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Four tips from an indie game developer: how to achieve three million downloads



Imran Shafiq works as a medical software developer during the day, and in the evenings he develops games for Windows Phone as an indie developer.

“ Game development is my creative outlet. Game development takes a huge amount of my free time, but I dream of ever having a career on it. ”Says Imran @DanglingNeuron Shafiq.
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His brand, Dangling Neuron, has great success stories, including Air Soccer Fever , which has broken the mark of three million downloads and the new Tank Arena , which has already reached 250 thousand downloads in just a few months.

We asked Imran to tell something about what indie developers are most concerned about. Fortunately, Imran told us some great tips on marketing, monetization, user involvement and even on using Unity. Below you will find his tips.

Marketing starts with the first line of code.


Like many things, good indie marketing is a mixture of art and science. Imran points out that a significant part of the success of the marketing of his games was openness and transparency during the design phase and community building for, during and after the release of the game. In his blog, he talks about the development progress of his games, collects feedback from like-minded people, who then implements new versions and uploads videos about those new items that he added to his games and which are available in new versions in the app store.



“ I learned a bunch of things from feedback from my fellow developers on my blog and through monitoring other developer blogs. "

Creating a community does not end with the distribution of content through its own channels.

“ I have a list of sites that prepare reviews of games with which I met. Before the release of the new version of the game, I collect video materials on it and send them. "

Unity is your friend


Imran likes to talk about how he loves Unity. Unity not only simplifies porting games to different platforms, but also contains a large number of templates, add-ons, guides, and other resources that help create experiences that its community will love. His favorite advice to developers: use the resource store (Asset Store)!



In-app purchases are not only about revenue


When in Windows Phone 8 an easy way to implement in-app purchases was presented, Imran saw in her a strategic opportunity to engage users who love his games. In his new game, Tank Arena, Imran introduced the currency that users can exchange for their tanks, armor and equip their tanks with more powerful weapons. But it also became a means of stimulating certain behavior among the most loyal fans of the game:

“ The problem is that most people who evaluate your game do it at the moment when they encounter bad behavior. The ability to offer people a currency for evaluating a game or for sharing information about it on social networks Facebook or Twitter has become a great download engine for Tank Arena. "

Use all the tools and resources you can get.


When we asked Imran about which tools, templates and resources he used, we got a long list. Below you will find the three most basic positions:


To learn more about Imran's projects, visit his blog, Dangling Neuron, or twitter @DanglingNeuron .

This post is part of Microsoft’s AppBuilder "Every Dev has a Story" series of posts [currently only available in the US - approx. transl.], in which we tell stories about innovators, creators and developers who are doing something unique. Contact @MSDev for more stories and resources for developers.

Additional links


Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/228907/

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