Interview with the Lord of the "Fuzzies": the creators talk about the game
The Fluffies game for the iPhone appeared almost 2 years ago. Made in Rostov-on-Don, it is a small development team called Argonyt. The cute fluffy animals, although they didn’t have time to conquer the whole world, achieved quite good results: they reached the second place in the Top Paid in Russia and Germany, entered the top ten in FREE in 8 countries, and also ranked first in the subcategories Family and KIDs almost 20 countries.
We talked to Mikhail Orlov, the head of Argonyt’s iPhone business.
Who came up with fluffies? Is this your own project?
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Fluffies we did independently. As soon as iPhones began to appear in Russia, we immediately thought about the game and characters for it. Brainstorming, as well as most of their ideas. The task was to make the toy as casual as possible. We decided to take some kind of image of a warm, cozy, big-eyed, causing affection and desire to participate in the fate of the character, to interact with him. Walked through the images that are now in popular culture, and turned out to be fluffy.
How was the application monetized?
The game was originally paid for $ 0.99. We have not tried freemium yet, but I will tell you a secret that we are working very closely on this now. We plan to soon introduce a store with at least a couple of items - let's see how they will be sold. If it is good, then we will fully switch to freemium. There is a feeling that it is more profitable.
"Fluffy" visited different tops - which is the most profitable?
Unfortunately, Russia feeds us. Unfortunately, because America can feed much tastier. We love Germany - probably due to the German localization. Interestingly, they loved us there, even when localization was lame. Although they wrote, they say, "guys, you correct your tongue, but it is very funny to read."
In most tops, the game took off when we made it free.
The number of downloads from the Russian and German tops - in Germany, much more?
I would not say. There is a difference, but not very big.
How much money was earned on it? (if it is not a terrible commercial secret)
The development has not paid off until the end yet. Expected much more.
What did you do to promote?
When the game was released, we realized that everyone does not immediately rush to swing us joyfully, millions do not fall on us, and began to fuss. We contacted the editor of a well-known Russian site about games for the iPhone. Then they forgot about it even, and then they saw that a review came out of us, - he gave a good exhaust.
The main tool is, of course, switching from paid to free and back. When the game became free, we could get up to 50 thousand downloads per day.
Buying ads was swept away immediately after I read the reviews. People write that if you don’t have a huge budget, then there’s better not to go there. If you have enough money to advertise in 2-3 blogs, there will be no sense from it anyway, only money will be wasted.
Remain review. It is also not easy here: they ignore it very strongly, often directly saying that a game review is for money only, or buy ads, then there will be a review.
We bought a service from one Russian-language service - a mailing list on blogs (about 700 pieces). But there was almost no overall profit. The editor of a German magazine noticed us, except that after that the expansion into Germany began.
Those. In fact, it turns out that the game sold itself?
Basically, yes. Well, updates are released, of course - not as often as we would like.
Much has changed now compared to the original version?
Soon will change almost completely. Now we are remaking the interface - we do as much as possible without text, with icons. Add a store. Well, graphically, the game has changed a lot over 2 years: fluffies have become 4 times more fluffy, special effects have improved, etc. =) In general, there are still plans for this game.
You have a player rating, and it is located on the site. It worked? How many players actually go to the site after the game?
There are about 70 pages, about 20 players on each page. Those. a total of about 1,500. Not very thick, of course, given that the total number of people who downloaded the game is about 800,000 (for all countries). On the other hand, these are the people who exactly went through the game.
You also develop flash games, casual downloads, and online — what are the specifics of developing for iOS?
A slightly different audience, slightly different requirements. For example, a gaming session is much shorter. Many play on the iPhone to kill time - in the subway, for example. Or in order to relax - a man at work came out to smoke, he wants to be distracted - he launches a toy. It will be 1-2 levels - and again "to the machine."
This must be considered. Therefore, we build the gameplay so that we can be distracted from the game, so that it does not interfere with the progress and pleasure obtained. But at the same time, you need to invent some tools of the player’s clues. Roughly speaking, we have 2 minutes to make the player so good that he wants to come back to us. And at the same time, something needs to be done ...
Plus, visual limitations, screen size, controls - well, everything like that.
How quickly did the "Fuzzies"?
For half a year.
Your future plans - are you planning to develop a mobile direction?
Definitely. Flash somehow does not cause such pleasure. Plus, Apple is very pleased to work, I like the market.
Are you going to make a port on Android?
Android is very worried about the strange market, which is very inconvenient, pleasant enough and somehow it is not very hard to believe that you can sell games through it. Plus a slightly different audience.
What's the difference?
They say iPhone designers, Anroid programmers. =)
And they say that iPhone users are smarter than Android users =)
Well, my colleague Android, and I always say to everyone that he is smarter than me. =)
What about Windows Phone 7?
I don't take him seriously. I think that the world will be seized by Apple and Google and will be divided in half. I trust my intuition - it's better to focus on iOS than to disperse the effort.
What advise other developers for mobile platforms?
I can advise a lot of things! I can, of course, advise you to sit and come up with an original idea, but this is very difficult to do. I'd better say that, firstly, you need to do everything as quickly as possible. And secondly, do not be afraid to clone. Only if we took the clone, then the new product should be better than the original!
Source: portal App2Top.ru - all about the promotion of applications on mobile platforms .
We talked to Mikhail Orlov, the head of Argonyt’s iPhone business.
Who came up with fluffies? Is this your own project?
')
Fluffies we did independently. As soon as iPhones began to appear in Russia, we immediately thought about the game and characters for it. Brainstorming, as well as most of their ideas. The task was to make the toy as casual as possible. We decided to take some kind of image of a warm, cozy, big-eyed, causing affection and desire to participate in the fate of the character, to interact with him. Walked through the images that are now in popular culture, and turned out to be fluffy.
How was the application monetized?
The game was originally paid for $ 0.99. We have not tried freemium yet, but I will tell you a secret that we are working very closely on this now. We plan to soon introduce a store with at least a couple of items - let's see how they will be sold. If it is good, then we will fully switch to freemium. There is a feeling that it is more profitable.
"Fluffy" visited different tops - which is the most profitable?
Unfortunately, Russia feeds us. Unfortunately, because America can feed much tastier. We love Germany - probably due to the German localization. Interestingly, they loved us there, even when localization was lame. Although they wrote, they say, "guys, you correct your tongue, but it is very funny to read."
In most tops, the game took off when we made it free.
The number of downloads from the Russian and German tops - in Germany, much more?
I would not say. There is a difference, but not very big.
How much money was earned on it? (if it is not a terrible commercial secret)
The development has not paid off until the end yet. Expected much more.
What did you do to promote?
When the game was released, we realized that everyone does not immediately rush to swing us joyfully, millions do not fall on us, and began to fuss. We contacted the editor of a well-known Russian site about games for the iPhone. Then they forgot about it even, and then they saw that a review came out of us, - he gave a good exhaust.
The main tool is, of course, switching from paid to free and back. When the game became free, we could get up to 50 thousand downloads per day.
Buying ads was swept away immediately after I read the reviews. People write that if you don’t have a huge budget, then there’s better not to go there. If you have enough money to advertise in 2-3 blogs, there will be no sense from it anyway, only money will be wasted.
Remain review. It is also not easy here: they ignore it very strongly, often directly saying that a game review is for money only, or buy ads, then there will be a review.
We bought a service from one Russian-language service - a mailing list on blogs (about 700 pieces). But there was almost no overall profit. The editor of a German magazine noticed us, except that after that the expansion into Germany began.
Those. In fact, it turns out that the game sold itself?
Basically, yes. Well, updates are released, of course - not as often as we would like.
Much has changed now compared to the original version?
Soon will change almost completely. Now we are remaking the interface - we do as much as possible without text, with icons. Add a store. Well, graphically, the game has changed a lot over 2 years: fluffies have become 4 times more fluffy, special effects have improved, etc. =) In general, there are still plans for this game.
You have a player rating, and it is located on the site. It worked? How many players actually go to the site after the game?
There are about 70 pages, about 20 players on each page. Those. a total of about 1,500. Not very thick, of course, given that the total number of people who downloaded the game is about 800,000 (for all countries). On the other hand, these are the people who exactly went through the game.
You also develop flash games, casual downloads, and online — what are the specifics of developing for iOS?
A slightly different audience, slightly different requirements. For example, a gaming session is much shorter. Many play on the iPhone to kill time - in the subway, for example. Or in order to relax - a man at work came out to smoke, he wants to be distracted - he launches a toy. It will be 1-2 levels - and again "to the machine."
This must be considered. Therefore, we build the gameplay so that we can be distracted from the game, so that it does not interfere with the progress and pleasure obtained. But at the same time, you need to invent some tools of the player’s clues. Roughly speaking, we have 2 minutes to make the player so good that he wants to come back to us. And at the same time, something needs to be done ...
Plus, visual limitations, screen size, controls - well, everything like that.
How quickly did the "Fuzzies"?
For half a year.
Your future plans - are you planning to develop a mobile direction?
Definitely. Flash somehow does not cause such pleasure. Plus, Apple is very pleased to work, I like the market.
Are you going to make a port on Android?
Android is very worried about the strange market, which is very inconvenient, pleasant enough and somehow it is not very hard to believe that you can sell games through it. Plus a slightly different audience.
What's the difference?
They say iPhone designers, Anroid programmers. =)
And they say that iPhone users are smarter than Android users =)
Well, my colleague Android, and I always say to everyone that he is smarter than me. =)
What about Windows Phone 7?
I don't take him seriously. I think that the world will be seized by Apple and Google and will be divided in half. I trust my intuition - it's better to focus on iOS than to disperse the effort.
What advise other developers for mobile platforms?
I can advise a lot of things! I can, of course, advise you to sit and come up with an original idea, but this is very difficult to do. I'd better say that, firstly, you need to do everything as quickly as possible. And secondly, do not be afraid to clone. Only if we took the clone, then the new product should be better than the original!
Source: portal App2Top.ru - all about the promotion of applications on mobile platforms .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/134593/
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