My experience in developing games for Android. Part two
In this article I will finish my story about the development of my first game for Android. For those who have not seen / read - the first part .
Costs and budget. I will give for example my final budget for the development of the game:
Designer (graphics, animation) - 12 000 rubles
Sound - 3 000 rub
Asus EEE Pad Transformer Tablet - 18 500 rub
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S - 16 500 rub
Google Registration Fee - ~ 700 rubles ($ 25)
Total - 50 700 rubles
Of course, the lion's share of the budget was taken by the purchase of devices, but this one-time purchase, which also coincided with personal desire :) Otherwise, the costs are very moderate and with good progress are quite capable of paying off. Labor, I, of course, did not take into account here, but it is worth considering your time spent on development.
Monetization. To monetize an application in Android, there are several popular approaches, and if you are not developing a free application for your pleasure, it is better to think about profit making at the development stage. There are probably three main approaches:
1) Direct sale. You just sell your application for a certain amount. It is worth remembering that Google deducts 30% tax on your price.
2) Freemium. The application and the main functions in it are free, but additional functionality (for games - some special cool stuff or in-game money, level sets) is sold for money. Tax - the same 30% of the sale price.
3) Advertising. You earn money by displaying ad units in your application, and people click on them.
As far as I know, they are now considering an effective freemium approach, but in practice different approaches or their combinations will work better for different types of applications and games. Experiment and try - it's hard to say something else.
')
I chose a combination of advertising and direct sales - I have a free lite version of the application, which shows ads and a paid version with a small price, in which there are no ads and there are additional features. About how successfully the application is currently monetized - below, in the results.
I want to say a few words about the mood during the development. You should really enjoy the game development process and it will be great if you write a game you want to play yourself. I was pretty sick of my game while I was testing it, but even now I sometimes enjoy playing it when I want to relax. More optimism - optimists are better at it and you will surely invest part of your positive in your game, and people will feel it. Do not be discouraged and do not give up on failures - without failures and success will not be, and every failure is a rewarding experience. Remember about Thomas Edison, who knew exactly what failure and perseverance in achieving the goal.
In a word, more optimism, believe in success, work, experiment and positive results will not take long to wait!
Publication. A good article about developer registration and publication in the Market app is here . However, I was surprised that almost nowhere is the list of materials that are needed for publication, and which it is better to take care of in advance. Just in case I specify:
- Signed apk-file of the application. The easiest way to do this is through Eclipse with a plug-in from Google, right-click on the project and select the menu item Export Signed Application Package in the menu item Android Tools. This will launch a wizard that guides you through the process of creating a certificate and signing the application.
- Screenshots of the application. You need at least 2 screenshots of your application, the size is up to 480 * 854. It is better to publish at least 4-6 screenshots of course.
- Application icon in high resolution. Used in the market, you need a png-icon size 512 * 512
- Icon for advertising. 180 * 120, used in some sections of the Market, optional.
- Advertising banner or icon for the “Featured” section. Has a size of 1024 * 500, is also optional, but it is better to take care of it - you do not interfere with extra advertising?
- Promotional video. Also must have, is placed on youtube, and the link is only inserted into the Market. I, alas, do not have it, but I am working on this shortcoming.
- Title, description, recent changes, promotional text. These are all text fields in which, and by name, it is clear what to write. Think over good, bright texts in advance.
Otherwise, publishing in the Market is trivial - we fill in the fields, load the application file and materials, and click “Publish”. There is one feature - when the file is only loaded but not activated, the counter that shows the number of devices supporting your application will be 0. In order to make it work, you need to click “Activate” on the tab with the application file. I was covered with cold sweat when I downloaded the application for the first time and found that, from Google’s point of view, no device supports my game.
Market also has other bugs, for example, do not pay attention, if the counter of active installations is updated asynchronously with the download counter - this happens. In general, the Market is quite convenient for work and provides the necessary minimum of information and statistics for analysis.
A couple more words about withdrawal. For Russia, while money can only be withdrawn through the Checkout + Adsense bundle, therefore, if you plan to sell applications, it is better to pay attention to the Adsense work account in advance. Make a blog or a small site, put up an advertisement and save $ 10. Upon reaching this amount in the account, Google will send you a regular mail (several weeks) verification code, which activates the payment on your account. It is better to do all this at the development stage of the application, because it will be very sad to sit and wait for the code when the long-awaited rivers of money flow into the account. The rest of the withdrawal of money by the rules of Adsense - $ 100 minimum, withdrawal once a month and it is better to use Rapida - faster and easier.
Promotion. I cannot give detailed advice on promotion, because I myself am still at the beginning of this journey, but promotion of an Android application, in general, is no different from promoting any other electronic product on the Internet. Write posts in thematic forums, send reviews on relevant sites, check in the game catalogs. Attract users, interest them and try to cover the maximum of the target audience. There is only one thing - do not discard promotion, the stage from development to publication is at best half the battle, the application must be spun up, and it is better to put funds into it in the budget and time in the work plan.
For 5 months of developing the game, I achieved the following:
1) Got a lot of new experiences and impressions - it's just great!
2) Developed the game Garden Troopers
Garden troopers
Garden troopers lite
At the moment, the game has about 2000 downloads of the lite-version and 2 sales of the full version.
Advertising statistics from the lite version: ~ 7000 requests, ~ 6000 impressions, CTR 0.22%, revenue - $ 0.5.
The total income from the application is purely symbolic, but I do not give up)
3) I have a lot of thoughts about the improvement and development of this game and a lot of ideas from other games.
Now and in the near future, I plan to improve the game, expand the game's capabilities (maybe even introduce new game modes), try to take normal positions in the Android Market and try to enter the iOS market.
This is probably all. Thank you very much to everyone who overcame my work to the end and I would be very grateful for any feedback about the game in the comments or drugs (I especially need advice on how to improve the monetization of Garden Troopers, because the conversion level is not good).
Financial side
Costs and budget. I will give for example my final budget for the development of the game:
Designer (graphics, animation) - 12 000 rubles
Sound - 3 000 rub
Asus EEE Pad Transformer Tablet - 18 500 rub
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S - 16 500 rub
Google Registration Fee - ~ 700 rubles ($ 25)
Total - 50 700 rubles
Of course, the lion's share of the budget was taken by the purchase of devices, but this one-time purchase, which also coincided with personal desire :) Otherwise, the costs are very moderate and with good progress are quite capable of paying off. Labor, I, of course, did not take into account here, but it is worth considering your time spent on development.
Monetization. To monetize an application in Android, there are several popular approaches, and if you are not developing a free application for your pleasure, it is better to think about profit making at the development stage. There are probably three main approaches:
1) Direct sale. You just sell your application for a certain amount. It is worth remembering that Google deducts 30% tax on your price.
2) Freemium. The application and the main functions in it are free, but additional functionality (for games - some special cool stuff or in-game money, level sets) is sold for money. Tax - the same 30% of the sale price.
3) Advertising. You earn money by displaying ad units in your application, and people click on them.
As far as I know, they are now considering an effective freemium approach, but in practice different approaches or their combinations will work better for different types of applications and games. Experiment and try - it's hard to say something else.
')
I chose a combination of advertising and direct sales - I have a free lite version of the application, which shows ads and a paid version with a small price, in which there are no ads and there are additional features. About how successfully the application is currently monetized - below, in the results.
Psychology
I want to say a few words about the mood during the development. You should really enjoy the game development process and it will be great if you write a game you want to play yourself. I was pretty sick of my game while I was testing it, but even now I sometimes enjoy playing it when I want to relax. More optimism - optimists are better at it and you will surely invest part of your positive in your game, and people will feel it. Do not be discouraged and do not give up on failures - without failures and success will not be, and every failure is a rewarding experience. Remember about Thomas Edison, who knew exactly what failure and perseverance in achieving the goal.
In a word, more optimism, believe in success, work, experiment and positive results will not take long to wait!
Publication and promotion
Publication. A good article about developer registration and publication in the Market app is here . However, I was surprised that almost nowhere is the list of materials that are needed for publication, and which it is better to take care of in advance. Just in case I specify:
- Signed apk-file of the application. The easiest way to do this is through Eclipse with a plug-in from Google, right-click on the project and select the menu item Export Signed Application Package in the menu item Android Tools. This will launch a wizard that guides you through the process of creating a certificate and signing the application.
- Screenshots of the application. You need at least 2 screenshots of your application, the size is up to 480 * 854. It is better to publish at least 4-6 screenshots of course.
- Application icon in high resolution. Used in the market, you need a png-icon size 512 * 512
- Icon for advertising. 180 * 120, used in some sections of the Market, optional.
- Advertising banner or icon for the “Featured” section. Has a size of 1024 * 500, is also optional, but it is better to take care of it - you do not interfere with extra advertising?
- Promotional video. Also must have, is placed on youtube, and the link is only inserted into the Market. I, alas, do not have it, but I am working on this shortcoming.
- Title, description, recent changes, promotional text. These are all text fields in which, and by name, it is clear what to write. Think over good, bright texts in advance.
Otherwise, publishing in the Market is trivial - we fill in the fields, load the application file and materials, and click “Publish”. There is one feature - when the file is only loaded but not activated, the counter that shows the number of devices supporting your application will be 0. In order to make it work, you need to click “Activate” on the tab with the application file. I was covered with cold sweat when I downloaded the application for the first time and found that, from Google’s point of view, no device supports my game.
Market also has other bugs, for example, do not pay attention, if the counter of active installations is updated asynchronously with the download counter - this happens. In general, the Market is quite convenient for work and provides the necessary minimum of information and statistics for analysis.
A couple more words about withdrawal. For Russia, while money can only be withdrawn through the Checkout + Adsense bundle, therefore, if you plan to sell applications, it is better to pay attention to the Adsense work account in advance. Make a blog or a small site, put up an advertisement and save $ 10. Upon reaching this amount in the account, Google will send you a regular mail (several weeks) verification code, which activates the payment on your account. It is better to do all this at the development stage of the application, because it will be very sad to sit and wait for the code when the long-awaited rivers of money flow into the account. The rest of the withdrawal of money by the rules of Adsense - $ 100 minimum, withdrawal once a month and it is better to use Rapida - faster and easier.
Promotion. I cannot give detailed advice on promotion, because I myself am still at the beginning of this journey, but promotion of an Android application, in general, is no different from promoting any other electronic product on the Internet. Write posts in thematic forums, send reviews on relevant sites, check in the game catalogs. Attract users, interest them and try to cover the maximum of the target audience. There is only one thing - do not discard promotion, the stage from development to publication is at best half the battle, the application must be spun up, and it is better to put funds into it in the budget and time in the work plan.
Results
For 5 months of developing the game, I achieved the following:
1) Got a lot of new experiences and impressions - it's just great!
2) Developed the game Garden Troopers
Garden troopers
Garden troopers lite
At the moment, the game has about 2000 downloads of the lite-version and 2 sales of the full version.
Advertising statistics from the lite version: ~ 7000 requests, ~ 6000 impressions, CTR 0.22%, revenue - $ 0.5.
The total income from the application is purely symbolic, but I do not give up)
3) I have a lot of thoughts about the improvement and development of this game and a lot of ideas from other games.
Now and in the near future, I plan to improve the game, expand the game's capabilities (maybe even introduce new game modes), try to take normal positions in the Android Market and try to enter the iOS market.
This is probably all. Thank you very much to everyone who overcame my work to the end and I would be very grateful for any feedback about the game in the comments or drugs (I especially need advice on how to improve the monetization of Garden Troopers, because the conversion level is not good).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/126629/
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