Congrats Zaphod/Nimblebit

There was a lot of things that went wrong on ZG in hindsight. We never wanted to do a console game though, in the end it probably would have been better to have made a different scope of game... probably something we had more experience in, and something that didn't rely so heavily on multiplayer and other technical factors we didn't have a lot of control over.

But it was definitely a gigantic learning experience, and fun to work on for some parts of it . It gives me more perspective on what I want to do now.

The iOS stuff up until recently has provided enough to make a comfortable living, but Pocket Frogs is earning enough to make a comfortable living.

*edit* If there is one thing I learned most from making ZG, it is to never build too much on top of assumptions. If you are going to spend 3 years and your life savings on something, make sure it is something you have carnal knowledge of and have done before successfully.

That is good to know.

But do you regret doing it? Considering the learning experience vs the cost.

I have specific regrets about it, but I don't regret the entire thing. I doubt many people hit the bullseye on the first throw, but hopefully with every added effort you can inch a little closer. So mainly I regret that it took 3 years to get my first throw off .

I was sad Zero Gear's issues weren't properly addressed after release. The game never lived up to its potential in my opinion... Imagine that game with some social networking integration, better physics, better proportions, more content released often and it could slowly become a hit. Maybe you could had even made an stripped down free version to attract more attention at the time?

But yeah, it's nice you are doing fine with iPhone games. You deserve it after all the hard work. You are probably an exception on this market though. Everyone I know making iphone games rarely reach break-even.

I agree that ZG had a lot of untapped potential, unfortunately we were completely tapped out personally just getting it to the point it was at and we didn't have the drive to continue on with the amount of work it would have taken to explore it's full potential. I really want to set it free at some point, I just don't know when that will be exactly due to some other complications.

Jumping into any market with the expectation of earning money on the first shot without building up experience in that market is probably a little foolhardy.

I feel like that is what we did with Zero Gear on Steam, and I see lots of developers doing the same thing on the App Store. You can't just drop in one fishing line and then give up when you don't come up with a fish in that spot.

We have made plenty of games that didn't make much money on the App Store, and have gained enough experience from all of them to have a clearer picture of what works and what doesn't on the App Store as a result.

I think the days of a game just expecting to make money because it is on the market and looks nice is slowly coming to an end. There are some places where the supply of games is artificially limited like console retail and XBLA where they only release so many games a year where you can probably still ride that scarcity to steer a certain amount of people towards your product, but I actually relish the challenge of being in a giant sea of other games and having to work our asses off to get them to rise to the top.

How many of the people you know making iPhone games simply toss it out there, and then are befuddled when the dollars don't start rolling in? It is a common mistake to think that since you see so many obviously crappy apps going gangbusters on the App Store, that if you just put out something of any quality at all it HAS to just rise to the top on it's own!

Quote from zaphod

I agree that ZG had a lot of untapped potential, unfortunately we were completely tapped out personally just getting it to the point it was at and we didn't have the drive to continue on with the amount of work it would have taken to explore it's full potential. I really want to set it free at some point, I just don't know when that will be exactly due to some other complications.Jumping into any market with the expectation of earning money on the first shot without building up experience in that market is probably a little foolhardy.

I feel like that is what we did with Zero Gear on Steam, and I see lots of developers doing the same thing on the App Store. You can't just drop in one fishing line and then give up when you don't come up with a fish in that spot.

We have made plenty of games that didn't make much money on the App Store, and have gained enough experience from all of them to have a clearer picture of what works and what doesn't on the App Store as a result.

I think the days of a game just expecting to make money because it is on the market and looks nice is slowly coming to an end. There are some places where the supply of games is artificially limited like console retail and XBLA where they only release so many games a year where you can probably still ride that scarcity to steer a certain amount of people towards your product, but I actually relish the challenge of being in a giant sea of other games and having to work our asses off to get them to rise to the top.

How many of the people you know making iPhone games simply toss it out there, and then are befuddled when the dollars don't start rolling in? It is a common mistake to think that since you see so many obviously crappy apps going gangbusters on the App Store, that if you just put out something of any quality at all it HAS to just rise to the top on it's own!

Thanks for shining some light on this subject.

If you don't mind answering, how did you get people to know about your games in the first place?

I'm asking this because 2 friends of mine worked their asses off on a kickass iPad game and even though the game is clearly above average of what you can find on app store however they are having a really hard time trying to get some exposure on AppStore. They tried to place some ads on an iPhone games site but the are no slots available until October next year!

I don't know, I may be talking out of my ass, but maybe it's a mix of luck, hard work and if you know anyone at Apple. Of course this is their first release and it's a just matter of time until they are experienced in this market.

It would take a long assed article to really analyze all the stuff we have done and to try and figure out which things specifically were the most effective, but here are some bullet points of stuff off the top of my head:

:arrow: The iPad market is still pretty small compared to the iPhone / iPod market, so it is tough to sell a lot of units there. It will grow over time though, especially every holiday season.

:arrow: Try to leverage free if you can, it can be a very powerful tool, especially if your game has mass appeal.

:arrow: Try to get on TA, the more your game is in the press the more chance Apple will feature you. *edit* Have a video of your game!!!

:arrow: Do promotions.

:arrow: Listen to feedback and make changes to your game.

:arrow: If your game is a niche game, charge a niche price.

:arrow: Have a great looking icon.

:arrow: Make more than one game, try to gauge what worked well in each one. Experiment.

:arrow: Use whatever resources you can to cut down on development time.

:arrow: Don't make it perfect, polish it enough for initial release and then see what the reaction is.

If you ever find the time, writing up a post-mortem on Zero Gear could be great and beneficial for many I'm sure! Given that you're selling the game on Steam though, can't you decide when to have it as a weekend deal and recoup your losses a bit with massive sales from a low low price?

Yes, that is not the complication.

Quote from zaphod

It would take a long assed article to really analyze all the stuff we have done and to try and figure out which things specifically were the most effective, but here are some bullet points of stuff off the top of my head::arrow: The iPad market is still pretty small compared to the iPhone / iPod market, so it is tough to sell a lot of units there. It will grow over time though, especially every holiday season.

:arrow: Try to leverage free if you can, it can be a very powerful tool, especially if your game has mass appeal.

:arrow: Try to get on TA, the more your game is in the press the more chance Apple will feature you. *edit* Have a video of your game!!!

:arrow: Do promotions.

:arrow: Listen to feedback and make changes to your game.

:arrow: If your game is a niche game, charge a niche price.

:arrow: Have a great looking icon.

:arrow: Make more than one game, try to gauge what worked well in each one. Experiment.

:arrow: Use whatever resources you can to cut down on development time.

:arrow: Don't make it perfect, polish it enough for initial release and then see what the reaction is.

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Some great advice there Zaphod.

Noel at Snappy Touch posts some very useful things on iPhone development, marketing and stuff like that, too. Well worth a read, especially since he shares his full sales figures for periods when he launches new payment models etc.

Quote from zaphod

The iOS stuff up until recently has provided enough to make a comfortable living, but Pocket Frogs is earning enough to make a comfortable living.

I must say that I have the utmost respect for this business model where you regularly release small titles that on average make enough enough to make a comfortable living. This allows you to try out lots of cool ideas and if one does not work, then you are still ok. While doing this, which is already cool, then you still have that chance or probability of that one of your ideas, such as Pocket Frogs, will really hit home - which is just even better.

It takes a lot of discipline and constant design changes to actually keep the development time short, but we kind of see it as a fun challenge. Whenever we are brainstorming ideas for another game, the most important factor is always how we could reduce the concept down enough to be developed in 2 months or less.

Also, it is pretty easy to keep it up in the long run because once you get used to releasing games every few months, you start to get really antsy when things start taking longer than that.