***UPDATED AFTER 2 YEARS !!!*** The sad story of my start as Android/iOS game developer

Well this is getting a bit off topic now, but someone had to have the experience to write the manual in the first place although some manuals do appear like they've been written by a monkey with a split personality.

Also were comparing fruit again, so I'll say where comparing pickles to a spider. The world of technology is forever changing, there is no "manual" and there's a lot of trial and error. Every game is different, every situation will present different challenges.. You only know this when you've tried, failed, improved and repeat as GIGI would say...

Sure I can share my experiences, but they might not be applicable to you in all areas.

 

This is where I get discouraged. I'd like to find fun and original games to play but am I going to page through pages of paid advertising when I've seen so clearly that the game search engines are ignoring the meaning of my keywords in my searches and returning advertised games instead. Hey, the app store and featured front is the place for advertising, not search results.

 

Now this is a real Indie Developer. I know that he made at least $10 for some music that I will never listen to except when I play the game.

Also he has been on TIGForums for the past 7 years so put in the time to build up a following during the course of the game dev so probably made a wee bit more than $10.

Did he make enough for 13 years of part-time work? Probably not but he made it for passion to begin with so is likely happy.

 

@ShadowK - Using metaphor and analogy isn't going off topic.

 

George Harrison!

 

http://www.adam-butcher.co.uk/

Of course, stuff like this just keeps it all going on as people look at the game and think "I can make it better" completely missing the point.

 

Yes. He probably is.

If his game would have achieved cult status, we'd be glorifying every aspect of his game, praising the uniqueness and the attention to detail, etc.

He didn't though, so we give him our condolences. He gets the consolation prize, we hope at least he had a good time. We can choose to not see his game or his work. We can make him not visible. Because? Because he doesn't confirm our belief...

Our dearly held belief that if you try hard enough, you win.

He gets edited out of the book. We can't look at that because if we do, we're going to have to reconsider our bias. And then we may just find that we're in the same boat as everyone else. And that's not a comforting thought if you are still of the persuasion that you are uniquely deserving of success.

But that guy, meanwhile... he's happy. And the people who love his game really love it. And they probably love him for making it. And time may have forgotten him, for now. And in the end, everybody might forget him and his game.

But he still got to experience making something that meant something to him... and I also have had that experience, many times. More than I can count. And that's worth more to me than just about anything.

This thread is about someone's sad story about making games that did crappy on the app store, right?

It's not sad to me, though.

If you make artwork that you don't feel passionate about just to make quick, dirty cash... that's the real sad part. That's where I see a tragedy.

How can you make a game that you aren't passionate about? How do you know when it's finished?

 

Well that's the only positive of the market, it will separate the cash grabbers / beginners and wannabe's from the market. There's no "quick gains" anymore..

But then again, some simple yet awesome games are going to be lost in the fade. At this point if you're an indie without a massive budget, I'd just stay away from expectations. I'm expecting to be shafted out the gate, I don't expect to earn much out of it (even with a fairly sizeable budget)..

A guy I knew bought a proper recording studio, re-mortgaged his house for it. Now music is the last place you'd ever try and earn money from and some may think crazy SOB. As I got older I got it, I enjoy games and making them I worked hard to earn money over the years and it beats getting drunk all the time / wasting money on cars.. The whole reason I got into this is because I like Bioware type games, if nothing ever comes of it. So be it.!

If I do get the chance to become a multi-million dollar AAA developer, sweet.. But all that means to me is more staff and potentially bigger games, apart from that nothing changes.

 

I'm sorry if my link/post spawned argument, I meant it as informative in the way of "success is hard work & not easy & is a continuous mix & rebalancing of many many aspects that at the time don't seem significant but will later on prove to have been one of many pivotal moments". What scares me is if this is what you go through to make it then what do the ones who don't make it go through?
Yes, there are probably some that look like they just thought the creators could make a quick buck so put no care/effort into what they did but I'm assuming most people that release a game really have tried to the best of their ability (probably not 7yrs worth tho). Is what they go through worse & if so would getting all of these honest (& that clip was quite brutally honest about the toll on his life) post-mortems out give aspiring designers/developers more realistic aspirations & cut back on all the "hi, I just downloaded unity & am going to make the worlds best zombie/sky rim mashup on a massive open world procedurally generated voxel rpg with crafting" posts. If that happened would it have a flow on effect on app stores & other game releases? Who should be responsible for putting them out there? Should there be a general call for indies to post up post mortems as honest as the op's was so everyone can read & learn? The more the experience is shared maybe the less 'isolated' people may feel once their product has been released into the wild.

I don't have an answer (or a product tbh) & don't want colleagues in here to argue & ruin relationships between each other. I know this is hard work & a hard industry but I find the information from people doing the job much better than the information from mainstream press on what they have been told is happening.

 

@anselmo.fresquez

We don't know that the game doesn't have a sort of cult following. The nature of such things is only the people into it know about it. There are many games most people have probably never heard of that were and are popular. Things like Dink Smallwood back in the day.

And how many people here are even familiar with Edgar Vigdal (RIP) or Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software? Yet these people made games that had a huge amount of fans.

The games and developers we most often hear about are those that are strange successes. Flappy Birds and so on. The rapid success stories. That is what the media wants to focus on. We rarely hear about the people who have been working in the trenches doing this Indie thing for decades.

 

These are the stories that get the clicks, sell the ads for full sail and digipen and bring in the dough. Right now the indie universe is being exploited by corporate profiteers whose only concern is pleasing their investors. They are the kingmakers working behind the scenes, vaulting games to incomprehensible levels of success all the while making it seem organic.

It's the nickelback effect.

 

We need someone to come in & reinvent the nickelback effect for games, similar to what postmodern jukebox did for nickelback music.

 

I was just talking with my wife about Jeff Vogel last night. Long time fan of his ideas and blog about game dev. Only ever played one of his games and not for very long, but he's definitely an inspiration. And yes, R.I.P. Edgar Vigdal.

 

I'm familiar with Jeff Vogel, having played his games many times since I was young, but I've never heard of Edward Vigdal and Google isn't being very helpful. What games did he make?

 

I've never heard of either but Edward Vigdal is probably Scandinavian and Edvard Vigdal.

 

Edgar Vigdal?

 

That helped direct the search a bit, but it turned out to be Edgar Vigdal.

http://emv-software.weebly.com/

 

Yes Edgar, not Edward. @GarBenjamin mentioned him so I looked him up and found that he'd worked on Amiga games (and a PC game I've heard of). I didn't quite recognize his name but I do know the games he made.

 

You got it...now as I was saying about the business of search engines being increasing so in lip service only...

 

Sorry about that. Fingers didn't type what brain was thinking and cell phone often messes things up or I just made a boo boo.

I edited my post to spell the man's name correctly.

Yeah he was more well known on the Amiga although he also had some games out since then and certainly was the real deal someone who understood how to be an Indie Game Developer.

Goto www.warblade.as
Also do a search for Edgar Vigdal right here on these forums.

 

With such a weird start, this thread is crazily interesting.
Gigi

 

I think this thread speaks to things anyone who makes independent games has to think about these days.

Because these games can make money now, does that mean we are not artists but business people? Even if we don't want to be? Or are we now a mixture of both? What, then, is success?

You have those who want to make games just for money.

You have those who want to make games just for fun.

You have those who want to make games to make a statement.

All different goals...

So, what are our goals... what are we doing. What do we want? I think that underlies all of the rest of the discussion. We're all trying to figure this out.

 

Very good question that will be different for everyone, but going off that the OP was asking/complaining why is games made so little money, It's probably safe to say most of this thread has been around making money on mobile games, obviously its deviated all over the place though

 

I think @Ony hit on it in some of... well now edited replies. lol

So, I will say it and people can hate on me instead.

Why even look at such things at this point in their "career"? Why do people come into game development with no to very little experience, make games (knock-off or otherwise) and expect to make money from them?

Do these people think there is no skill involved in game development? Do they think the people who are and have been doing it for a long time are just not very bright?

I like working on simple games too. I like playing simple games. However, you don't see me knocking out simple knock-off games one after the other and flooding the market with them.

I think it is great there are new people coming into game development. I think it is the ultimate game. Filled with challenges to overcome and a great feeling of satisfaction you are rewarded with for clearing those challenges. And you also get a great feeling as your skills increase and you "level up" realizing more and more ambitious goals are now within your reach.

But why come in completely new to it all and try to make money? Does it never cross people's minds to spend some time on practice to develop and improve their skills first?

Definitely make your games. Make as many as you want. Make them as simple or complex as you want. Just stop throwing them out on the marketplaces expecting people to pay for them.

I want to repeat definitely make your games. MAKE GAMES!! Just keep making them for I dunno maybe a year or so then you will be in a better position to think about making money from them. The same way as you would in any other industry.

Let me get my asbestos suit on. Alright. Ready!

 

If they primarily look over the shovelware on the mobile markets I could imagine how they could get that idea.

 

You know... sometimes I wonder if it really is something like this causing it.

Maybe a lot of the people just think this (making their first games and publishing them with ads, IAP or for a fee) is what they are supposed to be doing?

Like maybe they think that is what everyone is doing. Like every single time any one of us does a little project for learning or whatever we publish it. Of course, we do not but maybe they think that?

I can definitely understand them wanting to publish the game in the sense of sharing it with the world and getting some feedback. But the actual marketplaces are not (at least in my mind) for throwing your first apps out for feedback or whatever.

This kind of thing is best done at places like LudumDare, 1GAM, 1HGJ, Kongregate, GameJolt, FOG, Newsgrounds, Y8, AGame, and many others. I think these should be more than enough for any budding game developer to use to get feedback and work on their game development skills.

Maybe someone should consider writing a Path For New Game Developers post around here.

I will definitely add such an article to my website although I won't be pushing that out to the world at large until probably around the first of the new year.

 

Haha! Yup I was the edit queen yesterday I think.

 

This reminds me of Jim Sterling's interview with Digital Homicide where the guy kept using the excuse "I was new" or "I am new" as though that means something. In no other industry would that fly. If I can't cook and start a restaurant that serves people tuna salad made with mustard instead of mayonnaise, nobody who complains is going to suddenly forgive me if I say "Sorry guys, I'm new to cooking." They are going to get even more angry that I know I can't cook and yet decided that it was a thing that I should charge money for.

I think there's also a bit of delusion involved. One of Jim's latest Greenlight videos has a game with a framerate of around 10 or so, and that's being generous. Yet its description describes the gameplay as "smooth." <10 fps is not smooth, yet this person thinks it is. Maybe he just has a crappy computer, I've been there. But don't make your video with that crappy computer and don't describe it as smooth if you do. They also have bricks more similar in size to microwaves and a toilet that for some strange reason is just randomly in the middle of the room. You don't have to be an artist to know that the toilet goes against the wall. You just have to have, at some point in your life, used a toilet. Although this particular game didn't, it isn't unusual to see games like that describe themselves as having "beautiful 3d graphics." Either these people are delusional or they think that 'beautiful' is just a meaningless exclamation that sometimes goes in front of '3d graphics' the way some people use the term "sawed-off shotgun" to describe shotguns that haven't been sawed off.

So I really don't know if its a case of people thinking you are supposed to charge money for everything you do, or them genuinely thinking that the things they do are better than they are. Maybe a little of both. Either way, it's why I've maintained that stores like Steam need to not open the floodgates. As I've said before, sometimes saying "You aren't good enough yet" is the nicest thing you can do for a person. Valve will certainly be more diplomatic about it than your average PC gamer.

 

LOL! I hear ya. Makes perfect sense and I agree. I think maybe it all comes back to that same ole thing again... no barriers to entry. There really are none. A person doesn't really need any investment other than some time to knock out a game and submit it. Huge difference between that and them trying to start a restaurant or any other business.

That combined with seeing so many games already published out there that are very much within the reach of any new game developer kind of sets a precedent I think. I mean truly I have tried some mobile games way simpler and created with much less care than the OP's. Some are literally just experiments like a ball rolling around or an airplane flying in nothingness turning and so forth. One of the mobile games I tried had a title screen and clicking Play presented a black screen with white text "It worked!" and had a line or two in smaller text about it just being a mobile game test. lol

I guess it just shocks me that there really are no barriers to entry any more. No quality control, no gatekeeper. It is almost like game marketplaces are becoming like the public domain of years ago except those really were free with no ads or anything.

Ultimately, I guess the mobile app stores at least don't care because they got their fee. I just think it is a model that cannot endure. Eventually it will change. Barriers to entry of one kind or another will be established whether it is quality control, much higher fees, both or something else entirely.

 

When I spent basically from 15 - 23 as a busboy in HS & Uni as a busboy they tried me as a cook, a couple of times, and not only did they get me out of the kitchen fast, they told me I was no good as a cook and not too politely too, even though it was they asked me to cook, I didn't volunteer. It's that type treatment that has me understanding why people might say 'but I'm a noob', but their approach is wrong. Simply be polite, truthful, and don't make claims that you or your game is great. Make claims about why the game play is fun and unique, not meaningless fluff meant to disguise that it isn't fun or unique.

 

If/when I publish a game to the App Store I was thinking of putting ads in with a setting people can use to turn them off. I was then thinking I'd have a pop up at the start of the session saying 'this is my first game. If you can spare a few seconds could you please watch an ad so I can earn $0.001? Thank you"

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

is it that or is it because over the last 25-30yrs everyone started getting an achievement/award instead of a gentle let down & a try again next year? Has that created an inability to judge the quality of ones own work?

 

I think there have always been those who are incapable of judging the quality of their own work. In fact, I don't think anyone is capable of truthfully judging the quality of their own work, without bias, regardless of how experienced they may be. When presenting our work to the world, we must rely on both our own judgement and the judgment of the other parties involved to get a more fair assessment of the actual quality of a thing.

It used to be, to be a published author, one had to go through the gatekeepers. That was a pain, and a lot of authors never got their chance, and because of that gate keeping, we missed out on an unfathomable amount of amazing stories. But, we also got to avoid an astronomical amount of bad stories. Not so anymore. Anyone can be a published author. All it takes is a free word processing program, an hour or so, and an Amazon account. Self-publishing is awesome. It gets rid of the gatekeepers. But, it also allows a flood of nonsense and garbage to be seen as "published works". By lowering the barrier to entry, we have lowered the value of good stories, and the value of working your way to be a true "published" author. That title used to carry weight. It meant something. It doesn't mean as much anymore.

Music, art, and game development follow a very similar path. It used to be, when one claimed the title of "game developer", it carried weight. It was important. It was exciting and different, and one had to work hard to truly earn that title. Not so much anymore. The tools are all free. The marketplace has no gatekeepers. The information and know-how does not have to be worked for. The garbage is overflowing. There is no longer a barrier of entry, and the value of games has dropped because of it. The appreciation for the craft of game development has faltered. And along with that, the value of calling oneself a "game developer" has lost its meaning. That makes me incredibly sad.

When you lower the barrier to entry to the point where there is none, you are opening Pandora's box. Along with a lot of really great things comes a lot of really bad things, and there's no way to properly balance the two. It's a dangerous business indeed.

 

I feel partial blame lies with a general lack of refunds. We used to have them in the distant past. I remember my parents buying a copy of SimCity 2000 and it completely failing to run on our ZEOS 386. We returned it and got something else.

Now though we're used to the concept that a game may have showstopping bugs at release. Or a game failing to run properly due to performance issues despite the system requirements being more than matched. Or early release titles losing their developers.

Steam's attempt at offering refunds simply feels a bit too little too late.

 

I'm not sure whether opening the floodgates is a genuine (but, IMHO, misguided) attempt at helping indies or whether it is just a case of greed trumping self-interest. People conflate the two, to the point that many people vilify Adam Smith for praising self-interest, but the two couldn't be more different. Bill Gates wants to eradicate Malaria. It is in his self-interest to spend a gazillion dollars doing so. Greed would be spending a tiny amount and expecting everyone else to do the same.

The core theory behind opening the floodgates, from a business perspective, is the so call long-tail theory. The notion that if you sell thousands of crappy products that sell a few copies each, you've matched the profits from one good title and increased revenue. This ignores the consumer confidence part of the equation. If there is nowhere for people to go where they are guaranteed a reasonable level of quality, they simply stop purchasing. People may not stop purchasing AAA titles from Steam, but make no mistake that indie titles will suffer. Chasing the long tail is putting short term profits ahead of long term stability. It is greed over self-interest.

Again, Valve may not be greedy. They may very well think they are doing the right thing. But so did the politicians in Greece before the economy collapsed. In that case, it was the people who were greedy. They wanted more of other people's money until there was none left and they ended up with less than they started with. Developers are doing this now. They want to release baby's first video game and make short term sales, but fail to realize that doing so is harming the very industry that are trying to break into. Again, this puts short term profits over long term stability. Greed over self-interest.

The floodgates are opening everywhere now though. Look at Kickstarter since they got rid of their approval process. I don't see the trend reversing anytime soon. And as it permeates more and more of our industries, I don't have very high hopes for the future. But then I'm a bit of a pessimist, so maybe I'm wrong.

 

Although I gripe about it all basically that is because I see it the way you described: tarnishing something I always thought was very cool. That happens with everything though when it comes to people jumping on the "money train". Just like your example with self-publishing books. That was a big gold rush for a while. Now it is games.

A part of me still says ah as long as they are having fun let them do whatever they want. The current market conditions do bring a lot of games out the world would otherwise never see. That part is good at least.

I just wonder sometimes if everyone is truly qualified to make games and publish them on these app stores? I think everyone can make games. Just not sure if everyone should be publishing and trying to make money from games. That is a big question though and I am certainly not qualified to answer that other than my part as being a gamer.

Still, there is hope. Last night before bed I finally got on Twitter. Again. I joined years ago and never used it for anything past the first few days. Seemed like just another way to waste time.

Anyway, this time I was more focused and my Twitter is completely game focused. Found this:



I see this as an indication the consumers are starting to get burnt out on all of these games. Who knows... maybe within the next 2 to 3 years this whole Indie game "I'm gonna be rich!" thing will be over with.

Was very happy to find a bunch of people out there who also share my view on the modern Indie Game Developers and discovered there is even an ongoing debate in the trenches over Hobbyist Game Developers vs Indie Game Developers.

EDIT: I've also considered within 3, 5 or so years from now these new developers may very well be the vast majority of the Indie Game Developer community. Seriously. With kids now starting on this stuff at 10 to 12 years old and until they are 18 they live at home and have no bills and a lot of free time especially during summer, winter and spring breaks. If we extend that through college they get about 10 years to develop games completely at a loss and it really doesn't matter. They still eat and have a roof over their heads regardless of whether the time they pour into game dev brings them any money or not.

 

Ignorance is a fundamental part of being human without which, we wouldn't exist. Ignorance allows us to leave our homes, get married, and have kids. Also, see Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Gigi

 

Or maybe, it will be even more like youtube, with 70+ hours of new content published EVERY minute. Whether good or bad, more will come, not less.

Gigi

PS - Great Jonathan Blow finds.

 

That sounds like insanity yet you make a very valid point.

It's all good because problems create opportunities. I have very recently started looking for an opportunity to "do something" again. All of these games being made and all of these game developers are creating a lot of opportunities for anyone wanting to start a business.

 

So youtubers will become the 'personal stylists' of gamers, helping people to find the games they should play amongst everything that is crowding the market

 

I don't really know if burnout is an issue, it could depend on platform and genre. Burnout on supporting someone's hobby unfinished game for $9.99, yeah I'm sure that doesn't take long.

There are basically two problems to solve right now in Indie games. First is that just about every knockoff that could be done has been done. Second is that there are so many games, you are basically throwing your game on a big stack of games and every day more games get chucked on that pile.

Knockoffs are out. These days you need to be featured, get reviews from some kind of well known online game review blog, and the lamest description of a game is "yeah, it's like [some other game]".

The second problem has a bigger scope. On the bright side, many developers are very lazy about how they launch their game so they will sink into the pile of gams as soon as they land on it (the original topic of this thread). On the downside, you are competing with everyone who is on the ball and has gorgeous screenshots, a video, and took the time to make sure their game will come up in at least the top 25 for a variety of related searches in a few languages. Note that I am specifically not talking about "quality". There is no search for how long you spent to make the game, how much it cost you, how good of a coder you are, or how much you just love your craft.

I think some kind of shift is probably coming. The big boys that can spend 15 million on User Acquisition flame out too. Imagine spending that kind of money and making a couple hundred bucks a day, tops. Yeah that happens, ouch.

 

@jgnmoose good points.

I was just thinking last night that all things considered everything is the way it should be. A lot of people seem to think it comes down to original ideas, high quality graphics for screenshots and videos and so forth. Personally I don't agree with that. I definitely think it can help a lot but is not a necessity. I put much greater emphasis on the other parts you mentioned. Basically marketing. Any person wanting to run a successful business has to learn marketing or be willing to pay someone else to be the marketing person.

I think this is what will "kill" many Indie Game Developers. They believe their job is to make a fantastic game that is very polished looks as good as possible and so forth That is not their job. That is one part of their job and not the part that will determine their success. Of course, this is just my opinion based on my experience.

 

Oh you... Can you quote one person out of the "a lot of people" who has said that graphics or the idea are the main thing that matter for success? I don't believe anyone has said anything so singular as you keep insisting is being said.

 

LOL! I knew you'd be on that!! All I mean when I say that stuff is it is something I have read in countless threads and articles. They nearly always mention great graphics (even if they are saying this game's graphics could be better) and new ideas (even if it is worded as this game is the same a clone of this otber game). Usually the lead-ins are along the lines of "these days gamers expect..." "there are so many games out there yours must stand out" and so forth.

There just pretty common denominators in feedback threads, articles, discussions etc. So I figure there must be a lot of people who believe those to be true.

 

Well as opposed to what in marketing? Ugly screenshots of poor graphics, something that's been done a thousands times before? I'm pretty sure that's a good way to make your game fail. Also a massive portion of releases I've seen contain none of those things. If given a choice as a gamer, am I going to go for game A) With good gameplay or game B) with good gameplay and graphics?

Of course there's a lot more to it, I know you know your stuff. But I get the feeling from a design and business perspective some (in general, nobody specific) are missing what it takes to survive or compete. The fact of the matter is, although they seem small in number (which they are relative to the Millions of dev's), there will be a lot of indie's out there with skill in business, marketing, art, tech and game design. They will also have secure funds to make a dream a reality..

So let's say there's 50,000 indies out of the Millions of dev's who have all the above, they're the fiscal competition and that makes it a tough place to be as how many people here have bought 50,000 games? The less money and skill required to make a game, the more the competition expands exponentially.

 

Not exactly sure what you're going for. Are you saying you would pick A or B?

My point, as it has been throughout the thread, is that in order to compete and survive, one must do everything they can to get their game into people's hands. Saying "graphics don't matter" or "game play doesn't matter" or "sound doesn't matter" or "marketing doesn't matter" is foolish and doesn't cover all the bases. It all matters if you want to get noticed and you want to survive.

I've survived for a long time creating and releasing my own games (roughly 14 of them). Some of that time I've done exceptionally well, some of that time not so much, which is how it goes, but here I am, still surviving. I'm not speaking from a vacuum and I'm not speaking as a hobbyist developer. I'm speaking as someone who is doing it and has been doing it. And from my position, everything matters. Art, sound, game play, UX, marketing, online presence, built-up user base, customer support, and so on and so on. Plus a lot of luck. In my (hopefully humble) opinion, if you want to succeed then you shouldn't say one or more of those things aren't important.

 

Pretty much exactly what I'm saying .. Plus addendum, if some dev can't do it there's plenty who can.

 

Ok, sorry, my brain is on somewhat skewed this morning, dealing with a billion things at once, haha. I get what you're saying now.

 

I see that link often, but never clicked on it. I read it today because I accidentally put a debug.log in a big loop and I'm waiting 20min for the loop to finish.

I think that while that may be a true effect, it also works to the benefit of those who are affected by it. I spend a lot of time second guessing myself, seeing solutions to problems and thinking "oh, that's so stupid, if it were that easy then someone would have already done it". I've gradually come to the realization that most people are in fact stupid (not everyone, but a lot of them).

Those who don't realize they are stupid/incompetent are less likely to have the same reservations and therefor more likely to act on stupid ideas and make money from said stupid ideas. The catch-22 is that the stupid ideas play well in the general audience because the general audience is in fact stupid and therefore find the ideas ingenious while truly genius ideas are overlooked because they are above the heads of the target audience.

You can see this in the current trend of popular videos on you tube. Things like people opening chocolate eggs with stupid toys in them have millions of views. Pewdiepie, etc. You look at it and say "what a stupid idea", but the people make mad money.

I think if you want to make money, you need to have dumber ideas, because your audience is mostly dumb. I'm not saying this to be mean, its just the truth. The distribution of IQ scores prove it. A person with a 100 IQ (50% of the population) simply isn't that smart and will struggle at most advanced tasks, while a person with a score above 120 will have little difficulty with advanced tasks. Over 130 is in genius territory, but social skills start to decline. If you want to appeal to the masses, you need to have ideas that appeal to the masses, and that means dumb ideas (flappy bird).

http://www.i3mindware.com/what-is-an-iq-test-and-iq-score