Difficulties of creating and publishing the first Android application
What difficulties will the young developer meet on this way?
An article for beginners, only your experience, your opinion, our knowledge and guesswork.
In the continuation of the 7 detailed points that are worth paying the most attention.
I decided to paint this point in more detail and put it in a separate post on Habré, since the question is quite serious and, fortunately, the experience was also good.
In our case, we work as a team of like-minded people, 4 people, open to new people.
In the best tradition of indie, no one has received any money. Each is a percentage of the project’s income, if it is, according to the effort invested. But the main thing - the desire and the general idea, everyone likes what they do. And this is the most important factor.
')
Partly, a rhetorical question. 2 main factors that led us:
a) It should be interesting to you personally.
b) It must be sold.
Genre
I think everyone read, and they themselves thought that it was “coming in” and was popular. There are a number of articles, including on Habré, the code is trying to analyze the tops, to isolate common features. In principle, we did the same, maybe not in the context of large analytical reports, but the general features of the top are visible to the naked eye:
Runners, arcades, puzzles, action games, card games, strategies.
They are arranged in descending order according to subjective personal opinion. But in the aspect “for young developers,” we can immediately discard strategies and action games, because this is quite labor-intensive.
Monetization
It depends on the genre, it's silly to say that only this or that works. Consider the main points - there are games designed to be dragged out by the gameplay, and are monetized by internal purchases, there are those in which additional features are bought, and the main ones are being squeezed in parallel, there are just paid ones, and there is a paid feature for additional content.
Again, in our aspect, we can recapture the moment with a delaying gameplay - if, in general, releases of games, like a map, can fall out well, or maybe badly, then experienced developers are also backed up with such moments as banal experience, knowing what mechanics exactly they have worked in the past, financial opportunities for revision, opportunities to “pull out” the project with external resources and traffic, which would be dragged to the tops or somehow unwound, a team of marketers, analysts who will complete the internal monetization to the desired level of profitability. You are a young team, you have no experience, money and other things, do not expect someone to support you, initially tune in to the worst option, and minimize the risks.
We chose this path:
Arcade - puzzle, monetization by buying additional content + block of advertising in the stage, we remove when buying content.
Such a monetization has a huge minus - bought and forgotten, no one will make repeat purchases. But it is clear - you played, you liked it, you bought more. I did not like it - I did not buy it.
Ideas - all ideas are written to a common file, before developing jointly deciding what we take now. Ideas - 20, made 1. Do not rush to do the first one, as my wife says: “I need to sleep with this bag, if I really want it.”
Organization of work, as well as a huge question, maybe later I will sign it in a separate article, but I think that there is enough information on this topic in Habré. Do not complicate life - work as it is convenient for you, and how effective the team is.
We do everything in our spare time, we divide the project into stages, use the mantis as a bugtracker, and git - for version control.
At a certain stage, especially at the end, it turned out that the general dialogue in Skype is much more productive when you need to fix a bug and you know who will take it. In this case, there is no need to create a bunch of puffs, hang them on someone, then take and send to the revolutions in case something happens, and the changes are simply committees in the gita (yes, supporters of the “order” will scold me here, but this is how it turned out more effectively) . In any case, changes are made to the Mantis and are recorded periodically for the roadmap and monitoring, who did what. Let me remind you that this happened at the last stage, not earlier! At the beginning it is very important to have clear objectives, deadlines and stages.
Everyone sees everything, tasks in the mantis, especially at the beginning, are taken at will, just dumping the task list for a given time period.
Discussion of ideas and controversial moments - in person, with a glass of beer,
sometimes in skype, group call.
We live in a small town in Ukraine, but in this way we are fully capable of working effectively and connecting new people. Even with joy, if there are like-minded people.
Your all. No matter how silly it may sound for newbies, but this is so, this point overlaps with the following. Namely: no one will ever tell you that he is not interested in where he has difficulties and that he does not like him.
No, some will say of course, but in what form, how exactly it will be and what hell of anguish you will go through, until you figure out the amateur bugreport, all experienced developers know.
And for beginners, a simple example is how to find out if the start button is normal or not. How to find out which stage the user has difficulty? How do I know if some feature is used or not?
Specifically, we have problems with the analytics because of the architecture, we did not correctly take it into account at the start. For the rest - experience, consider. We use Google Analytics. A separate question on services, comparison, then let everyone decide for themselves.
All users put it mildly, noobs. Take it as a fact, not as an insult, and then it will be easier for you to work. Equalize to the worst, so you make more coverage, the smartest, and so I understand the obvious, but less experienced users - no.
In addition, we understood from our experience:
User pofigu much, the main thing that was clear and convenient.
The user does not need chips that "seem to you to be cool." Let them decide whether it’s cool or not.
The user will not tell honestly how best. See previous item.
The user is not particularly you will leave feedback and feedback, do not really hope for feedback.
We decided to publish ourselves. Not because it is better, more profitable or something else, we simply do not know anyone, nobody knows our product, we have no idea about what conditions can be bargained, and whether it is possible at all and so on. Questions for beginners more than answers.
But if you think that you will do everything yourself, I will say right away - it will be difficult.
I recommend to look aside:
Payoneer - the service of receiving payments for USA will help, the data during registration was indicated as a US citizen, on advice from Habr and w3bsit3-dns.com, now I try to remove the mark of unconfirmed tax data by sending the SS4 form.
This is for countries that are not able to sell applications, in particular for residents of Ukraine. For the Russian Federation, as far as I know, everything is already normal.
Since the tops of Google Play are different in different regions, we decided at the first stage to concentrate only on the ru segment. According to the data collected piece by piece, you need to reach 200-300 application installs in 2-3 days (the data scatter) to get to the top either new or gaining popularity (this is also not completely clear which top). Therefore, we make announcements on all known resources, were searched for requests "gamedev", "android". Vkontakte community, it turned out to be added to several games (although the effect is weak). Of course Habr, w3bsit3-dns.com and all personal acquaintances.
Very well on the publishing of games written by Sergei Galenkin, in his free book.
An important point - Google takes into account only new downloads, and only from Google Play. Take this into account, who did not know, and also do not rush to distribute your apk on the network and install to friends before the release.
What we miscalculated: with the paragraph above, because they did not know. With the articles, before the publication of the application, 3 articles were written, but I did not want to just spam everyone. Under each resource you need to adapt, rewrite, add something of your own. It is necessary to communicate with each friend and minimally explain what and how, and some still try to "talk for life." Each resource requires its own attention and answers, everywhere there are rules. In particular, for Habr I wanted to make the most useful article, and not stupidly “take a look at the game,” in fact, most of the information was received right here, for which all participants are thankful.
Consequences: we do not reach the specified number of downloads, although according to analytics, the game has already been downloaded by 500 participants from 18 countries, but on Google Play it is only 75. Perhaps the interest of the community will save us.
Additions to the article are also welcome, I am sure, a look at some points from the more experienced comrades will be different from ours.
Crazy Buildings is a toy puzzle, with the task - to build a building as high as possible, using figures and physics, without letting the elements fall.
java, libgdx engine, android. Simple mechanics, nothing mega original. The design was redrawn 2 or 3 times, and if I had not stopped our brothers, I would redraw a couple more times. Cool mordahi - the idea of ​​designers, to turn in a bubble - mine, I really wanted to burst something.
Because of the features of the engine, the figures can not only be put on each other, but also pushed out, this adds interesting features in the gameplay, especially when there is little space.
The main difficulty is in achieving a record line, in some stages it will be necessary to think and fairly turn it around.
We plan to add animation, stages, possibly new figures, solve a number of problems that could not be solved before publishing.
More useful links:
“Games Marketing” - a book by Sergey Galenkin:
galyonkin.com/book
Audio podcasts from the interview, in pieces will learn a lot of new and useful:
flazm.ru
Gamedev blogs:
gamedevblogs.ru
Game genres, monetization and loyalty:
app2top.ru/main/%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0-%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%8F%D0% BB% D1% 8C% D0% BD% D0% BE% D1% 81% D1% 82% D0% B8-% D0% BF% D0% BE-% D0% B2% D0% B5% D1% 80% D1% 81% D0% B8% D0% B8-flurry-16565.html
Videos from various conferences, for example: www.youtube.com/channel/UCgoMppmHUHU_3vxMD7oDG7g
An article for beginners, only your experience, your opinion, our knowledge and guesswork.
In the continuation of the 7 detailed points that are worth paying the most attention.
1. Who to work with, who will develop?
I decided to paint this point in more detail and put it in a separate post on Habré, since the question is quite serious and, fortunately, the experience was also good.
In our case, we work as a team of like-minded people, 4 people, open to new people.
In the best tradition of indie, no one has received any money. Each is a percentage of the project’s income, if it is, according to the effort invested. But the main thing - the desire and the general idea, everyone likes what they do. And this is the most important factor.
')
2. What to do?
Partly, a rhetorical question. 2 main factors that led us:
a) It should be interesting to you personally.
b) It must be sold.
Genre
I think everyone read, and they themselves thought that it was “coming in” and was popular. There are a number of articles, including on Habré, the code is trying to analyze the tops, to isolate common features. In principle, we did the same, maybe not in the context of large analytical reports, but the general features of the top are visible to the naked eye:
Runners, arcades, puzzles, action games, card games, strategies.
They are arranged in descending order according to subjective personal opinion. But in the aspect “for young developers,” we can immediately discard strategies and action games, because this is quite labor-intensive.
Monetization
It depends on the genre, it's silly to say that only this or that works. Consider the main points - there are games designed to be dragged out by the gameplay, and are monetized by internal purchases, there are those in which additional features are bought, and the main ones are being squeezed in parallel, there are just paid ones, and there is a paid feature for additional content.
Again, in our aspect, we can recapture the moment with a delaying gameplay - if, in general, releases of games, like a map, can fall out well, or maybe badly, then experienced developers are also backed up with such moments as banal experience, knowing what mechanics exactly they have worked in the past, financial opportunities for revision, opportunities to “pull out” the project with external resources and traffic, which would be dragged to the tops or somehow unwound, a team of marketers, analysts who will complete the internal monetization to the desired level of profitability. You are a young team, you have no experience, money and other things, do not expect someone to support you, initially tune in to the worst option, and minimize the risks.
We chose this path:
Arcade - puzzle, monetization by buying additional content + block of advertising in the stage, we remove when buying content.
Such a monetization has a huge minus - bought and forgotten, no one will make repeat purchases. But it is clear - you played, you liked it, you bought more. I did not like it - I did not buy it.
Ideas - all ideas are written to a common file, before developing jointly deciding what we take now. Ideas - 20, made 1. Do not rush to do the first one, as my wife says: “I need to sleep with this bag, if I really want it.”
3. How to do?
Organization of work, as well as a huge question, maybe later I will sign it in a separate article, but I think that there is enough information on this topic in Habré. Do not complicate life - work as it is convenient for you, and how effective the team is.
We do everything in our spare time, we divide the project into stages, use the mantis as a bugtracker, and git - for version control.
At a certain stage, especially at the end, it turned out that the general dialogue in Skype is much more productive when you need to fix a bug and you know who will take it. In this case, there is no need to create a bunch of puffs, hang them on someone, then take and send to the revolutions in case something happens, and the changes are simply committees in the gita (yes, supporters of the “order” will scold me here, but this is how it turned out more effectively) . In any case, changes are made to the Mantis and are recorded periodically for the roadmap and monitoring, who did what. Let me remind you that this happened at the last stage, not earlier! At the beginning it is very important to have clear objectives, deadlines and stages.
Everyone sees everything, tasks in the mantis, especially at the beginning, are taken at will, just dumping the task list for a given time period.
Discussion of ideas and controversial moments - in person, with a glass of beer,
sometimes in skype, group call.
We live in a small town in Ukraine, but in this way we are fully capable of working effectively and connecting new people. Even with joy, if there are like-minded people.
4. Analytics and bug reports
Your all. No matter how silly it may sound for newbies, but this is so, this point overlaps with the following. Namely: no one will ever tell you that he is not interested in where he has difficulties and that he does not like him.
No, some will say of course, but in what form, how exactly it will be and what hell of anguish you will go through, until you figure out the amateur bugreport, all experienced developers know.
And for beginners, a simple example is how to find out if the start button is normal or not. How to find out which stage the user has difficulty? How do I know if some feature is used or not?
Specifically, we have problems with the analytics because of the architecture, we did not correctly take it into account at the start. For the rest - experience, consider. We use Google Analytics. A separate question on services, comparison, then let everyone decide for themselves.
5. Users
All users put it mildly, noobs. Take it as a fact, not as an insult, and then it will be easier for you to work. Equalize to the worst, so you make more coverage, the smartest, and so I understand the obvious, but less experienced users - no.
In addition, we understood from our experience:
User pofigu much, the main thing that was clear and convenient.
The user does not need chips that "seem to you to be cool." Let them decide whether it’s cool or not.
The user will not tell honestly how best. See previous item.
The user is not particularly you will leave feedback and feedback, do not really hope for feedback.
6. How to publish?
We decided to publish ourselves. Not because it is better, more profitable or something else, we simply do not know anyone, nobody knows our product, we have no idea about what conditions can be bargained, and whether it is possible at all and so on. Questions for beginners more than answers.
But if you think that you will do everything yourself, I will say right away - it will be difficult.
I recommend to look aside:
Payoneer - the service of receiving payments for USA will help, the data during registration was indicated as a US citizen, on advice from Habr and w3bsit3-dns.com, now I try to remove the mark of unconfirmed tax data by sending the SS4 form.
This is for countries that are not able to sell applications, in particular for residents of Ukraine. For the Russian Federation, as far as I know, everything is already normal.
7. Promotion
Since the tops of Google Play are different in different regions, we decided at the first stage to concentrate only on the ru segment. According to the data collected piece by piece, you need to reach 200-300 application installs in 2-3 days (the data scatter) to get to the top either new or gaining popularity (this is also not completely clear which top). Therefore, we make announcements on all known resources, were searched for requests "gamedev", "android". Vkontakte community, it turned out to be added to several games (although the effect is weak). Of course Habr, w3bsit3-dns.com and all personal acquaintances.
Very well on the publishing of games written by Sergei Galenkin, in his free book.
An important point - Google takes into account only new downloads, and only from Google Play. Take this into account, who did not know, and also do not rush to distribute your apk on the network and install to friends before the release.
What we miscalculated: with the paragraph above, because they did not know. With the articles, before the publication of the application, 3 articles were written, but I did not want to just spam everyone. Under each resource you need to adapt, rewrite, add something of your own. It is necessary to communicate with each friend and minimally explain what and how, and some still try to "talk for life." Each resource requires its own attention and answers, everywhere there are rules. In particular, for Habr I wanted to make the most useful article, and not stupidly “take a look at the game,” in fact, most of the information was received right here, for which all participants are thankful.
Consequences: we do not reach the specified number of downloads, although according to analytics, the game has already been downloaded by 500 participants from 18 countries, but on Google Play it is only 75. Perhaps the interest of the community will save us.
Additions to the article are also welcome, I am sure, a look at some points from the more experienced comrades will be different from ours.
A little about the application, all the same, it was thanks to him that all this experience appeared:
Crazy Buildings is a toy puzzle, with the task - to build a building as high as possible, using figures and physics, without letting the elements fall.
java, libgdx engine, android. Simple mechanics, nothing mega original. The design was redrawn 2 or 3 times, and if I had not stopped our brothers, I would redraw a couple more times. Cool mordahi - the idea of ​​designers, to turn in a bubble - mine, I really wanted to burst something.
Because of the features of the engine, the figures can not only be put on each other, but also pushed out, this adds interesting features in the gameplay, especially when there is little space.
The main difficulty is in achieving a record line, in some stages it will be necessary to think and fairly turn it around.
We plan to add animation, stages, possibly new figures, solve a number of problems that could not be solved before publishing.
More useful links:
“Games Marketing” - a book by Sergey Galenkin:
galyonkin.com/book
Audio podcasts from the interview, in pieces will learn a lot of new and useful:
flazm.ru
Gamedev blogs:
gamedevblogs.ru
Game genres, monetization and loyalty:
app2top.ru/main/%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0-%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%8F%D0% BB% D1% 8C% D0% BD% D0% BE% D1% 81% D1% 82% D0% B8-% D0% BF% D0% BE-% D0% B2% D0% B5% D1% 80% D1% 81% D0% B8% D0% B8-flurry-16565.html
Videos from various conferences, for example: www.youtube.com/channel/UCgoMppmHUHU_3vxMD7oDG7g
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/218037/
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