August 17th, 2010 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: iOS | 1 Comment »
Kicking off this morning was a discussion between Michael Schade (Fishlabs)Michael Bohne (Badmonkee), Nils-Holger Henning (Bigpoint) and moderator Jascha Samadi (Apprupt) about how mobile games can be successful in the competitive environment of the App Store.
First off, Nils-Holger Henning from Bigpoint explained that his company (that specializes in online gaming) has become interested into moving into the apps space now mobile internet has become a common good amongst consumers. Their first racing game will be launching soon where PC players can take on mobile players.
Fishlabs has a large history in releasing racing games on the App Store. To date, they have 16 titles online of which most are in a niche since it takes a niche to raise attention from Apple and it helps getting discovered. When asked about other platforms, they informed the room that J2me is broken. Android is also not the best experience because of the fragmentation and piracy as well as because everything in the Google universe is free, which makes it hard to convince a consumer to pay for a title. Fishlabs has 1 game on Android.
Badmonkee said it is very hard to have success and make money in the competitive market. You have to get lucky and reach a top 10 position in order to make good revenues and Apple is not providing a lot of methods to help you promote your titles. You have to know someone at Apple of pay someone to get in (check this discussion). Brands work well as Badmonkee has good experience with launching various music related brands and getting featured for that by Apple.
Bigpoint confirmed that discovery is elemental for success. The company regrets that unlike on other platforms, you can’t buy traffic.
Fishlabs responds to say it is a good thing that traffic can’t be bought since that is the only way to make sure the App Store is not dominated by big pockets. Fishlabs emphasized that Apple can’t be bought. Developers just have to be creative and their apps will surface.
Badmonkee also argues that fragmentation is becoming a problem on iOS as well. HTML 5 could be a blessing and is something Badmonkee has been dreaming off for a long time.
Talking about discovery, Fishlabs says to take any attempt to communicate their message to their readers. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are the social media paths the company takes. The company also does bannering, but CTR’s are really low. Price cuts like FreeAppADay.com have proven very successful.
Fishlabs also discussed the importance of in-app payments. They experienced that many consumers play until they have to pay and then simple go for the next game. It also doesn’t help your discovery as the classic full and lite version will help you get listed in both the free and paid for charts.
Badmonkee told developers to stay away from other platforms until they have proven to be working. Development on them is too expensive.
Fishlabs says the other platforms might work, but you have to try and get help from those platforms and make sure you make a good deal. Fishlabs referenced Fieldrunners on Sony. The deal was announced, but no success stories have been made public for this title. So when making a deal like that, don’t expect more money than the OEM is offering for you to support the platform.
Fishlabs praises Apple as a partner. Apple offers the cheapest development environment and always pays in time, which is unique. It even offers metrics that are good enough to make predictions of your revenues for the next few months. Next to that, iAd allows you to buy adspace inside the apps of competitors though Fishlabs hasn’t done that yet. The CTR on iAd is over 10% which is very good. Some developers complaint that fillrate is around 15%, but forget iAd is currently only supported in the US. The high startup costs of iAd also help to drive advertisers into alternative networks.
When discussing analytics, Fishlabs is not too happy about companies like Flurry and doubts those companies will survive in the long run. They idea of them accessing your metrics and making money from that doesn’t attract them, so they made their own. From their metrics, the companies also noted that the western markets drive their downloads.
[…] Please check the comments from Michael Bohne below and ready the full discussion here to read how Fishlabs defended Apple on the comment that placement can be […]