Development of the Kinetic Novels: costs, income, statistics, tips, post factum conclusions
Greetings colleagues,
Finally, they got around to translating my article, which was published several months ago on Gamasutra (was edited by the editors). I suppose this brief, but informative material, based on personal experience, will be of interest to fellow indie developers and those who ponder "if I should not sip my little toy with blackjack and whores."
')
The article used data on the development, promotion and sales of their own kinetic (visual) novel Fall of Gyes on Steam and the AppStore, as well as comparing their own experience with the numbers, methods, results and conclusions of other colleagues of indie developers with whom I communicate, and working in medium-sized studios (Russian, German and a pack of American), stamping casual games for over 3 years.
Let's start with the real financial and time costs of development, as well as financial results and conclusions:
EXPENSES*:
- $ 15,800 (8 months) - drawing
- $ 3,000 (2 months) - video
- $ 2,000 (2 months) - writing script / dialogs / editing
- $ 2,000 (4 months) - programming
- $ 1 500 (2 months) - modeling
- $ 1 500 (instantly) - engine
- $ 1,000 (1 month) - audio
- $ 100 (instantly) - installment of either the Steam Greenlight, or the AppStore.
============================
DEVELOPMENT COSTS (TOTAL): $ 26,900 (12 months **).
============================
* the cost of my personal time invested in the project is not taken into account; exactly, as well as the cost of promotion is not taken into account (which in studios often exceeds the cost of the development itself, but for indie developers, as a rule, there are not enough funds).
** “theoretically”, it is possible to organize the execution of part of the work in parallel mode, but for many reasons, indie developers de facto (especially a beginner, especially working with freelancers) will hardly be able to organize it (at least when working on their first indie) -game).
SALES:
APPSTORE:
AppStore Downloads *:
- Total - 809 **
- Russia - 284
- United States - 215
- United Kingdom - 38
* model of the monetization of the kinetic novel “freemeum”, when a player can scroll part of the novella freely, and if he liked it, he can gain access to the rest. In our case, with the Fall of Gyes, the size for which the rest is acquired (if you like the introductory one) also remains free - the player “donates” to the developer as much as he wants. Therefore, the game in AppStpre is conditionally free (the GET + button is lit on the installation).
** 809 total races according to AppAnnie statistics; but according to iTunesConnect 924.
AppStore Sales:
11 sales of $ 1.99, for a total "net" amount of $ 14. And this is taking into account ASO, when the application was in the top 10 US “sci-fi” and “visual novel” (iPhone and iPad).
Appstore Reviews:
Mostly 5 stars, but only in Russia they made units (judging by the reviews and experience of colleagues, due to the fact that the game is not translated into Russian). No paid reviews or installations purchased - all downloads and reviews are free. Here it is curious to note that out of a hundred Russian media only 2 did not demand money for publishing “any whim for your money”: (I wanted to give references here, but I thought that they might consider it a violation, so only in the comments, if necessary). Almost no one of the local American Americans makes paid reviews for indie and free games - everything is free if the game is pleasant. And since the comic book industry in the United States and Japan is very developed, many have taken up writing.
And fast forward to STEAM (My Favorite Platform!) *:
Steam Sales: http://steamspy.com/app/440100
* a fixed price was chosen for Steam ($ 9.99), similar to the price of this graphic novel on Amazon Comixology.
Steam Downloads:
- Russian Federation - 21.2%
- United States - 18.1%
- Canada - 12.1%
- United Kingdom - 9.0%
- China - 6.0%
Steam Reviews:
Positive (7 reviews).
FINDINGS:
It should be emphasized that initially the development and distribution of the kinetic novel had three objectives:
- test the production technology of interactive storytelling to prepare for the production of hand-drawn stories in the style of Telltale Games games.
- introduce as many new players as possible to the After Reset setting (solid science fiction, post-apocalyptic), which we are developing.
- compare in practice the target audience AppStore and Steam.
1. The overwhelming majority of the Russian audience in the AppStore, rather, belongs to the “ Torshinsky audience ” (in particular, does not know English, does not want to teach it, and will score one even for applications received for free). At the same time, the Russian Steam audience, on the contrary, is closer to the aristocratic CORE / Habrahabrovska and is quite friendly to English-speaking projects.
2. I decided not to block Russia in the list of countries where the game is distributed in the AppStore at the request of the coder / publisher. Of course, I picked up units from a part of the audience unfamiliar with the English language, but at the same time, it would not be fair to deny a few Russian fans of access to content because of the audience. Please note that this solution comes from the second goal set for the product. If your goal is monetarization and cache maximization, and you do not have localization for Russian, then it will be more profitable for you to block the availability of the application in Russia before localization (if it will be at all): otherwise, pick up most of the Russian AppStore users who do not speak English. even Tinder packs in batches for the same reason) and this will affect the global ranking.
3. Steam remains the most indie developer-friendly platform. The most extensive adequate gaming audience (125 million active users), MVP demand testing through the passage of Greenlight, the most convenient and extensive at the moment the system of marketing support. About the functions of Git'a do not speak. In general, if you saw your first game - my advice, do it just for Steam.
4. The share of sales in Steam on Mac and Linux is quite high, so if you use the universal engine, then when designing, immediately consider compatibility with these two OS, and not just for Win. This applies, for example, the number of bones in NPCs / Characters, or the writing of shaders.
5. Average sales of your first game, which passed Greenlight, on Steam will be $ 500-1000. These results are the same for dozens of colleagues, for whom the release on Steam was the first experience, and which spent on game development from half a year to one and a half years. However, the ROI of each of your subsequent games will grow. At least due to the growth of fans who liked your previous games.
ADDITIONAL INSITE FOR DEVELOPERS OF MOBILE GAMES:
(for beginners or those who are just going to try themselves as a mobile developer)
Guys, I know how many of those who read these lines suggest that it is enough to make a cool, clever and interesting toy of high quality - and financially successful launch on the AppStore is guaranteed. Unfortunately, at this time on this platform, this requires much more than just creating such a game. Everybody knows 5-10 successful mobile games, but everyone seems to ignore millions of not successful ones (I understand that it is not interesting to write or listen about them, but one should not forget about their existence). For 2016, there are about 2.2 million applications in the AppStore, and their number is growing at 1,700 every month. Currently, the AppStore is not the main target platform for indie developers; At the moment, this mobile gaming market is most relevant for medium / large developers.
How much is actually the development of mobile indie games for the AppStore:
0. We presume that you already have a Mac to develop on it.
NB Despite the theoretical possibility to circumvent this condition, you need a Mac anyway to develop applications for the AppStore. The cheapest MacBook costs $ 1,200.
1. You buy a mobile application development engine or use a free one until then (and in case your application brings some threshold income).
NB For beginners (for whom this part is written) I recommend Unity 3d. No commissions, fair price (basic Pro $ 1,500 + iOSPro $ 1,500 + AndroidPro $ 1,500), native compatibility with a bunch of platforms, a huge community of developers and support, a huge asset market. You can start creating on it for free (however, while downloading the application, users will receive it from Unity), and later, if sales reach $ 100k +, you will already have to purchase the engine. And do not forget about the lack of the need to pay commissions on sales (except for the acquisition of the engine itself at $ 100k + sales)!
2. You create a small but cool mobile toy with your own resources within your own budget of $ 5,000. Is this enough for a tiny, unpretentious but worthy toy?
NB To date, the average market development costs (development only, no promotion) of a mobile game vary from genre to genre, but you can count on the average development budget of other players, which is equal to $ 75,000 (on average) for a start-up with a small game.
3. You pay an annual developer account on iTunes for $ 100.
NB Please note that this is not a one-time, but an annual fee and it is desirable to prolong it before the validity of your certificates expires. Periodically, some functions on iTunes Connect break down and fail, - do not be afraid to write to the support service. It is worth noting that the Apple support service, for me personally, is the second number, immediately after the Steam support service. They answer really quickly, keep you informed even if fixing bugs takes much longer than they initially thought, and often they answer within an hour if you communicate with them on the same day.
4. You carry out marketing training for a software lounge on your own, including ASO, keywords, descriptions, targeting, commercials, and the inclusion of statistics for HADI promotion cycles.
NB You can run without a commercial, but its presence, according to statistics, increases the number of races in the United States by an average of 27%. For statistics and analytics, I recommend connecting AppAnnie. Simple, informative and friendly. Do not panic if you cannot immediately connect AppAnnie to your iTunes Connect developer account (this happens quite often and is accompanied by various kinds of errors) - just report errors to AppAnie support service and they will fix it (on average, fixes take from 5 to 20 days)
5. Hooray! You have published your game. You notice several dozen installations (if the game is paid) or several hundred installations (if the game is free or freemeum). Apple even adds it to “featured”, which guarantees you a 35% boost in downloads / installations. But what next?
6. The next step is to test your game as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), i.e. "Viability test". You will need to prepare several press releases, promo packs, and distribute them among journalists, reviewers, YouTube.
NB You can write a press release yourself and send it via iSpreadNews ($ 250) and prMac ($ 150). With patience, you will also compile a list of 150 active AppStore reviewers who should write directly. The Healthy Person Reviewer will always publish a review of your game, if he likes it, and will do it for free. Do not waste your time on "Smoker Surveyors" who publish reviews for money. As a rule, their ROMIs tend to 0. For indie developers who pursue the goal of MVP testing, paid reviews are completely pointless.
7. All these marketing efforts in the previous paragraphs should give you on average about 100+ races / installations (if the game is paid) and about 1000+ races / installations (if the needle is free), or the number between these extreme indicators (if the game is freemium). After the MVP has been tested (usually it will take a month to complete all of this), it's time you start doing “street magic” - calculate the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and Monthly Conversion Rate (CR D30).
In general terms, you need to divide the income for this month by the number of buyers / donations in order to calculate ARPU. And you need to divide the number of buyers / donates by the number of races / installations for this month in order to calculate CRD30.
Eg for the test, you earned $ 10 through the sale of the game to 10 users; despite the fact that the total number of horse racing games was 100 horse racing. Thus, ARPU = 10/10 = $ 1.0 and CRD30 = 10/100 = 0.1. For fully paid games, it is logical that each download / installation is associated with a purchase, so for them, the CR D30 would be better for you to consider as a conversion not of an installation into a purchase, but as a conversion of a visit to the game page in the AppStore into its installation.
NB At the beginning of 2016, mid-market ARPU for free / freemium mobile games (for games with an average development budget of $ 75,000+) is $ 1.8 for the strategy genre, $ 1.4 for Action / Slasher, $ 0.9 for social gambling, $ 0.6 for Puzzles.
8. So, now, you know how much you can pay for purchasing one paying user - Cost Per Action (CPA), which will be equal to Cost Per Install (CPI) for fully paid games. And you can calculate the maximum allowable CPI, if your game is freemium. And having this information, it is time for you to make a decision about the viability of your game, as an MVP, and whether it was worth monetization or not. The obtained figures and their comparison with the market should convince you to either continue to develop, or to make coordinated changes, or to take an active purchase of traffic, or to abandon the AppStore and treat the created game, simply as an interesting life experience.
If you make a decision about active monetarization, you will “simply” buy CPA traffic at the price of Acquisition Cost Per User (ACPU), which is lower than your ARPU, and earn on difference and scale. The trick is that in 99% of cases your ACPU will be higher than your ARPU :)
And in order to reduce the ACPU, you will need to play on a scale (even with experience in traffic arbitration), which will require a marketing budget of $ 20,000 to acquire users.
NB The most famous and reliable place to purchase relevant traffic for the American AppStore is AdMob. And, of course, the purchase of high-quality, highly targeted traffic is an art in itself, full of nuances and requiring experience.
* * *
According to the experience of children from medium-sized studios, about which he wrote above: in such studios on average there are always about 10 projects being developed at the same time. For each development budget $ 75-125k. The term of development from design to softlauncha is 6-9 months. Agile-team consists of 5 people on average. In this case, "shoots" one project out of 10. What exactly - no one in the studios can predict and have already come to terms with it as a given. Everyone gathers, saws the game, conducts a soft launch, MVP test, a month (sometimes 2) pours in the budget for the purchase of CPI, and if there is no return, simply drop out and move on to the next project.
Such a fast-food dev ...
Hopefully, the experience accumulated and verified by me will help someone, and will save someone from illusions.
But the most important thing: if you are a real indie, then all these ROI, ARPU, ACPU etc. are for you. - may be up to the bulb. If you are doing a truly beloved business, and you experience childish happiness from it - all the rest is not important.
Do not let the world limit your dreams!
Finally, they got around to translating my article, which was published several months ago on Gamasutra (was edited by the editors). I suppose this brief, but informative material, based on personal experience, will be of interest to fellow indie developers and those who ponder "if I should not sip my little toy with blackjack and whores."
')
The article used data on the development, promotion and sales of their own kinetic (visual) novel Fall of Gyes on Steam and the AppStore, as well as comparing their own experience with the numbers, methods, results and conclusions of other colleagues of indie developers with whom I communicate, and working in medium-sized studios (Russian, German and a pack of American), stamping casual games for over 3 years.
Let's start with the real financial and time costs of development, as well as financial results and conclusions:
EXPENSES*:
- $ 15,800 (8 months) - drawing
- $ 3,000 (2 months) - video
- $ 2,000 (2 months) - writing script / dialogs / editing
- $ 2,000 (4 months) - programming
- $ 1 500 (2 months) - modeling
- $ 1 500 (instantly) - engine
- $ 1,000 (1 month) - audio
- $ 100 (instantly) - installment of either the Steam Greenlight, or the AppStore.
============================
DEVELOPMENT COSTS (TOTAL): $ 26,900 (12 months **).
============================
* the cost of my personal time invested in the project is not taken into account; exactly, as well as the cost of promotion is not taken into account (which in studios often exceeds the cost of the development itself, but for indie developers, as a rule, there are not enough funds).
** “theoretically”, it is possible to organize the execution of part of the work in parallel mode, but for many reasons, indie developers de facto (especially a beginner, especially working with freelancers) will hardly be able to organize it (at least when working on their first indie) -game).
SALES:
APPSTORE:
AppStore Downloads *:
- Total - 809 **
- Russia - 284
- United States - 215
- United Kingdom - 38
* model of the monetization of the kinetic novel “freemeum”, when a player can scroll part of the novella freely, and if he liked it, he can gain access to the rest. In our case, with the Fall of Gyes, the size for which the rest is acquired (if you like the introductory one) also remains free - the player “donates” to the developer as much as he wants. Therefore, the game in AppStpre is conditionally free (the GET + button is lit on the installation).
** 809 total races according to AppAnnie statistics; but according to iTunesConnect 924.
AppStore Sales:
11 sales of $ 1.99, for a total "net" amount of $ 14. And this is taking into account ASO, when the application was in the top 10 US “sci-fi” and “visual novel” (iPhone and iPad).
Appstore Reviews:
Mostly 5 stars, but only in Russia they made units (judging by the reviews and experience of colleagues, due to the fact that the game is not translated into Russian). No paid reviews or installations purchased - all downloads and reviews are free. Here it is curious to note that out of a hundred Russian media only 2 did not demand money for publishing “any whim for your money”: (I wanted to give references here, but I thought that they might consider it a violation, so only in the comments, if necessary). Almost no one of the local American Americans makes paid reviews for indie and free games - everything is free if the game is pleasant. And since the comic book industry in the United States and Japan is very developed, many have taken up writing.
And fast forward to STEAM (My Favorite Platform!) *:
Steam Sales: http://steamspy.com/app/440100
* a fixed price was chosen for Steam ($ 9.99), similar to the price of this graphic novel on Amazon Comixology.
Steam Downloads:
- Russian Federation - 21.2%
- United States - 18.1%
- Canada - 12.1%
- United Kingdom - 9.0%
- China - 6.0%
Steam Reviews:
Positive (7 reviews).
FINDINGS:
It should be emphasized that initially the development and distribution of the kinetic novel had three objectives:
- test the production technology of interactive storytelling to prepare for the production of hand-drawn stories in the style of Telltale Games games.
- introduce as many new players as possible to the After Reset setting (solid science fiction, post-apocalyptic), which we are developing.
- compare in practice the target audience AppStore and Steam.
1. The overwhelming majority of the Russian audience in the AppStore, rather, belongs to the “ Torshinsky audience ” (in particular, does not know English, does not want to teach it, and will score one even for applications received for free). At the same time, the Russian Steam audience, on the contrary, is closer to the aristocratic CORE / Habrahabrovska and is quite friendly to English-speaking projects.
2. I decided not to block Russia in the list of countries where the game is distributed in the AppStore at the request of the coder / publisher. Of course, I picked up units from a part of the audience unfamiliar with the English language, but at the same time, it would not be fair to deny a few Russian fans of access to content because of the audience. Please note that this solution comes from the second goal set for the product. If your goal is monetarization and cache maximization, and you do not have localization for Russian, then it will be more profitable for you to block the availability of the application in Russia before localization (if it will be at all): otherwise, pick up most of the Russian AppStore users who do not speak English. even Tinder packs in batches for the same reason) and this will affect the global ranking.
3. Steam remains the most indie developer-friendly platform. The most extensive adequate gaming audience (125 million active users), MVP demand testing through the passage of Greenlight, the most convenient and extensive at the moment the system of marketing support. About the functions of Git'a do not speak. In general, if you saw your first game - my advice, do it just for Steam.
4. The share of sales in Steam on Mac and Linux is quite high, so if you use the universal engine, then when designing, immediately consider compatibility with these two OS, and not just for Win. This applies, for example, the number of bones in NPCs / Characters, or the writing of shaders.
5. Average sales of your first game, which passed Greenlight, on Steam will be $ 500-1000. These results are the same for dozens of colleagues, for whom the release on Steam was the first experience, and which spent on game development from half a year to one and a half years. However, the ROI of each of your subsequent games will grow. At least due to the growth of fans who liked your previous games.
ADDITIONAL INSITE FOR DEVELOPERS OF MOBILE GAMES:
(for beginners or those who are just going to try themselves as a mobile developer)
Guys, I know how many of those who read these lines suggest that it is enough to make a cool, clever and interesting toy of high quality - and financially successful launch on the AppStore is guaranteed. Unfortunately, at this time on this platform, this requires much more than just creating such a game. Everybody knows 5-10 successful mobile games, but everyone seems to ignore millions of not successful ones (I understand that it is not interesting to write or listen about them, but one should not forget about their existence). For 2016, there are about 2.2 million applications in the AppStore, and their number is growing at 1,700 every month. Currently, the AppStore is not the main target platform for indie developers; At the moment, this mobile gaming market is most relevant for medium / large developers.
How much is actually the development of mobile indie games for the AppStore:
0. We presume that you already have a Mac to develop on it.
NB Despite the theoretical possibility to circumvent this condition, you need a Mac anyway to develop applications for the AppStore. The cheapest MacBook costs $ 1,200.
1. You buy a mobile application development engine or use a free one until then (and in case your application brings some threshold income).
NB For beginners (for whom this part is written) I recommend Unity 3d. No commissions, fair price (basic Pro $ 1,500 + iOSPro $ 1,500 + AndroidPro $ 1,500), native compatibility with a bunch of platforms, a huge community of developers and support, a huge asset market. You can start creating on it for free (however, while downloading the application, users will receive it from Unity), and later, if sales reach $ 100k +, you will already have to purchase the engine. And do not forget about the lack of the need to pay commissions on sales (except for the acquisition of the engine itself at $ 100k + sales)!
2. You create a small but cool mobile toy with your own resources within your own budget of $ 5,000. Is this enough for a tiny, unpretentious but worthy toy?
NB To date, the average market development costs (development only, no promotion) of a mobile game vary from genre to genre, but you can count on the average development budget of other players, which is equal to $ 75,000 (on average) for a start-up with a small game.
3. You pay an annual developer account on iTunes for $ 100.
NB Please note that this is not a one-time, but an annual fee and it is desirable to prolong it before the validity of your certificates expires. Periodically, some functions on iTunes Connect break down and fail, - do not be afraid to write to the support service. It is worth noting that the Apple support service, for me personally, is the second number, immediately after the Steam support service. They answer really quickly, keep you informed even if fixing bugs takes much longer than they initially thought, and often they answer within an hour if you communicate with them on the same day.
4. You carry out marketing training for a software lounge on your own, including ASO, keywords, descriptions, targeting, commercials, and the inclusion of statistics for HADI promotion cycles.
NB You can run without a commercial, but its presence, according to statistics, increases the number of races in the United States by an average of 27%. For statistics and analytics, I recommend connecting AppAnnie. Simple, informative and friendly. Do not panic if you cannot immediately connect AppAnnie to your iTunes Connect developer account (this happens quite often and is accompanied by various kinds of errors) - just report errors to AppAnie support service and they will fix it (on average, fixes take from 5 to 20 days)
5. Hooray! You have published your game. You notice several dozen installations (if the game is paid) or several hundred installations (if the game is free or freemeum). Apple even adds it to “featured”, which guarantees you a 35% boost in downloads / installations. But what next?
6. The next step is to test your game as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), i.e. "Viability test". You will need to prepare several press releases, promo packs, and distribute them among journalists, reviewers, YouTube.
NB You can write a press release yourself and send it via iSpreadNews ($ 250) and prMac ($ 150). With patience, you will also compile a list of 150 active AppStore reviewers who should write directly. The Healthy Person Reviewer will always publish a review of your game, if he likes it, and will do it for free. Do not waste your time on "Smoker Surveyors" who publish reviews for money. As a rule, their ROMIs tend to 0. For indie developers who pursue the goal of MVP testing, paid reviews are completely pointless.
7. All these marketing efforts in the previous paragraphs should give you on average about 100+ races / installations (if the game is paid) and about 1000+ races / installations (if the needle is free), or the number between these extreme indicators (if the game is freemium). After the MVP has been tested (usually it will take a month to complete all of this), it's time you start doing “street magic” - calculate the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and Monthly Conversion Rate (CR D30).
In general terms, you need to divide the income for this month by the number of buyers / donations in order to calculate ARPU. And you need to divide the number of buyers / donates by the number of races / installations for this month in order to calculate CRD30.
Eg for the test, you earned $ 10 through the sale of the game to 10 users; despite the fact that the total number of horse racing games was 100 horse racing. Thus, ARPU = 10/10 = $ 1.0 and CRD30 = 10/100 = 0.1. For fully paid games, it is logical that each download / installation is associated with a purchase, so for them, the CR D30 would be better for you to consider as a conversion not of an installation into a purchase, but as a conversion of a visit to the game page in the AppStore into its installation.
NB At the beginning of 2016, mid-market ARPU for free / freemium mobile games (for games with an average development budget of $ 75,000+) is $ 1.8 for the strategy genre, $ 1.4 for Action / Slasher, $ 0.9 for social gambling, $ 0.6 for Puzzles.
8. So, now, you know how much you can pay for purchasing one paying user - Cost Per Action (CPA), which will be equal to Cost Per Install (CPI) for fully paid games. And you can calculate the maximum allowable CPI, if your game is freemium. And having this information, it is time for you to make a decision about the viability of your game, as an MVP, and whether it was worth monetization or not. The obtained figures and their comparison with the market should convince you to either continue to develop, or to make coordinated changes, or to take an active purchase of traffic, or to abandon the AppStore and treat the created game, simply as an interesting life experience.
If you make a decision about active monetarization, you will “simply” buy CPA traffic at the price of Acquisition Cost Per User (ACPU), which is lower than your ARPU, and earn on difference and scale. The trick is that in 99% of cases your ACPU will be higher than your ARPU :)
And in order to reduce the ACPU, you will need to play on a scale (even with experience in traffic arbitration), which will require a marketing budget of $ 20,000 to acquire users.
NB The most famous and reliable place to purchase relevant traffic for the American AppStore is AdMob. And, of course, the purchase of high-quality, highly targeted traffic is an art in itself, full of nuances and requiring experience.
* * *
According to the experience of children from medium-sized studios, about which he wrote above: in such studios on average there are always about 10 projects being developed at the same time. For each development budget $ 75-125k. The term of development from design to softlauncha is 6-9 months. Agile-team consists of 5 people on average. In this case, "shoots" one project out of 10. What exactly - no one in the studios can predict and have already come to terms with it as a given. Everyone gathers, saws the game, conducts a soft launch, MVP test, a month (sometimes 2) pours in the budget for the purchase of CPI, and if there is no return, simply drop out and move on to the next project.
Such a fast-food dev ...
Hopefully, the experience accumulated and verified by me will help someone, and will save someone from illusions.
But the most important thing: if you are a real indie, then all these ROI, ARPU, ACPU etc. are for you. - may be up to the bulb. If you are doing a truly beloved business, and you experience childish happiness from it - all the rest is not important.
Do not let the world limit your dreams!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/301082/
All Articles