congrats to the winners!

 

what we can do if we want to continue making games is to use Unreal Engine or Amazon Lumberyard and try to make a good game, and then publish it on steam! xo

 

Hi.
I received email which says that I have to send a Declaration of Compliance by fax.
Can someone tell me how I need to dial the fax number if am not in the US.
Is it possible to send a scanned document via email?

 

It would be really helpful if we could send a scanned document via e-mail. No idea where i could get a fax machine around here...
Please let us know if there are alternatives.

 

Is it possible for them to contact the entrants who didn't get anything? Also contact through other means. It would be a shame if the emails go to a spam folder and people get disqualified somehow.